Rev. Jennifer Owen-O’Quill

Does God speak in our lives today?

Some say that God’s Word was revealed at one time in one form, and that the complete and infallible word of God can be found in one Scripture and come to us through one person. This is the narrow interpretation of Christianity, akin to the way an art critic might describe Michelangelo’s David as the ultimate in sculpture, insisting only classical style has artistic value. This view affords no new breath of life to come into human expression carrying its own insight and its own portion of the Truth: there would be no value in Rodin’s The Thinker — let alone Picasso’s work or Chicago’s now famous Bean!

Not just in our times has this narrow picture of Scripture and religious truth been asserted, but in every age it seems to raise its head. And some 170 years ago now, our religious fore-bearer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, composed a reply to this strain of religious thinking. In his address to the senior class of Harvard’s Divinity School he shared 2 spellbinding ideas: one was that we could have a direct relationship with God ourselves — we needed no intercessor in the form of Jesus or a priest. We ourselves could form a bond with the Ultimate.

And he made another argument before the graduates: that Revelation was not completed with the last page of Scripture or with the end of Jesus life. We continue to hear the voice of God through all ages, in every place. And we learn new things about the nature of the Ultimate, understanding differently some aspect of the Truth, as we move through time.

Revelation is not sealed, is how this idea would come to be expressed. And for us it means the voice of the Holy continues to speak and reveal fresh insight for our times. The ancient words of Scripture can be interpreted to mean something new to us: we can catch different layers of meaning than the stories may have held when they were written.

Revelation is not sealed.

Hear the word of Emerson’s truth in his Divinity School Address:

[But] Men have come to speak of the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were dead. The injury to faith throttles the preacher; and the goodliest of institutions becomes an uncertain and inarticulate voice … (i)

What in these desponding days can be done by us? …

In the soul … let redemption be sought … The stationariness of religion; the assumption that the age of inspiration is past, that the Bible is closed; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing him as a man; indicate with sufficient clearness the falseness of our theology. It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake. The true Christianity, — the faith like Christ’s in the infinitude of man, — is lost. None believeth in the soul of man, but only in some man or person old and departed … . All men go in flocks to this saint or that poet, avoiding God who seeth … (ii)

“… the need was never greater of a new revelation than now …” (iii)

With his customary elegance of language, Emerson discerns a turning point in religious thinking: that we can indeed know God ourselves, and that by forging such relationships new revelations, new insights, untold Truth will come to us, and further transform our faith and the faith of others.

This does not mean we should reject all that has been revealed in times past and look only for the Truth we find today. Such a perspective would rob us of lessons, values and enduring Truth which speaks in all times and places. Our precarious task is to be open to new revelations of the Ultimate, and to interpret revelations of the past for our own times. This, of course, if fraught with the possibility of human error.

We all have made those terrible mistakes of judgment: trying to do our best, and we choose wrong and suffer the consequences. So it is for our life of faith. But, Emerson asserts, such a faith is lived closer to the heart of God and in our striving he believes: “God is well pleased.” (iv)

For me, this concept that revelation is not sealed, contains the guiding principle that shapes the Unitarian Universalist approach to the religious life. It provides the method by which we can integrate our own experience while appropriately valuing the revelation that has come in ages past. Our religious fore-bearer’s interpretations hinged on this concept.

The Unitarian revelation began during the Protestant Reformation of the 1500’s when Michael Servetus broke with Trinitarian theology. This ushered in a Unitarian concept of God in Christianity, the notion of Jesus as a fully human, divinely inspired teacher of God’s Word, and the application of reason to religious life. The Universalist revelation began in the 1700’s when some preachers began teaching the doctrine of Universal Salvation, insisting that God so loved us that all of creation was saved, and our call is to incarnate this Ultimate Love in the world by the way we live our own lives. A century ago the Humanist response to scientific innovation and economic changes began yet another revelation that ceased our focus on salvation in an afterlife, and instead focused our attention on saving this world we share here and now.

What revelation is coming to us today? I think about this as I consider those ultimate questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What am I to do with my life? How do I listen for God’s word in my life? What difference does that make to me? How can I serve?

Yes, we can catch an answer to these questions, and the answers slip away. We can write them down, in journals, poems, articles, Scripture, hoping to uncover them again in future. But then, when we come across them later, we will find ourselves at a new vantage point and their meaning has shifted, and we discover something new.

Our final reading this morning is from Denise Levertov:

“The Secret”

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don’t know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me.

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was,
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more that a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can’t find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote:
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines,

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

Here ends the readings.

Message

My husband and I have been to 5 Cubs games this year. The Cubs have won every single game we’ve been to - miracle of miracles. But if we relied solely on our own experience as authoritative, the Cubs would be in the playoffs right now. Not so, not so, I am sad to say. Maybe next year. It is not solely our experience that is to be taken into account. There must be something more.

I find most people like to focus on their own experience when they are developing their sense of faith. It carries an appeal that all those other aspects of our faith life do not: it is visceral, which gives us the feeling it can be trusted. But something more must be taken into account.

Many things shape our faith: the legacy of our tradition, the wisdom literature of the ages, shared rituals, our own experience and our work in the world.

Therefore, to develop as religious people we can study our own tradition — understand the history and context of Unitarian Universalism and our Protestant roots. We can look to Scripture for insights the world’s peoples have had about their faith over the ages. We can experience rituals and worship that are grounded in our tradition. We can examine the legacy of our own families: what was their faith like?

My faith began to take shape as I watched my family. My grandparents were devout, practicing Catholics, and my mother had left the church and at that time had rejected God. She saw herself as an agnostic and Catholic High School survivor. My dad never talked about his faith when I was really little, but later, when I was in grade school I remember sitting in the back of the car one afternoon and something made me mad and I burst out, the way 8 year olds sometimes do: “Jesus Christ,” and man did he holler at me.

“What did I do?” I lamented.

“You took the Lord’s name in vain.” Was his terse reply.

“Oh.” Was all I could say.

My dad had been raised Southern Baptist, but wasn’t a churchgoer anymore. And if he was a believer, he never mentioned it.

I got mixed messages about faith as a kid. I could pick any family member and form a different opinion.

I could say the same thing of the people in this room. We are all different. And we each carry a fragment of the Truth. Each one of us. We make a terrible mistake when we confuse our fragment of the truth with the whole Truth, but knowing we carry that fragment of Truth bears fruit in our lives.

We don’t share our faith by creed or a prescribed set of beliefs in our church. Here our faith is confessed not by creed, but in community. And our faith grows out of our sharing with one another our fragments of the Truth, that we might help one another build a sustaining faith.

Revelation comes and our common faith grows when we share with each other the questions and struggles, inspiration and insight we experience. As a community we must encourage each other to share our faith with each other and listen for the fragments of truth we all carry. Yes, uncertainty flows from our diversity, but that is an aspect of the wonder, part of the strength, of faith itself. Faith is elastic. It meets us where we are and grows with us as we change: before us is a lifetime of transformation.

But when was the last time you asked the person sitting next to you to tell you about their faith? If it is our common sharing that stretches us and offers us an environment in which to grow as religious people, how are we doing?

My experience is that we are a little scared to talk about what we believe, what we are struggling with. We want to conceal — not confess — our doubts. We want to conceal - not confess - our deepest beliefs. I certainly have had my own questions and hesitations about sharing my experiences, my changing religious understanding, my faith with other people.

As I’ve moved through my faith journey over the years, I’ve wrestled with uncertainty when I’ve come to turning points on my own faith journey, and these are some of the questions I’ve tangled with along the way:

• What will people think if I talk about my mystical experiences?
• Can I tell someone I don’t pray? Don’t have any clue how to? Am not sure this even matters?
• Why is my minister talking about God? Did something happen to her?
• What do I say to this dying woman?
• Can I talk about how scary it was to try to pray for her, not even sure I knew how to?
• What will happen if I start talking about my doubts?
• Is this whole thing we do here at church a sham? Is religion in general an exercise in human fantasy?
• How will he respond if I tell him what happens when I pray?
• Can anyone understand what I mean when I tell them I have been wrapped up in the arms of God?
• Will anyone see how important this is to me, how precious? Will they care?

We often struggle with questions when a change in our lives is coming. And in life, as in faith, the answers we develop at those moments are formative.

If we don’t talk to each other, and share our ideas, and listen, truly listen, to the insight and experience of others, then we are not practicing Unitarian Universalists at all. We’re just hanging out in a social club in where membership involves a lot of ritual practices on Sunday mornings.

Sure it is scary to make ourselves so vulnerable. To share those things we carry tenderly and with such uncertain grasp in our hearts. And I think we are afraid of something besides our own vulnerability. We are afraid of judgment. It is so common to experience the judgment of others when it comes to matters of faith: “You don’t believe the way I do? I will be praying for you,” we hear people say.

And I’ve experienced another side of this equation right here in this sanctuary. People in our church have occasionally asked me to stop sharing what I believe, or to cast my own confession of faith in watered down terms. I don’t want you to talk about what you really believe, Pastor, it makes some of us uncomfortable.

I know from my own experience that our reticence is founded on valid concerns.
But I think we need to do it anyway. What we need to help us through our vulnerability is good listeners.
I want everyone here to find their voice, and to learn to express what they treasure as their own precious Truth respectfully, and I want us all to hear each other’s voices too. I want us to be unafraid to confess our faith to each other, and then be unafraid to wrestle with the thoughtful questions someone asks in response to our sharing, that pushes us to go deeper into our own religious understanding.

We all need to be supported and encouraged to speak. We all need to grow in our ability to truly listen. This dialogue is essential to the health of our faith.

Someone else in this room right now holds a piece of the Truth that can change your life. Don’t you want to get busy and find that person! If we don’t risk sharing, we’ll never grasp the Truth that is greater than our own.

It’s simple to begin. Listen for that little bit of truth when someone talks about their faith. Search for it. And treasure it. We share not to argue with each other, to prove our own point, or to fortify our defenses, but to offer each other spiritual sustenance. The questions we ask of someone who shares their faith should be gentle questions, respectful questions. A shrill reaction does not build relationship, nor does such a response express our values.

How we are able to listen to others says a lot about who we are.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. What can I do? I’ve asked myself, what can I do to help this church community learn to give voice to their faith? How can I help you all learn to talk to each other about this? What might prod our religious imagination?
In my own life there have been times if felt impossible to even find the words to express what I meant as a Unitarian Universalist, so this morning I am going to share some of my own testimony with you. I hope it encourages you to reflect on how you might frame your own story.

My family had a profound reverence for nature and the outdoors. We spent a lot of time in the wilderness, and always approached our time camping and taking day trips with a sense of wonder and awe. We’d stop and listen to the sounds and notice where we were in the world. The ocean was another big place for us.

We paid attention to and were grateful for the majesty of the natural world. Science presented questions that captivated the imagination of my family, and still does.

And I was born to a 1960’s flower child. My mom protested the war, fought for the Equal Right Amendment, and as the president of our local NOW chapter, became the local Title 9 enforcer in my local school district. No more separate boy and girl lines for us after she came through our school. I was so proud to be her daughter. In our home our charge was clear: to make this world a better place right now. And at church I was surrounded by people who felt the same way. I learned, without a doubt, faith is expressed in our works.

All of this I have kept as my faith has evolved. Making a difference in the world, working for social change, committing my life to justice for all people, this is an important part of who I am, as is my love of nature and my wonder at the questions of science. For me there has never been a barrier between science and religion. The questions posed by science and the questions posed by religion both thrill me. They delve, in different ways, into the unknown. One explores the questions of the mind, and one explores the questions of the spirit. Both intrigue me. Had I had a different set of influences as a kid I might be an astronomer and not a minister. Their frontiers feel similar to me.

My journey began with my family, but the most influential person on my religious journey was my Sunday School teacher. (Look out if you are teaching Sunday School here! Something might just happen to one of those kids in your class… ) She had a tremendous impact on my life and is probably the reason I loved the church enough to hear a call to ministry. She and I loved each other. Laverne was in her 60’s when I turned up in her Sunday School class. She and her husband Rene had retired by then. They were childless for reasons I’ll never know.

Laverne and Rene moved away when I was in high school. They went to live in a retirement community of Los Angeles. But, as luck would have it, that retirement community was 20 minutes from the college I attended. They picked me up and took me to church on Sundays, and we’d get lunch afterwards. It was so good to be with them.

About 5 years before she died, still strong and healthy as ever, Laverne and I got together for lunch. I noticed right away something was different. Her spirit was deflated. As we talked I noticed some of the liveliness had gone from her voice. What once had been a striving persona was quiet, even despairing, and worst of all, hopeless.

She didn’t try to hide it. True to form, she told me exactly how she felt when I asked her what was wrong. “I’ve lived so long and seen so much only get worse. So much has never changed at all. I feel so much despair for our world. Truly, if it were not for knowing you, and seeing your strength and sense of possibility, I’d have no hope at all. You are the reason I feel any hope things might one day get better. So many years and I feel like I’ve struggled for nothing. I hope you have more success than I do, because I don’t want you to feel this hopeless later in your life.”

“Oh Laverne, You’ve done so much,” I tried to console her. Tell her how her work had made a difference. She just smiled a quiet smile and held my hand.

People cast about, wherever they are able, for hope. I am glad, as Laverne cast about seeking some sliver of hope to cling to, that she found me. And I was profoundly aware of my frailty for such a task. I do not doubt the depth of her despair, or her brief hope. And I knew my life, on which she hung so much, was sorely lacking.

That conversation with Laverne began to shift how I understood my faith. I started to feel more keenly our human brokenness. Her hope was invested in me and people like me, but me and my college friends were a mess. All around me I began to see just how many ways we all fall short.

Though I endeavor to aim my life toward the good, to bring more love and justice into the world, I find that my hope, my faith, cannot be entrusted in humanity: to heal the depth of brokenness in our world, to traverse the rifts between peoples and nations — or even to mend the brokenness of my own life.

Laverne’s confession humbled me, and marked a shift in my spiritual life that would bring me to my knees before the ground of all being, before the Source of Life. And so began my faith in God.

5 years later I would sit at Laverne’s beside as she lay dying and confess to her my call to ministry, telling her of my plans to enter Meadville Lombard Theological School, our Unitarian Universalist seminary here in Chicago.

I hope she could hear me.

• How you would give your own testimony about your faith?
• What would you say?
• What might you learn in the process?

If each of us here opened our eyes and ears and hearts to the reality of peoples lives who sit right across the aisle, right next to us … to hear the struggles, the triumphs, the questions and the trust, the despair and the hope … if we really listened and shared with each other our walk of faith,
we’d find ourselves dwelling in the Holy, entwining with the Divine, seeking the Ultimate together.
Confessing our confusion and doubts.
This is how we find new ways to move forward. This is how our faith grows.
We do not share our faith by creed or belief.
What binds us in faith is our collective sharing.

In this religious community we cast the legacy of times past, the stories of our present reality and our hope in an unshakeable Love, a larger Understanding, a greater Peace, that together we might forge a brighter future.

• i Richard Poirier, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) p. 59.
• ii Ibid, 64.
• iii Ibid, 60.
• iv Ibid, 54.

Copyright © 2006 Second Unitarian Church