Sermon

Living Life On Purpose: Mission

September 5, 2004

By Rev. Paul Fairley & Rev. Tessie Mandeville

(Paul) I want to share with you tonight some words that are often attributed to Nelson Mandela but were actually written by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Let us pray. Goddess, God, we open our hearts and our minds and our spirits to you in this moment. Sew in us words of transformation tonight. Come to us in the places where we need you. Heal us; make us new. Excite us; wake us up tonight, O God. We are your people and we love you. Amen.

(Tessie) So for the past five weeks, we’ve been talking about how to live our lives on purpose. And we said that every day we are either moving toward our purpose that we’ve been created for, or we are moving further away from that purpose. So each week we’ve come together and we’ve looked at different purposes.

And the first one we looked at, if you will remember, was worship. That part of why we are here is to worship the God of many names, the God of our understanding. Not out of a sense of duty or a sense of fear but out of a deep sense of gratitude and love for all that God has done in our lives.

The week after that we looked at the purpose of fellowship, which we called living in right relationship with one another. And we said that often when you are in relationship, that there sometimes is inevitable conflict. But that one of the ways that we honor our relationships is to practice reconciliation with one another.

And in the week after that, Paul talked about discipleship as a purpose, that ability to be present in the very moment. That ability to love God with everything that we are right then and there, not having to wait until we have changed some way or, or trying to make ourselves better, but in that moment we open ourselves up and love God with everything that we have.

And then last week, we talked about our fourth purpose, which is service, and the way that we serve God in this world is by serving others. Does all this sound somewhat familiar to you? (Yes) Ok.

So tonight, as we culminate this series, we talk about our fifth purpose, which is mission. So you might say that God has a missionary position for each one of you, (Laughter) along with some other ones but that’s the one that we’re going to talk about tonight. (More laughter)

You were made for a mission. We were all made for a mission. And God is at work in this world through your mission. And you were put on this earth to make a contribution and your mission is your way of giving back to God and giving back to the world based on your particular shape, your hands and your feet and your feelings and your desires and your talents. These are things that you look at to see, how do I fulfill my mission in the world?

And the truth is, it sounds very cliché, but the truth is there is no one else in the world like you. That’s beautiful. There is no one else in the world like you. And I don‘t think that God went to all this trouble to make us, to create us in this unique way just for us not to bring that uniqueness forward. There is a reason that we have been made this way.

And your mission, should you choose to accept it, (Laughter) is to share what you have, to bring it forth into this world so that others can know the divine through you, so that others have the opportunity to experience the same love and the same grace that you have experienced because our bodies were made for a mission.

(Paul) Now this might sound like we’re setting you up for mission impossible because living life has often many challenges to it. Maybe this has been a rough week for you or maybe you’re heading into a rough week. I believe that our bodies know what they are made to do and so this is good news for us because our bodies can tell us what we are here to do, what our purpose is. Our purpose is already encoded in the DNA that gives us our own shape to our bodies. Our purpose lies at the core of who are created to be.

And so fundamentally living a life on purpose is not mission impossible, but the opposite, the very possible mission of loving and honoring and dwelling in the body that we are given. It’s a process of living and loving what is most true about us. And I think as queer people (and as we like to say, “If you’re here tonight, you’re queer tonight”) as queer people especially, I believe we have something to teach the world about spirituality and about living life on purpose because I think we know what it means to honor what your body is made like. I think we know what it is like to honor the desire of our body, to accept, to go on the journey of accepting what our bodies love and to seek out that love.

If you have come out to yourself then you are a spiritual revolutionary because you are honoring the body that has been made for you. If you have come out to one friend, then you are a spiritual revolutionary on a mission because you are witnessing to that friend your light, your love, your way of loving. And if you have come out to your family, to your co-workers, to your friends, you are a spiritual revolutionary on a mission because you are living for them your light, your love in your body.

Coming out queer, though, is really just part one of the spiritual journey. Coming out queer and spiritual, I think, is part two. How many folks are more comfortable telling people that they’re queer than telling folks that you spend Sunday nights in church? (Laughter) Right on. Owning up to being a person consciously seeking the God of your understanding is something in our culture which can be as difficult as coming out with some kind of difference in how you gender identify or who you love, the bodies that you love.

Coming out queer and spiritual is part two. Part three is coming out queer and spiritual and as a part of this body, MCC San Francisco. Those of us who have come to MCC often have found our spiritual home. If you are new, we hope that that is what you find this place to be. We might not be your spiritual home; we might be a rest stop on the journey for you. We understand that but if you have found MCC San Francisco as your spiritual home then there’s a part three to your mission, which is to live your life in such as way that people see who we are in you. They see our hospitality in you. They see our witness of what it means to be a faith community where there are no rules, no bottom line, no litmus test, nothing to jump over to get access to God’s love because in this place, God’s love is for everybody.

If you have not taken that step to be on a mission not just for this body that you have but also this body (MCC) that you have, then I invite you into that mission tonight. Because the truth is, the world needs us now more than ever. There are lots of ways to be on that mission. Some of us talk, some of us sing, some of us create things. Some of us sit every morning at home praying for folks in the congregation mindfully regarding the life of our community, the silent people who lift us all up in prayer. Those people too have engaged us on our mission.

I ask you tonight this question, “What is your body called to be in this body of MCC San Francisco?”

(Tessie) Each of us has our own call, our own light, our own desires. And this call that we have cannot be found outside ourselves in the expectations of others or in the expectations of the world. All you have ever longed for is here in this moment right now. Let that sink in for a moment. All you have ever longed for is here in this moment right now. You don’t have to search frantically for something outside of yourself. In fact, let’s discard what we know of ourselves with the expectations of others. We need to delve deeply into our own selves to find out who we truly are and who we are called to be in this world.

And to hear the call, we need only listen. Sounds simple enough but sometimes we can listen only when our illusions of control and safety have been shattered. And the key is to give up striving to become who we think we should be and embrace our true selves, imperfections and all. We are all called, I believe, to open up to the sacred wholeness that lives inside in each one of us in a particular way and then to share that sacred wholeness with people around us, given our own strengths and weaknesses, our own desires, our own thoughts. And we each have the spark of the divine light inside of us. We are meant to shine. Our queer bodies and our queer-friendly bodies are meant to shine in this world.

And yet sometimes, I think, we are afraid to shine. Sometimes we are afraid to show our true selves in this world. And our sister, Marianne Williamson says this, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness which most frightens us. And we ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant and talented and fabulous and gorgeous?”

And I would say, “Well, who do you think those words were meant for?” They had to describe queer people in some way. (Laughter) So we had to come up with brilliant and fabulous and talented and gorgeous. Amen? (Amen) Amen. But here’s the truth, we are all afraid sometimes. And sometimes we are more afraid of our successes than our failures. Sometimes that’s why our light frightens us more than our darkness because we are afraid to succeed sometimes in this world. But fear is a normal and valuable human emotion as long as we don’t let it control us. And as we are liberated from our own fears, then our presence automatically liberates others.

And I think that we have to remember even on our most difficult days that we are meant to shine. That it is evitable that we need to shine. And remember that we are an echo of the beloved. We are children, we are people of God. And we are all here to contribute to this world in the best ways that we can based on who we are. Which means that we have a responsibility, an ability to respond to the world with our gifts and our light because God has no hands in this world but yours. And God has no feet in this world but yours. You, my friends, are God’s hearts in this world and you are God’s bodies in this world. And the world needs you. It needs all of us and our uniqueness.

And finally, remember that as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. I read a story just this weekend actually of a doctor who founded a charitable organization and then he traveled to India because he wanted to meet and sit with Maharaji, who is a guru to the American spiritual teacher, Ram Dass. And speaking of the incredible love that Maharaji had for everyone, the doctor tells us, “You know I could almost begin to understand how he loved everybody. I mean that was sort of his job. (Laughter) He was a saint and saints are supposed to love everybody. But that’s not what has always staggered me about him. What staggered me is not that he loved everybody, but that when I sat in his presence, I loved everybody too.”

Because when we shine, we unconsciously give one another permission to shine as well. And so, beloved community, may we be people who let our lights shine in this world as we discover that living our lives on purpose is really the only way, the only real way to live this life we have.

(Paul) And remember that as we let our lights shine, (Tessie) we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. Let it be and (both) Amen.