Being For One Another

A Worship Service by the Reverends Mark W. Christian & Jonalu Johnstone

Presented to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday September 24, 2006

Ancient Reading

Job Chapter 3—(NRSV adapted)

…Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth … “Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, “A man-child is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness! Let clouds settle upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. Yes, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry be heard in it … Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none; … --because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, and hide trouble from my eyes.

“Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?  Why were there knees to receive me, or breasts for me to nurse? Now I would be lying down and quiet; I would be asleep; … why was I not buried like a stillborn child, like an infant that never sees the light? There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest …

“Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave?  Why is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in? … I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.”

Modern Reading

This House
Ken Patton (SLT 444)

This house is for the ingathering of nature and human nature.  It is a house of friendships, a haven in trouble, an open room for the encouragement of our struggle.  It is house of freedom, guarding the dignity and worth of every person.  It offers a platform for the free voice, for declaring, both in times of security and danger, the full and undivided conflict of opinion.  It is a house of truth-seeking, where scientists can encourage devotion to their quest, where mystics can abide in a community of searchers.  It is a house of art, adorning its celebrations with melodies and handiworks.  It is a house of prophecy, out running times past and times present in visions of growth and progress.  This house is a cradle for our dreams, the worship of our common endeavor.

Prayer and Meditation

We Need One Another

George Odell (SLT 468)

We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.  We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.  We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again.  We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone.  We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs.  We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.  We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.  All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.

Being For One Another

A Sermon by the Reverend Mark W. Christian

Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday September 24, 2006

A little bit ago Jonalu led us in a mediation that ended with these words from George Odell—

All our lives we are in need

And others are in need of us.

A bit earlier in the service we sang the hymn “We Laugh, We Cry.”  It includes these sentiments—

We seek elusive answers

To the questions of this life

We seek to put an end

To all the waste of human strife

We search for truth, equality

And blessed peace of mind

And then we come together here

To make sense of what we find.

Of course, recall the Affirmation we shared earlier—

Love is the spirit of this church

And service is its law.

This is our great covenant:

To dwell together in peace,

To seek the truth in love,

And to help one another.

Taken together, these things affirm a common reality.  We are inherently individuals but community is, in fact, our native culture.  We are individual persons but we are bound together.  We are covenanted together.  I believe that our humanity is maximized in community—not in isolation.

I guess I share all these things as a way of saying that “This” is not the sermon I planned on preaching today.  I had planned to explore the Islamic practice of fasting for Ramadan, asking how that experience effects their faith and wondering what that practice might mean from our perspectives.  There are more pressing needs.  That sermon will wait for another day.

Events of the last week call on me to minister to you differently than I had planned.  The sermon I feel called to preach is occasioned by Andrew Murray’s tragic death—just over a week ago.  This sermon is occasioned by that event but I don’t intend this to be another remembrance or a second eulogy.  I feel called today to ask whether the bond we share as a covenanted community failed, were insufficient or whether this tragedy came about through an intent to circumvent or the simple inability to accept the caring embrace of others.

Emotions of shock and pain radiated through this community as the news of Andrew’s suicide spread.  Disbelief, anger, anguish and confusion were among the first wave of feelings I felt.  As call after call came to me, and after face to face conversations with scores of you, my early feelings ebbed as I discerned a pattern emerging.  People were expressing pain and betrayal.  Pain is obvious—the loss of one we know and love is painful.  Feelings of betrayal were real for so many of us because we felt such connection and affection for Andrew.  So many would have done so much to help him if he could have asked and if he had been able to receive what we had to give—friendship and support.  This pain and betrayal comes at an ontological level.  It moves in at the core of our being.  Did we fail Andrew?  Did he fail us?  Was isolation and failure inevitable? 

Sometimes an individual falls through the cracks of our community.  The interdependent web we seek to form leaves spaces between its strands.  Even if we layer multiple nets it is possible for someone or something to slip through the mesh un-noticed.  This was not the case here.  Andrew was here, at worship, week in and week out.  He was a mainstay in our Adult Ed class, a regular at our social functions, active in more than one of our Covenant Groups and among the people who’s contributions to this church have been recognized through the designation of Member of the Year.  Andrew was someone on whom we could count.

It is impossible to see Andrew as someone who slipped through our community unseen.  This leads to the fearful question of whether anything we do really matters.  If all these points of connection couldn’t keep a gun out of Andrew’s hand we wonder fearfully—is anything we do worthy of our time and effort?

Let me state without equivocation that I don’t believe Andrew felt that this community failed him.  The evidence is quite to the contrary.  He felt our presence.  I think he saw the gifts of love that were shared with him.  Similarly, his laughter, the words of comfort he offered others, the insight and concern given to so many, were honest and real.  It is not so much that what we gave him was insufficient or inappropriate.  It was more that for some reason, unfathomable to us (and probably to Andrew), the care we offered couldn’t reach the place where pain consumed him.  Let me state without hesitation that Andrew “did” all the things one should “do” to be an active participant in this community.  The ways that so many of you sought to be present with Andrew were real and, I think, appreciated.  I just don’t think he was able to internalize those outward gifts of friendship, love and intimacy.

The problem in all this is not tied to thinking, or acting, or even caring or doing—the piece that calls to me from this morass centers on “Being” not “Doing.”  I think at a deep level Andrew’s struggle—indeed each of our struggles—is felt at the very essence of “being.”  It wasn’t that he did the wrong things in this community.  It isn’t that he failed to do something to make significant bonds.  It is more that there was something in him that kept these things from “being” enough. 

This is a trap into which it is very easy to fall.  The old saw suggests that we take time to smell the flowers.  Still, if we head out into the garden intent on smelling roses—our intensity of interest can lead us to doing instead of being even there.  It is wise to remember that are Human Beings—not Human Doings.  Putting it another way our “Being” is our essence.  Human “doing” proceeds from our human “being.” 

“Who are you,” the philosopher asks, “When no one is around to see?”  This becomes a particular challenge for those of us of the more agnostic and atheistic religious strand.  The theist benefits from a that God always sees.  God, it is promised, knows the loss of each and every sparrow.  God, it is believed, knows our heart.  If God always sees us then our “being” is never left unobserved.  The theist is never, existentially, alone.  Religion has long used this ever-present eye as a way to insure people don’t do ill in the world.  God, after all, will always see.  It is this sense of being seen that they feel leads to ethical and compassionate actions for the theist.

Most of us have tried that way of being—we have tried to imagine a personal God who walks with us, who knows our heart of hearts.  Perhaps some of you have found that God.  I have not.  I think many among us feel our way is different.  We ask “Who are you?” at the most basic—essential—ontological level.  When no one is around to see, or judge, who are you?  I think there is a bit of existential sadness in that stance—perhaps more than a bit.  I wish it weren’t so but our “Being” is ultimately discerned and judged in isolation.  And still, our humanity is only fully present in community.

It is this ultimate existential grounding that compels us to form communities like this one—a religious community, a community of care, a community that helps us discern the worth and meaning of life.  We do this through worship.  We do this through education.  We do this through open, honest and compassionate, connection with other people.  The word “worship” descends from a Old English word that means “Worth”—therefore we gather in this hour to assign worth to the things that call to us and allow them to shape the core of our being.  The word “religion” descends from older words that point toward holding together and connection.  This experience of shaping worth and building connection is real for theist, deist, atheist and agnostic alike,

I have felt in my ministry with many of you, these recent days, both the power of and the fraying of our common connections.  A tragedy like this one both reinforces our bonds and makes us wonder if any bonds can hold through the pain that lives side by side with the joy deep in our being.  I have heard your questions—sometimes voiced and sometimes silent—raised by the recent set of events.  I have heard you ask whether “this,” whether “we,” are enough—whether or not any of this matters.

There is a saying that comes out of the AA—and recovery communities—“It works if you work it.”  I believe we are much more than an AA meeting with better music—but there is wisdom in these words.  This church works if you work it.  I have seen it work for so many of you—over both the long haul and also through the trauma of recent events.

In the last week I have had no fewer than five of our members tell me that they once gave serious thought—and perhaps took action—toward suicide.  Each person assured me that they got help—and it is helping.  I want everyone to know—those who spoke and those who didn’t—that this  kind of revelation from deep in your being is one of the ways this community can function.  When something deep within you reaches out to share a truth you wish weren’t there—honest community is created.  The power of that community can support and hold you—but only if you add to its capital from somewhere deep in your being.

Inherent in our religious stance is the existential individualism I touched on earlier.  The primacy of the nature and character of our being—even when no one is there to see—is inescapable.  This is a great source of power and identity for us—but it is also our greatest flaw and weakness.  We have to move beyond that solitary, inner, world to a life with outward connections.  James Luther Adams speaks of “Intimacy and Ultimacy” as both the need and the characteristic of people in authentic community.  We need the opportunity and experience of being known and knowing others at that existential level of being.  We also need a method and an assurance that we are harnessing the energy and direction of our being into the world in ways that matter.

I’d like to share one specific conversation I had this week.  I took a telephone call from a member of this church.  This person couldn’t believe that Andrew had killed himself.  I sadly confirmed that fact and we visited for about five minutes.  Before hanging up I was given one of the most hopeful and inspiring messages I have heard—this or any week.  “If I ever get to a point like that I promise to call you”  “You know what,” I replied, “I’ll do the same.”

We are a people of promise, a people of covenant.  That covenant is what exists at the deepest level of our institutional being—“Even when no one else is there to see.”  For us, to make a promise is to be religious.  To be religious is to feed our souls at the most basic point of our being.

I know that the world really isn’t that simple.  I know that anyone self-differentiated enough to imagine that promise is likely at low risk of ever committing suicide.  I know that when one is in the depths of despair that it hard to remember—let alone—act on such promises.  Still that moment gave me hope.  The promise of that moment embodies intimacy and ultimacy for me.  That moment reinforced the bonds that link us religiously.  That promise ascribed worth.

I encourage each of you to spend some time in that place where your being resides—that place which is you even when no one else is watching.  I suggest you look to the fears and frustrations that live where no one else can see.  Then I ask you to take the next step—the promising and hopeful step—of naming for yourself a person you would tell if the world ever felt so heavy or empty that you would try to end your life.  Don’t just name that person—go the next step—embody intimacy, ultimacy, connection and worth by telling them.  But don’t stop there either, strive to be in the world in a way that others can confide in you even their most frightful fears and their greatest joys.

In this community we covenant to help one another.  Today I think that means we have to “Be” for one another—and being for one another is among the deepest callings and responsibilities of the Spirit which makes all things new.  AMEN