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Sermon |
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Part 3: Openness |
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September 28, 2003By Rev. Dr. G. Penny Nixon For those of you who are visiting or who haven't been with us for a few weeks, this is the third week that I'll be talking about Radical Relationships in Beloved Community. We've looked at Radical Honesty and Radical Gratitude and I'm using the word "radical" to mean "to go down to the roots of " because if we're deeply rooted in our values, then we can grow into something that we probably could never have imagined before. And so today I want to talk about Radical Openness. And what I mean by radical openness is living with a kind of expectant attitude that when you meet somebody, you'll actually learn something from them. There is something to be gained from every encounter. What I mean by radical openness is a willingness to engage authentically with whomever you meet and to engage authentically with yourself. And what I mean by radical openness is a certain kind of fearlessness to feel with deep emotion. So if I wanted to travel the path of radical openness, I would think about certain things. But if I decided that I did not want to be open, then I would do other things. And because to get to a place, you sometimes have to decide where you're not going to go first, I did some negative brainstorming: What I would do if I didn't want to be open. So I want to take us down that road for a moment, just in case you choose not to be open today, then you'll have some ways not to be open. (I want options for everybody). So, if you decide not to be open here perhaps, here are some tips: First of all, I wouldn't pray and I definitely wouldn't sing. I wouldn't want to get close to anything that would actually make me "feel". I would look for sex but not for intimacy. I would convince myself through elaborate imaginations that I actually am unlovable. I would keep a detailed list of all the times I have been hurt and I would review it regularly. I would not let my expectations be known so then when they were not met, I could be disappointed. I would focus on the negative. In other words, I would focus on the half empty glass and continue to ignore the pitcher of the water right beside it. I would stay away from anything that came close to provoking emotions in me, and should they happen, I would quickly dismiss them as either trivial or sappy or insipid or sentimental. Anything that came close to looking like God might be involved, or anything that even tinged of the miraculous, I would readily assign to either mere coincidence or scientific results. I would focus on the suffering of the world. I would make cynicism my friend and ask resentment to be my constant companion. And when I saw others who were open and easily moved and touched, I would, in a sophisticated way of course, ridicule them. I would shield my eyes from the beauty that is everywhere around me and close my ears to the laughter of children. I would regard others as interruptions. I would continue to take the bricks of my life and one by one build a wall rather than a bridge. And I would pretend, whenever it suited me, to feel superior to others even though within, I felt probably "less than" some of the time. I would seek out evidence to reinforce my belief that love and God and good things are only constructs to make me feel better. I would definitely be suspicious of kindness and I would set a sentinel at the doorway of my heart with strict orders to let no one enter. But if I chose to go the path of openness, I could live a different way. Actually instead of setting a sentinel at the doorway of my heart with strict orders not to let anyone enter, I could ask for a changing of the guards. And there I could have stand, in my imagination perhaps, an angel with a lilting voice or the voice of a child, that would say over and over to me, like the voice of the Divine, "I will open to you my beloved, will you open to me?" "I will open to you, my beloved, will you open to me?" In this time of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, as Friday night began, Jews across the world heard the shofar blow out the ancient ram's-horn and in some of the traditional liturgies after the ram's-horn blew, the liturgy said, "Today the world was conceived". It wasn't just the New Year for this group of people in this time, but in the mythical imagination every Rosh Hashanah, the world is created again. So imagine with me in this moment that whoever you are, wherever you have come from, however many times you've started, and however many times you've failed or succeeded, imagine that the shofar blows on this Rosh Hashanah and you get once again for this year to create a world anew, to start again from this moment. Will you choose the narrow path, or will you choose the wide, open path of radical openness? Will you sashay down that wide path, going with the flow of what comes your way and not only what you were given but whom you are given? In the high holy days, there's a certain preoccupation for the length of time that culminates in Yom Kippur on Monday, a week from Monday. There's a preoccupation with our relationships with each other and our relationships with God and in these Days of Awe, as they have been called, prayer takes center stage. If you go to Rosh Hashanah services, you will pray all day long for hours and hours and hours. It's Community Prayer times about twelve. Prayer is at the heart of it because in this tradition, they know a secret—that you cannot continue to pray and be unchanged. Because in prayer, radical honesty actually begins to happen, and in prayer, if you let yourself (and I let myself) openness begins to happen. And this is why I love this story of Hannah that Jack read for us, which is read every Rosh Hashanah every year. Hannah had no children, and in that day and age, one was only allowed participation in society if one had children and she had none. And Hannah does something that no one else had done in that time in history, and goes into a place where she was not regarded as having any status, but goes and believes that the heart of God will hear her. And goes and prays with deep emotions, crying and sobbing so much that the priests think she is drunk, saying, "God, this is my longing. Will You meet me in this place? I want nothing more." It's not about motherhood so much; it's about full participation and full access. "Will You grant me that?" And Hannah, I believe, is very much like gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and other marginalized people in the world who are denied access but who finally say, "Wait. I am fully human. And what is available to everyone else is available to me. And God Almighty, You are going to hear my prayer." Hannah's arms were not too short to box with God and she took on God and she won. And that's what GLBT people have done, that's what queer people have done. We have said, "God Almighty, we will not be kept from Your love ever again." And like Hannah, we marched right up front and we were ridiculed and we were harassed and we had people say to us just like Elkanah said to Hannah, "Isn't my love enough for you?" And Hannah, with radical honesty said, "No." And when people have said to us, isn't it enough that "such and such"? "No, it is not." Nothing but full and complete access to the heart of the beloved, however we choose to manifest that in any community, in any faith tradition is enough. Hannah set the way in many ways for us with, I believe, her radical openness. You say to me, "What are the benefits of this radical openness?" It's kind of like getting in recovery—you feel. (People in recovery can you affirm this for me?) You have a new sense of feelings. Now some people say, "I felt bad for a whole year. That wasn't the deal; I want only good feelings." And that can't happen always. But the benefits of radical openness are this: that you and I, if we choose to practice this or to open to this, you and I will know a certain kind of aliveness and a certain kind of life and a solidarity with others. Because when you weep, then I weep. And when you laugh, I laugh. And when you know grief, it can touch the grief in my heart. And when you get a job and you haven't had one, I can feel grateful for you and with you. And when you've been sick and you get well, then we can connect around that. And when you don't get well, we can connect around that. That's what being open is. It's allowing yourself and myself to feel deeply, not only our own feelings, but another's. And why we are so afraid of that, I will never know. Why is it then in this society when we start to cry, we say, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry"? You know what, just let me say this once, in this place, you never need apologize for showing your feelings, whatever they are, or emotions. That is part of the openness that we are invited by the Beloved to have. Radical openness leads to transformation; it leads us like Hannah. Once we know this kind of love and openness, it leads us to "give back" instead of saving ourselves all the time. How is it that you are coaxed forward? What is it that opens you? As e.e. cummings says, "Though I've closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal as spring opens the first rose. Your fragile gesture encloses me." What is it that opens you? What is it that tugs on your heart or that causes you, even in an unguarded moment, either for tears to come to your eyes or a smile to come to your face? What is it? It might be something different for each of you. But nurture that. You know, the show West Wing, always makes me cry. I know it doesn't make other people cry but it makes my cry. And so once a week, I can depend on having my feelings. I think it's just 'cause...never mind. never mind. So what is it for you? I'm jesting for a moment, but what is it for you that opens you up? It could be something as profound really, as an animal companion in your life. You know it may sound silly but it's not. There's something about a dog or a cat or a turtle or a bird I suppose, opening us up to love, or to whatever it is, to emotion. This is what spirit is. If you wonder what spirit is, this is spirit. When you feel deeply, you have known spirit. And we're all going to express it so differently in our different personalities. But never block or dam up the river of feeling. Allow yourself to believe not only that you are loved but that you are invited again and again, to show up just as you are. And then, instead of being suspicious of kindness, I welcome kindness. And yes I let the suffering of the world break my heart but I do not lose hope. And then I pray and I sing and I sing some more. Radical openness, what it will do in this community is to allow us to authentically engage (as we already do, but even more deeply) to engage with one another and with spirit in life transforming ways. And remember what Rumi says. Rumi says, "A hand that is always open or a hand that is always closed is a crippled hand. A bird that cannot open and close its wings cannot fly. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding. The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird's wings." Nobody can stay like this all the time, but too many of us stay like this too much of the time. So during these days of awe God says, "You are invited, my beloved, to practice with ease the opening and closing for it is your deepest presence." Amen. |
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