Note: the following sermon was written for my colleagues in One Spirit Interfaith Seminary, the month before our ordination.
When I was 24, I moved to cross-country from San Francisco to Minneapolis so I could pursue a master’s in music performance. Like most 20-somethings, I was idealistic and filled with resolve. I’d joined the church the year before, so I was totally focused on finding a way to use my God-given gifts to make the world a little brighter, in my own small way. The thing is, I wasn’t a community builder or a social justice activist—but I’d been a musician since I was 9. So music seemed like the one thing I could do with a sacred focus. I would pursue a mission of music.
So I loaded up the car and moved to Minneapolis. I didn’t know a soul. That itself was overwhelming. I rented a quaint little 1-bedroom apartment in an ivy-covered brick building that seemed perfect. But two days later I broke my lease, paid a hefty fine, and moved out because, oops, I’d naively chosen a part of the city featured on the nightly news for random shootings. I pounded the proverbial pavement and strung together three part-time jobs – jobs that sucked the life right out of me. But I remained focused on my mission. And then, when it was time to register for classes, I hit a wall. The music department told me they didn’t have room for me to study with the graduate flute studio instructors; I’d been assigned to the undergraduate instructor instead. Oh, and only undergraduate students were allowed to participate in the performance groups. That’s like telling a law student that she’ll need to learn her trial skills by sitting in the gallery of the local courthouse. All of it, the whole situation, began to sink in. I realized that if I continued on this path, in two years I’d be $36,000 in debt, competing for 2 to 4 orchestral positions per year across the entire nation, and doing so without the proper performance experience. My mission seemed riddled with problems.
I made an appointment with Bishop Michael at the Basilica, where I both worshiped and worked one of my part-time jobs. Through a hot mess of sobs and sniffles, I asked, how do I know what God wants for me–from me? Why does God give us gifts if we’re not able to live them out? How do I know whether God is showing me a flaming red arrow to go back home or whether it’s a spiritual test I’m supposed to persevere?
Bishop Michael paused, leaned back in his creaky wooden office chair, and said, “Sometimes you just need to live the question.” This was such a perfectly wise answer—that made absolutely no sense to me. I’m pretty sure my next thought was, is strangling a Bishop an extra-extra mortal sin or just an average mortal sin?
As we, the One Spirit class of 2018, stand on the threshold of ordination, we are likely to have our own struggles in living out our sacred callings. No two paths are alike. Yet they all share a few key questions –questions that, as Rilke said, we’ll need to live so that we can eventually live our way into the answers.
Are we convinced we know where we’re going? Some of our classmates have been officiating life cycle events for years and probably know enough to teach their own courses on sacred ceremonies. They have a good idea of their ministry going forward. Others have found new callings, through spiritual counseling, grief work, sacred activism, and more. They have a beautiful sense of purpose they’ve never felt before. And they may be in the process of creating a “heart plan,” as one of our colleagues calls spiritual-business plans. And then there’s some of us who aren’t entirely sure how to answer the question, “Hey, Lynn, you’ve just been ordained—what are you going to do with that?”
Perhaps I’m a tiny bit biased, but I’d like to think that the less we know, the better off we might be. Allow me to sacrilegiously paraphrase the Sermon on the Mount: blessed are the clueless, for we will be open to new expressions of the Holy.
I’m not saying that anyone who senses a direction should throw it all away. I’m suggesting, let’s hold that direction lightly. If we are absolutely sure we know the way forward, well … it’s possible—maybe—that it’s ego dressed up in spiritual clothing.
What we can do instead is follow each Divine Nudge—and not get attached to it. Each nudge may be a stepping stone to something more beautiful than the path we THOUGHT we were walking.
Because the truth is, we each have more than one gift to offer at any second we’re alive. We also have more than “one right path” to pursue. But on any given day, our helpful little ego-minds will tell us that our ministering should look like THIS. Our communities will cry out, we need you to do this and to BE this! And our loving family and friends will have other ideas for us. And yet. And yet. We need to keep checking in with our still small voice. A lot. In fact, probably more than we think is necessary.
CS Lewis said: “It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day.”
Another question to live: Is it time to try something else or stay the course? As we make our way, we are likely to face some significant challenges. They might be financial, or related to our lack of experience in a particular area, or we might experience significant resistance within the community we serve. It also could be “E,” all of the above.
I happen to believe that many of our setbacks and brick walls are life’s spiritual practices for surrender, of letting go. In Gandhi’s list of 7 Deadly Sins, he includes “religion without sacrifice.” I have some religious baggage around the word “sacrifice.” But what I think he’s suggesting is that every spiritual journey requires an honest practice of letting go. My biggest and most frequent lesson—because apparently I need it—is to sacrifice my perception of sacrifice. I have to constantly redefine, reshape, and undo my very understanding of letting go.
It might be that what we need to release is some limiting belief or behavior that had a long track record of working for us. Until it didn’t.
So in the midst of our struggle, we can ask ourselves: what’s our growing edge in this situation? Or maybe, what would my dean assign me as a stretch goal? Have I typically been very self-sufficient and now I need to ask for help? Is this an opportunity to deeply practice self-care? Is there a different perspective that’s trying to get my attention? Maybe I’ve convinced myself there’s one right way to see this situation and its resolution. Maybe I’ve always believed that “doing” is better than “being,” and now I need to find balance. Or maybe most of my life has been devoted to quiet acceptance and now I need to speak up and step out. Underneath it all is, What can I let go of so that I can embrace Spirit more fully?
Finally, do we need to reconsider what success looks like? Based on my own experience, this is a third little pothole along on our paths. Our Western culture emphasizes that bigger is better. We want lots of people to attend our retreats, our talks, our monthly meditation group. We keep track of how many weddings, blessings, and funerals we officiate in a year. In fact, we may even be drawn to spiritual role models because they have a number of best-selling books, land a spot on Super Soul Sunday, and forge a spiritual path where no one’s gone before. These are fabulous accomplishments, don’t get me wrong. I just wonder if we’re confusing success with … well, success.
My sister Laura and her husband Bruce are retired, and they moved from Illinois to Hawai’i to live the good life. (Jealous? Yeah, me, too.) A couple of years ago she had an idea to buy a place she could turn into a retreat house that ministers on any of the islands could afford to stay in for recharging their spirits. She assembled a group of spiritual advisors to function as a Quaker Clearness Committee. As part of her research, she then networked her way to various others across the US who had created retreat centers. She developed a business plan, which was a spiritual stretch for her, she told me. Last year they sold their house and invested a fair amount of their retirement savings to purchase a small house on a big plot of land that seemed a perfect setting. Since then, they’ve spent untold hours clearing the land to create a walking path for future retreatants, hired an architect to remodel the house, and created an online presence. When I talked to her a couple months ago, though, they’d put whole project on hold. She’d learned that regardless how affordable she made their rates, ministers on other islands couldn’t even afford the airfare to island-hop.
So here’s the question: If she’s not able to bring her vision of this retreat center to fruition, for whatever reason, does it mean she hasn’t been successful? Does it mean her vision was wrong? Most of us are kind, compassionate folks who don’t ever want to label someone else’s vision a failure. So let me ask that differently: if we were in her shoes, what would we think?
Here’s a slightly different perspective. After they die, what if a group buys that property because, with all the work Laura and Bruce started, they can actually see its potential to become … a wildlife visitor center? Or a camp for underprivileged youth? What if, without Laura and Bruce taking the steps they’d taken, these folks wouldn’t have been able to envision this potential? Wouldn’t have been able to fulfill their own dreams? Is it possible that our path, our vision, our calling is never just ours? What if our so-called success is intricately bound up with those who have come before us as well as those who will come after?
If we truly believe that we are all connected, maybe the measure of success is never individual. Maybe our faithfulness to doing what’s right in front of us—doing what we can, where we can, without judging the results –maybe that’s the fullness of our calling. Maybe it’s never been about us. Maybe it’s always about … US.
I’d like to leave you with this excerpt from a homily written by Father Ken Utener. Pope Francis quoted this a few years ago in an address to the Roman Curia.
Prophets of a Future Not Our Own
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
May it be so for all of us, too.
InSight Ministry 