A few months ago I had an interesting conversation with a group of Christian clergy and lay leaders. We met just a month before my ordination, so that was the starting point of our conversation. The first question went something like, “So … you’re about to be ordained by something called One Spirit? How exactly does this interfaith ordination-thing work?”
Some of you know that I can be … a tiny bit irreverent. I wanted to explain interfaith ordination as an intensely sacred and profound ritual—kinda like the Hogwarts sorting hat in Harry Potter. I did not.
We moved on to talking about my desire to bridge the divide between the “spiritual but not religious” and church communities. Someone asked if I would consider myself a Christian. I explained that I’ve always been fond of a quote from Maya Angelou where she says, “I’m grateful to be a practicing Christian. I’m always amazed when people say, ‘I’m a Christian.’ I think, already? It’s a process. Y’know, you keep trying. And blowing it and trying and blowing it.” So I said, I think of myself as Christian-ing. It’s a work in process. Blank stare. After a few minutes, one of the clergy leaders said, “I realize you’re anti-dogma, anti-church, anti-institution … so I want to know, are you MAD at the church?”
And I realized: there’s something about this interfaith thing that isn’t sitting well with a few people here. It’s like they think I’m cheating on Christianity.
I can’t say this kind of exchange is common but at the same time, it’s not exactly rare. I’m not Christian enough for some traditionalists, and I’m too Christian for some spiritual but not religious. For some progressives, I’m a little too contemplative. For some contemplatives, I’m a little too interfaith. And I just want to admit here—in front of God and everybody—that I plead guilty to all that and more.
This unity thing … this unity of all believers is an admirable goal. But we gotta move beyond tolerating others to focus on honoring the Divine Mystery that connects us.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he’s pleading for unity among the early Christian communities. In the opening line, I would say he’s kinda guilt-tripping them, where he says that he’s currently locked up. The deal is, he’s been imprisoned for preaching that gentiles—non-Jews, outsiders, former pagans—could follow “the way” of Jesus. The two groups, Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians were … a tad at odds with each other.
The Jewish Christians wanted Gentiles to convert first to Judaism and keep the laws and “tradition” that rooted Jesus and his message. The Gentile Christians, though, wanted to follow the Jesus who pointed to a new understanding of the law and tradition. So this letter, this encyclical, is like an old-school direct mail piece to the Gentile Christians in Ephesus. Paul’s opening reference—that he’s in chains for the Master—that’s his way of saying, hey, remember that I’m kinda in this spot because I advocated for you guys … so you might wanna hear me out.
And he reminds them: look, you are part of one larger community—you are more than the divisions you’re focusing on. You believe in the same God—regardless how you came to this belief. He says the way forward is with humility and discipline, to be able to note the differences while mending fences. And even more, we have to go toward God as one, both inwardly and outwardly.
Because … If we truly believe that we are all weirdly, inexplicably connected … there is no them. There is only US. One interconnected, wildly messy and complicated US. That’s not to pave over all our differences, our individuality. We are called to hold both our interconnectedness and our individuality in a both-and relationship. We have to choose to embrace paradox. That means we have work to do. We have spiritual work to do.
Two years ago I was taking a class on prejudice—how to be aware of it, not how to get more of it. Reverend Mark Fowler was our professor; he’s deputy CEO of Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding in New York City. In preparation for the course, we were asked to take any five of the online Harvard Implicit Association tests. The tests deal with our implicit bias around categories such as weight, disability, race, gender, skin tone, gay/straight, women and family and men and careers, religion, Arab/Muslim, Asian. And there are two new ones since back then: presidential bias, and racial white/black associations with weapons and harmless objects. I have flyers in the back that list the website if you want to check these out.
Here’s how the test works: After you answer a few simple questions about your preferences around the topic you’ve selected, you view a variety of images and words and quickly associate them into particular groups. For example, you may be shown a group of “positive words” like lovely, happy, smiling—and whenever these show up on screen, you need to click a key with your right hand. And there may be words they’ve assigned to a “negative group,” words like disgust, sneering, awful—every time those show up on screen, you click a key with your left hand. You take this part as quickly as you can while still striving to be accurate.
Back to our class on prejudice. Rev Mark asked us to email him the results of the five tests so that he could get a sense of us. The first thing he calls our attention to is that of the 70 people in our class, only 10 of us chose to take the implicit bias tests related to religion. He was like, really? You people are studying religion and only a handful of y’all wanted to find out how ya might view religions? Lesson #1.
At one point he opens it up for us to share our impressions of the tests and any surprises we may have had. Well… you should have heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth of us bleeding heart liberals (I self-identify here) saying how the test is totally inaccurate, and there’s no way we have even the slightest leaning toward sexism or racism or any other -ism. We backed that up with stories around how we make a point of holding the door for a person of color, or how we make sure we have a diverse group of people in meetings to discuss key issues.
The point is, the test is intended to reflect IMPLICIT bias. This is the stuff that we’re not completely conscious of that influences our behaviors. So humbling. So painfully insightful.
The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung talked about the metaphorical shadow. The personal shadow is where we tuck away, out of sight, all that stuff we say we aren’t, what we don’t wanna be, the qualities we refuse to be. The shadow is the dark side of our personality—anything we consider evil, inferior, unacceptable.
If I’m convinced I could never behave like so-and-so … Yeah, I might have some shadow around that. If I say, there is no way I have issues around Muslims. Or, that point of view is the stupidist thing I’ve ever heard. Do you hear my self-righteousness, my utter disdain? Is it possible that in that moment I have lost true insight and wandered over into self-justification? Hello, shadow. (Oh, and if I’m pretty sure I have nothing in my shadow … well … that could suggest it’s a lot larger than the average one, ha.) The thing is, the human shadow—when we name it and work with it—is a great teacher to help us show up as the kind of people we actually want to be in the world, not just the people we think we are.
Jung also talked about the collective shadow. Nations, organizations, communities, religions —these collective bodies all have shadows, too. And again: It’s only when we refuse to acknowledge the shadow … that’s when it has great power and becomes dangerous. It’s like pushing a beach ball under water … eventually that sucker is gonna pop up. And the deeper we push it down, the stronger it’s gonna pop.
There are leading social psychologists who SUGGEST that the rise of nationalism, xenophobia, and religious intolerance we are seeing around the world—that this is the collective shadow popping up. This may or may not be true. One of the most difficult things to do when we’re in the midst of a cultural shift of this size is to accurately diagnose it. That said, I hear a number of leaders saying things like, “This is NOT who we are. We are not a nation that separates families.” Or, “We are not a country that condones violence.” And I think, well … it would be more honest to say, this is not who we want to be. But to say that’s not who we are? It may sound like semantics, but I’m not sure it’s just words. Because this is not the first time our nation has had a policy of separating families. And we, WE —this intricately and mysteriously connected vine of humanity—WE are separating families today. As painful as that is to say, we cannot heal a collective problem if we do not own it, collectively.
So what is our path forward?
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there is something known as the Shambhala teachings. The Shambhala teachings are based on the understanding that there is an innate human wisdom we can connect to—to help solve the world’s problems. This wisdom does not belong to any one tradition or region of the world or particular people. It is a universal tradition of human warriorship that has existed throughout the ages. The teachings say that in the midst of societal crisis, Shambhala warriors rise to lead their people through chaos. Shambhala warriors are not warriors in the sense of fighting and aggression. Shambhala warriors are those who are brave AND simultaneously kind. And what’s interesting is that the Shambhala definition of bravery is not being afraid—of yourself. We have to be able to see what we don’t want to see about ourselves. We have to be clear-sighted. It’s Jesus’s teaching that we remove the log from our own eye before removing the speck from someone else’s. We have to do our own work.
The way forward is embracing paradox—being brave and kind. It’s embracing both-and answers—as well as no answers, sitting in mystery. As post-modern, intellectually inclined folk, we tend to prefer answers over mystery. We have a preference for action over contemplation. Head- over heart-centered spirituality. I’m not saying we have no place for mystery, no heart-centered spirituality. I’m suggesting that we could do better at balancing them.
And the way forward also calls us to reclaim some spiritual values that we may have placed on a shelf at some point, for any number of reasons. Humility, forgiveness, equanimity, discernment. I have yet to find a spiritual tradition that doesn’t have these values, and more, at their core. If we are going to show up as brave and kind warriors in the midst of chaos, we need to consider training for these qualities. It’s not enough to be kind and brave on behalf of the outsiders, the poor, the oppressed. We do have to do that, of course—and do everything possible to equal the playing field. And … we have to see the divine mystery inside of the oppressors. The people who tick us off. The bullies, the liars, the people who abuse power. That’s not as easy. That requires spiritual practice.
We need to train ourselves to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. We live in a culture that values speed, constant action, and “being productive.” In fact, there’s a Buddhist teacher who says that the West’s form of laziness is “being busy.” In other words, it’s our go-to distraction to keep us from doing our own work. Spiritual practice builds spiritual muscle. I personally don’t care whether it’s an “official spiritual practice” or something that is spiritual for you, which may be different than what is spiritual for me. I do want us to ask ourselves some tough, honest questions:
- What activity will both nourish my spirit WHILE making me more patient, generous, compassionate, and brave over time? What is mine to do?
- Can I engage in this activity regularly rather than in fits and starts? In other words, can I practice?
- As a result of this practice, do I get occasional “aha” moments that can be insightful and maybe even uncomfortably revealing? Does it contribute to my growth, not just comfort me?
We are living in a time when we need the rise of more and more Shambhala warriors. And wishing doesn’t make that come true. We have work to do. We have work to do on a spiritual level to find our way through the world.
This unity thing is not easy. But I don’t think any one of us showed up here, in this place, today because we were looking for easy answers. We come together as a community seeking transformation—for ourselves and for the world. And we hold to this deeper truth that everything we are and think and do is permeated with Oneness. May it be so.
[Sermon delivered to Umstead Park United Church of Christ on Aug. 5, 2018; also created the the worship service itself]
InSight Ministry 