That's How the Light Gets In

May 6, 2007

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

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PRAYER

Mystery of many names, mystery beyond all naming we come to you this morning with the songs and melodies of one of your chosen people, Leonard Cohen. In that spirit I pray today the lyrics of one of his poems:

Don’t really have the courage to stand where I must stand,

Don’t really have the temperament to lend a helping hand.

Don’t really know who sent me to raise my voice and say:

May the lights in the land of plenty shine on the truth some day.

I don’t know why I come here, knowing as I do what you really think of me, what I really think of you.

For the millions in the prison that wealth has set apart, for the Christ who has not risen from the caverns of the heart, For the innermost decision that we cannot but obey, for what’s left of our religion I lift my voice and pray.

May the lights in the land of plenty shine on the truth some day.

We pray this in the name of everything that’s holy, and that is, precisely everything.

Amen.

Affirmation of Faith by Don Smith

SERMON

In traditional Christianity sin is seen as a determent, a flaw, the fly in the ointment. My now deceased second father-in-law, Linus Hernandez used to say, “Everyone loves Elizabeth’s Taylor’s hair, but nobody wants it in their soup.”

Talking about sin as a determent is counterproductive.

There’s a better way.

In alcoholics anonymous, of which I am a proud anonymous member, it’s common to hear people say that they don’t regret or want to take back any drink or drinking that they did. The idea is simple. Whatever they did, however much they drank, the wreckage of lives that trails behind them – none of this can be regretted for two reasons – first, the guilt itself would kill us, or drive us to drink – poor me, poor me, pour me another drink! And secondly if that drinking got us to AA and we’re sober, and the promises are coming true, then, baby, all that suffering is exactly what it took!

Think of it as a trip in your family car. Yeah, okay, the radiator hose blew the third day, you had two flat tires the next day, and the water pump eventually went out. Regardless, you’re at your vacation spot thanks to the old soccer mom car! It’s hard to hate what’s brought you to a state of grace. It’s hard to hate what’s brought you to a state of grace.

There’s a tradition in some synagogues when members of the synagogue are invited to stand and tell a bad story on themselves. After the first story ends, someone stands and tells a worse than the first. Then another and another. The idea is – the parishioner with the worst story, wins!

And the prize isn’t shame – it’s solidarity! When the last confessor stands and tops all the other stories, then there’s a moment of silence and it that silence, there is a bonding, the human, oh so human, sigh of relief as all in that community know that they are blemished, imperfect. The moral high ground has been relinquished, and in the words of Second Isaiah, the high has been made low, and the crooked places made straight.

Martin Marty, Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago tells the story of one of his grandchildren who when Marty had stepped down from the University, turned to Marty and said, “Grandpa, now that you’re retarded?” At first Marty winced because retardation is never a subject for jest, but then Dr. Marty remembered that to be retarded also means to be caused to move or proceed slowly; delayed or impeded. And that’s not always a bad thing. What would music be like if there were no variance in tempo – besides sounding like Philip Glass?

There is a form of enlightenment within Zen Buddhism that’s called a life of one continuous mistake. How can this be, you might ask? Being conscious of who you are, and what you’re capable of, knowing that your feet aren’t on a pedestal, but clay like everyone else’s – these are the things that actually raise all of life up.

When I was eighteen I fell in love with a blond tennis player who played for the University of Florida Gators. Joan and I were deeply in love. I drove up to see her during summer school, and convinced her that we needed to drive into the woods in my father’s Mercury Monterey, with a 357 engine, and four on the floor – to do watercolors of the woods. She either bought that story or wanted exactly what I wanted. We water colored for a bit, we did! Then we fell asleep like the children we were. An hour later lightning awakened us. The rain was coming down so hard that we couldn’t see out. I thought maybe I should move my dad’s car.

I’d driven off the Farm Maintenance Road and into the woods – where the trees were prettier, you understand? Twilight had slipped us on us, too. When I found what I thought was the Farm Maintenance Road it was covered in water. I turned onto it; I was shocked to discover that I’d driven into a stream. The Mercury Monterey sunk down to the axles, and it looked like if it kept raining, the water would be at window height in no time. I got Joan out of the car, but she’d left her shoes behind. I took off my brogans and insisted she walk in them. I went barefoot. We walked through many a tilled field before we caught sight of the lights of passing traffic.

By the time we gotten to the Interstate my brogans had rubbed terrible blisters on her feet while my feet were unscathed from walking through the fields. I thumbed down a semi and worried that this old truck driver would try something with my beautiful Joan, so I got in first and sat right beside him. He was a very nice black man, and without asking a whole lot of questions drove us into town.

My Beta Theta Pi Fraternity Brothers pulled my dad’s car from the river the next day.

The point is, what was then an awful experience is now emblazoned in my memory, and quite frankly it was better than sex.

Reynolds Price, who teaches writing at the University of North Carolina, developed a cancer on his spine. It crippled him.

Two things are important about Reynolds Price’s story. First, the disease and the loss of the use of his legs have actually improved his writing. And the second reason is striking – Price is in pain all the time, but he says that he made of his pain a bonfire and slowly over the years he’s been able to move away from the heat of the fire. He can still see the flames licking into the night air, but now, instead of burning in pain, he’s able to look at himself and his life by the light of that same fire.

We’ll never put out the flames of our critical thinking. Judge not lest ye be judged! What does that mean? The judging will always be there – we’re human beings, and we are suspicious creatures. So, if it’s not going away, and it’s unpleasant to be around, perhaps we should take a walk and expand our horizons. Yes, the jabbering, the crazy monkey mind as the Buddhist call it, it will keep right on jabbering, but maybe if we get enough distance, the rhythm of the unceasing chatter will become a white noise that doesn’t hook us, doesn’t drive us, doesn’t work.

The things you’ve done wrong. Tell someone who loves you what you’ve done. Unload. Unburden. Release yourself from the bondage of self. Uncover the cracks that line you like a raku pot. Open yourself to the idea that reaching out may, in fact, be letting in.

Buckminster Fuller once said that today’s society was too specialized. We have a tendency to want to focus our energies, put the heat on where we think the heat needs to be applied, to push forward in the direction we intend.

Fuller suggests, instead, that we should take our light and defocus – place it in the middle of a field and let that light shine out in all 365 degrees of the circle, then wait to see what’s attracted to that light.

Yes, there is a crack in everything, and yes, that is how the light gets in, but it’s also how the light gets out. Let’s drop our guard. Let’s shine out to those who walk among us. Perhaps if we all shine together the path of a common life will be uncovered.

Amen.