Candidating sermon by Rev. Alan Taylor
Preached at Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation
May 11, 2003
Several years ago, one of my mentors, Rob Eller-Isaacs, shared with me his thoughts about the role of a Unitarian Universalist minister. He said that the expectations of the liberal ministry seem to change with the ages. As recently as 30 years ago, our ministry was expected to be basically scholarly, well-read, to be overtly academic. Then social needs took the spotlight, and ministers were expected to be social workers. Then when social work seemed marginalized, ministers were expected to be community organizers. When community organizing seemed less than whole, ministers were supposed to be therapists. And when therapy became too individualistic, ministers were supposed to be facilitators. And now ministers are supposed to be organizational development consultants!
Rob said, "You'll do all those things, but there will always be people in your congregation who can do each of them better than you. Let them. But don't let them hold you to expectations that will carry you away from the heart of the work. Your job at the core is to gather the prayers of your people."
Gathering the prayers of the people. I have come to agree wholeheartedly with Rob, but ever since Rob shared this with me, I've been wrestling with prayer. I've been not only wrestling with prayer in my own life but also wrestling with how to talk about it authentically with religious liberals. It's a tough sell. Most of us don't readily talk about prayer. For some it is too private; for others, irrelevant.
I won't ever forget raising the subject with a bunch of teenagers at an overnight retreat. I asked them, "What do you think of prayer?" Their response: "We don't!" They looked at me as if I was from another planet. One of the senior girls said, "We haven't been taught how to be religious." Most of them said they never prayed. We spent the rest of our time talking about music they appreciated. So I began to ask myself: How can I talk about prayer among religious liberals or folks like teenagers for whom prayer is often irrelevant?
Before I went to seminary, what prayers I had heard sounded hollow or shallow. I couldn't see how prayer could be reconciled with reason and science. I relished the definition I found in the Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: "Pray, a verb. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy."
Some people have good reason to be disillusioned with prayer, to question whether it has any redeeming value. When I served as a chaplain on the AIDS Ministry Team at San Francisco General Hospital, I met John whose T-cell count had recently dropped frighteningly low. He shared with me that the Catholic chaplain had visited earlier and that at the end of their conversation, they prayed the Lord's Prayer. Now this lovely man was a member of the Metropolitan Community Church, and as a Protestant, he knew a slightly different version of the Lord's Prayer than the Catholic priest . The old-school priest upon hearing it told him that God wouldn't hear his prayers unless he spoke them in the correct way. Given such attitudes toward prayer in our world, why wouldn't enlightened people simply stick with the Ambrose Bierce definition? (Following the first service, I was informed that the Devil's Dictionary is in the Ex Libris bookstore, here at Unity Temple!)
Grace happens in the strangest of places. It was in a theater that I was convinced of the value of prayer. The film was Shadowlands. It is about the life of Clyde Staples Lewis, the great English theologian of the past century and the fantasy writer who penned the Chronicles of Narnia also known as CS Lewis or as his closest friends knew him, Jack. You may be familiar with his story. The famed author and professor developed a close friendship with an American admirer, Helen Joy Gresham. As a theologian, Jack often lectured on the purpose of suffering; he spoke eloquently of love; and he had the best answers to any theological question posed to him. Joy, the feisty American woman she was, challenged him both intellectually and emotionally, seeking to find how his theology informed his personal life. She asked him "When have you really suffered?" The distinguished professor initially can't respond, but a little later Jack tells her that when he was nine years old, his mother died.
Joy challenged him on personal issues in the same way that English theologians argued over theology. In British theological discourse, one makes a statement and allows others to affirm or disagree. (For example, one might proclaim, "Human beings cannot spiritually mature without being made to suffer." True or false? Once a statement is made, a theologian is called to take a stand one way or the other.) Joy employed this tactic as they became emotionally closer and said, "You are very happy with our friendship and it is to remain platonic. Is that right?" Jack responded with a lame, quiet yes. The story of their friendship continues with delightful twists. Then without warning, Joy is bedridden with cancer. The great professor who has an answer to every theological question suddenly is faced with helplessness and confusion. As he talks with the president of the college, tears stream down his face. He realizes his love for Joy. With the prospect of losing her to cancer, Jack can no longer hide from himself or his feelings. He asks her to marry him.
A few weeks later, at the college, the president approaches Jack and says, I know how hard it must be. You've been praying and now God is answering. Jack responds, "I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because I can't help it. The need flows out of me all the time waking and sleeping. Praying doesn't change God. It changes me." When Joy has only a few weeks to live, Jack takes her to the country. He tries to keep her from talking about her dying, but she insists. She makes him understand that joy is boundless when we honor the pain that comes with it. And the depths of our pain make possible our capacity for sustaining joy. At the end of the film, when Joy is gone, Jack sits next to Joy's nine-year-old son. The boy said, "I thought if I prayed and believed enough, she wouldn't die. It didn't work."
We all suffer the pain of losing something or somebody we dearly love. We all face situations where we would do anything to change them. It is completely normal that we would pray feverishly to make it otherwise. No matter how much we pray, there are many things we cannot change. What else can we do? We can still look to prayer. What an insight CS Lewis comes to in his moment of crisis: Prayer doesn't change God. Prayer changes ourselves. I agree. Prayer doesn't change things that can't be changed. Prayer helps to give us the strength and insight to change things that can, like our hearts, or even our own lives. Prayer can transform how we relate with others and how we move through the world.
[But learning to pray didn't come naturally to me. I didn't have a clue how to start. I hated reciting prayers. And sitting around trying to talk to God in the solitude of my own room was a fiasco. So often, I would start a prayer, stop for the lack of knowing what to say, forget what I was saying, and sometimes even forget that I was praying! So I began to pray to learn how to pray. I was comforted by the words of George Bernanos: "The wish to pray is a prayer in itself."
A good friend told me he [also] wishes he knew how to pray. He is ashamed to confess that he can't stand the act of sitting down and trying to talk to God. He feels his prayers are artificial and forced, the posturing more sacrilegious than sacred. He gets much more out of simply being quiet and letting thoughts come and go, quieting down as he watches his mind involuntarily sort through the conflicts in his life. I told him this centering down is a sublime form of prayer called contemplation.
There are many kinds of prayer that we might not ordinarily think of as prayer. When I lived in California, I periodically went to the beach. I loved walking to where no one could hear me. And I'd yell at the ocean. No matter how much anger or frustration I had, I knew the ocean could take it. I yelled about how unjust our world is. I yelled out in helplessness how so many people get trampled on. I yelled out in pain how a person I loved walked out of my life. I yelled out my confusion. "Why is there so much suffering? Why so much hatred? So much homelessness, so much addiction?" Often I would come to tears or sometimes a great peace or even a sustaining joy revealed itself.
One of these prayerful moments was a turning point in my own life. I was 24 years old and fully intending on going to medical school. Countless times I'd think of things I'd like to do with my life and then I'd remind myself, that I'd already decided what my life would hold. As I walked around the crags of the cliffs of Mendocino, north of San Francisco, the epiphany suddenly hit me: "I don't have to go to medical school." That may seem mundane but for me this was a revelation. Even though there were only seagulls and rocks about me, it took me several minutes to yell out: I don't have to go to medical school! Once I did, I knew I wasn't going. Of course, the question swelled up: "What are you going to do if you don't go to..." Before the question was fully formed, I knew I would enter ministry. It was a knowing so deep I didn't have to decide what I should do. I knew. For me yelling at the ocean is a form of prayer that has had an extraordinary influence on the path of my life.
I know several people who pray through sacred dance or movement. You may say this is because I spent six years in Berkeley. But think of the Whirling Dervishes, the Shakers, and the African American gospel tradition that invites movement and clapping to hymns of praise. It is not uncommon for people to dance their devotion to God. Any activity that calls forth the holy I call prayer.
A story from the Jewish Hassidic tradition. A man who just bought a bicycle rode it to the market. While he bought his groceries, he met an old friend. Absorbed in the conversation, he forgot about his bicycle, as he and his friend walked together back to his home. The next morning, he awoke in a sweat. He suddenly remembered he left his new bicycle unlocked at the market. He began praying profusely to God that the bike still be there. He rushed to the marketplace, knowing it would likely be gone. The bicycle was exactly where he had left it. He was so happy; he bought a flower and headed for a nearby temple to thank God. When he came out of the temple, his bicycle was gone!
Anthony De Mello offers a teaching that serves as a good moral to this story: "If your God comes to your rescue and gets you out of trouble, it is time you started searching for the True God."
When I wrestle with prayer, I wrestle with identifying the holy, the true, the just in my life. There are two possible outcomes. One, I lose the wrestling match. I either forget what it is I struggle with or I pretend it is not there. This is tantamount to distracting myself, looking away, hiding from my true self and from the world, living on the rim of the wagon wheel of my life. The other outcome I wish I could claim was more frequent. I win the wrestle and draw forth the holy. In that moment I come fully into the present, I move closer to he hub, the center of all life and love. But wrestling with the holy doesn't leave us unscarred. Just as Jacob bested the angel of God, he was wounded. We too must face painful realities that throw us into doubt and despair if we open up to what is real. That means prayer is no cakewalk, and prayer doesn't make life into a cakewalk. Indeed, prayer opens us up to the ever-deeper responsibility we have to living with integrity. It also opens us up to the vast resources of grace and beauty available as we live with dignity and compassion.
It can be perceived as a luxury to have time to give thought to the ups and downs of one's private journey while the world around us is so sick and weary and desperate. But how can we get through the great anxieties that surround us until, somehow, a path is found through the little anxieties that prevent us from moving forward? It is the greatest struggle I know of: to be caught between the roar of one's own private needs and the deafening cries of a world hungry for peace, hope, and kindness.
I want to suggest that prayer is opening our hearts and perceiving possibilities. Regardless whether we see this as quieting down to hear the small still voice within, speaking to God with whom we have a relationship, or seeking to move closer to the spirit of life and the source of our love, prayer as spiritual practice is a subtle form of attentive listening. It takes time and trust to get to the sacred question of "What is on your heart?" What is on your heart? Answer that and you pray. That question takes many forms, including "What do you long for?" And "What is truly important to you?"
In March, I had the privilege of being asked such questions from your search committee, seven lovely people for whom I've developed a great amount of love and respect. I am grateful for their sensitivity, hard work, and willingness to engage authentically. In the interview, they first asked me why I wanted to serve Unity Temple and why I thought I was a good fit. There are several reasons. I want to serve a church that is at the heart of its community, and from this heart, I want to cultivate a moral voice for the wider community. There's a collaborative spirit that is palpable in the search packet and the search committee. It's clear: there isn't a desire for a minister to set a vision for everyone to follow but instead a desire for a minister to be among the people and, from among them, draw forth the vision for leadership and the future. Another reason is that this congregation clearly has taken steps towards sharing its ministry and flourishing as a community church. The stragegic plan that has guided you the past three years was a big draw for me. These all were important reasons, but the primary reason, the most important reason for me, is that the Unity Temple strikes me as a worship-centered congregation, and I am a worship-centered minister. I love the work of bringing a liturgy to meet the spiritual needs of people. Liturgy is an outmoded word that I love because of its original meaning. It comes from the greek words leitos and ergon. Leitos means "work" and ergon means "of the people." So liturgy at core means "the work of the people." Worship isn't something the people come and watch but something in which people participate. I have heard from everyone who knows you that you are among the most engaging congregations.
I so much look forward to becoming acquainted with you. This is an exciting time as we first get to know one another. In the coming week, and in the coming years, I want to know: what is on your hearts? What do you long for from your deepest places? What is truly important to you? As your minister, assuming you vote to call me, I will first and foremost attend to gathering the prayers among us, and allow them to shape our worship and pastoral life together.
May it be so. Blessed be. Amen.
