First Parish Unitarian UniversalistQuestion Mark with Attitude
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
October 15, 2006
READING
by Rainer M. Rilke (1875 - 1926 / Germany) in Letters to a Young Poet, 1903
I would like to beg you… as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
SERMON
Not long ago, someone was telling me that he was tired of all our questions. That’s all Unitarian Universalists have is questions, he said. “I don’t want any more QUESTIONS. I want ANSWERS!”
In my mind, I flashed forward to my sermon titles for September: two of three ended with questions marks! Uh-oh!
I can sympathize with our friend. I think it’s only human to want answers to life’s questions, large and small. What is the meaning of my life? for now? In the long run? What is love? What is just? Justice? Are we just biologically wired to have intimations of the divine or is there actually God? What and who am I called to be? How can I live within my means? What is enough?
I assume that most of us do want answers. Maybe what makes Unitarian Universalists different, and what may make Unitarian Universalism tiring, is that our answers come from our own and shared experience and insights, not from the scriptures or doctrine or ecclesiastical structure.
I was reminded of that on Monday night at the “Seasons of Sharing” event sponsored by the Sharon Interfaith Youth Group, an evening of learning about Judaism and Islam. For the ifthar, the break fast meal each day of Ramadan (the month of fasting in Islam), we were directed to sit at a table with people we didn’t know. So, I put on my extroverted face and headed toward two women wearing head scarves and a few small children.
We did get to talking, mainly about Ramadan and our experience of fasting. They seemed pleasantly surprised to learn I was fasting too and wanted to know how I’d found it so far. “I’m hungry” I quipped.
No, seriously, I also said that I was learning a lot about myself and my habits around food and how accustomed I am to eating when I’m hungry, especially when I am working at home. I told them that fasting is teaching me how difficult it is to be productively focused in the afternoon, and thus giving me new empathy for people who are chronically hungry. Also, I’m wondering how to somehow experience the physical emptiness of hunger as spiritually fulfilling.
They talked about how they benefit all year long from their exercise of discipline during Ramadan, and how it teaches them patience with themselves and others. And, of course, they enjoy the daily celebrations with family and friends that break the fast, bringing people together. They invited me to break the fast with them at their mosque in Sharon over the weekend, and I thanked them and said I might--but I was forgetting I had a wedding rehearsal on Friday night and the wedding last night. And, tonight, I think I might just need to be at home. Maybe next weekend.
But the part of the conversation that ties to this sermon came when I asked them if they knew anything about Unitarian Universalism. One of the women thought for a moment and said, “I’m sorry to admit, the only thing I know is that you are open to everybody.” I acknowledged that we hope that is true of us, that we want it to be true of us that we are welcoming. I explained that among us are theists, atheists and agnostics, people of various prior faith backgrounds (even for a while a Muslim who grew up in Iran) and no faith background, and that we all share a common pursuit of living an ethical life.
To which she replied, “well, what do you draw on for your sermons, do you have a scripture?” I explained that I draw on a variety of sources, including the Bible, other scriptures of the world’s religions, often poetry, sometimes the news, and—thinking of today’s sermon—I said “and next week I’m using a cartoon.” I think that may have been too much freedom of the pulpit, for her!
But, it is in my house, and some of yours as well (so I hear), Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman’s comic strip Zits is practically gospel. Actually, our son was not much like Jeremy, the teen in Zits. But, I am a lot like the mother.
For example, a Zits strip a few years ago was posted on our refrigerator for my benefit. It showed the family car pulling out of the driveway of their suburban home. The son is in the driver’s seat. The mother is in the passenger seat with her head tucked in under the dashboard and you can see her hands gripping the seat edge. The boy says something like, “you’d be a much better teacher if you’d open your eyes.”
When our son was first learning to drive, his older sister told him this about her experience: “I didn’t get my license right away because I thought I didn’t like driving. But then I realized it was just driving-with-Mom that I didn’t like!”
Last week’s Zits cartoon was me to a “t” too. Maybe you saw it? The mother is replacing the light bulb in a table lamp in the living room and turns toward Jeremy who is slouched in an overstuffed arm chair (one of his favorite perches) with his cell phone in hand. He must be on the phone with his friend Pierce, the very pierced drummer in their rock band. Because Jeremy says, “Mom, Pierce says you should look at the comics today. Just log onto the newspaper’s website, click “entertainment,” and then select “comics” in the pulldown menu. Then scroll down to that one you like.”
He goes on with his instructions, which I’ll relay in a moment, but first, for the other non-techies here this morning, the expression “text me” means to send a written message, rather than a verbal one, via your cell phone.
So, Jeremy instructs his mother, after she scrolls down to that comic she likes, “Then text me with your reaction and I’ll forward it to Pierce’s phone.”
The mother says, as she steps away from the side table, burned out light bulb in hand, and the table surface in sight, on which sits the newspaper, “Or, I could reach all the way over there and pick up the actual newspaper.”
And Jeremy says, “Well, yeah, if you want to be all old school about it.”
That’s me, old school. Anyway, enough cartoons… well, actually, I want to tell you about one more.
Living the questions, as in the Reading this morning by the German poet Rainer M. Rilke, was a bit of a theme on the funny pages on September 17 th. In addition to the Zits cartoon you found on your pew this morning, the one called Opus on the front page was also perfect for our liberal religion…
Opus, who is (improbably) a penguin, is sitting out under the night sky looking up at the stars with his human friend Auggie. Opus says, “Auggie, ol’ buddy…ever wonder how all of this came to be?” Auggie says, “You don’t believe in God, Opus?” “I’m a penguin. We’re not sure what we believe in….except purpose. We believe in having a purpose. Also lots of squid.” Auggie counters, “That’s ridiculous. If you think this is all just a cosmic accident, you’re left purposeless!” And Opus retorts, “I’m not purposeless!”
As Auggie lies down in the grass, Auggie mutters, “Yeah, well, if we really are merely atoms bumping around by chance, there’s little hope for finding meaning in life.” He yawns and, presumably, is soon asleep.
In the next frame, a few big fat rain drops are falling. Opus looks up at the sky, catches a raindrop in his hand and says, “Ah. LIFE’S MEANING [shown in bolded letters].”
Next, we see Opus gently placing his big puffy hat under Auggie’s sleeping head for a pillow, saying “Maybe it’s not so much found…” and, then, Opus takes his coat off and is laying it over Auggie to cover him.
In the final frame, the rain is pouring down and Opus is standing in the rain, holding his umbrella over the still-sleeping Auggie. Opus concludes, “[Maybe it’s not so much found]…as it is made.” Maybe the meaning in life is not so much found, as it is made.
We come here on Sunday mornings in part to make meaning in our lives. We come to pause amid our busyness, the business of daily life, and to reflect on its meaning and, even more so I suggest, to make our life’s meaning.
As Opus said, we have to make the meaning, and I think we often do that best when we pose careful questions of God if by that name we worship, ourselves, those we love, and even of those with whom we share this religious community.
It’s so easy to skim along on the surface of life, fulfilling what we must do for others—at work or school, at home, in our volunteer commitments— but not tending to our own deeper needs. Isn’t coming here, to worship, a sign that we want to make deeper meanings for ourselves?
Some of us are uncomfortable with the word “worship,” maybe because it connotes “submission” as in “bowing down” and, while we don’t mind a little humility (in fact, we value it), we do mind humiliation and anything that diminishes our own sense of agency, our own ability to discern right from wrong--our direct experience of awe and wonder, confession and forgiveness, blessing and warning. But, “submission” is not what worship is about for us. So, for those who are uncomfortable about “worship” for that reason, I suggest that “worship” is a word to reclaim.
In fact, in recent weeks when I invited suggestions for my sermon series on reclaiming religious language, someone gave me the word “worship.”
The word “worship” at its roots simply means the naming and shaping of things of worth, of greatest value. It is the naming and shaping of that which we hold most dear, most deeply feel. Its roots are in the words “worth” and “shape”—worth-ship.
And the word “liturgy,” which commonly means the prescribed form or set of forms for public religious worship, as in our Order of Worship, actually at its roots means “the work of the people.” It comes from los , people + ergon , work
So, you see, the meanings of these words are definitely reclaimable by us as religious liberals, as Unitarian Universalists. When we gather on Sunday mornings, we may hope to be cosmically inspired, but we all pretty much know that naming and shaping that which is of worth—making meaning, as Opus would say—
is as much, if not more, our own work in the pews as it is the work of the minister or music.
Yes, while we do gather here for community, for music, for silence, for inspiration… we also come to worship, that is, to name and shape, to remind ourselves of our deepest values and highest desires. We come to make deeper the meaning of our lives.
We have to make the meaning in life, and I think we often do that best when we pose careful questions of God if by that name we worship, ourselves, those we love, and even of those with whom we share this religious community.
What is the meaning of my life, for now? In the long run? What is love? What is just? Justice? Is there actually God or are humans just biologically wired to have intimations of the divine? What and who am I called to be? How can I live within my means? What is enough?
In the Zits cartoon you found on your pew*, Jeremy’s question mark tattoo is made of barbed wire and he says it has “attitude.” At that age, many of us are (or were) a bit defended or defensive—no one, especially not our parents, can tell us who we are or what to believe. But over the course of life, if we’ve reflected deeply on our experience, we hope that our question marks lose their barbs… And are surrounded by lots of exclamation marks, representing the surprises and miracles, the insights and realizations, we’ve met along the way.
The longer we live, the more questions we’ve inevitably answered, many of them more than once, the more reflectively the better the answers go…
Whom to befriend, whom to love and for how long, what schooling to pursue, what work to do, what to spend our money on and whether to give any away and if so how much and to whom, whether to participate in the American democracy and if so guided by what vision of our country, and what living faith to go by.
The older we get, the less driven by our questions we hope to feel. But it’s precisely the looking back at how our lives have unfolded to now that helps us see the meaning of it all…that we really have been living our questions into answers.
Let us now take a few minutes to each reflect on the questions we are living into answers in our own lives. Silence.
May this house of worship, this sanctuary of memory and hope, be a place—our place—for raising our questions and for living our questions into answers.
So may it be! Amen.
*Zits on September 17, 2006:
Pierce: You should totally get a bicep tattoo. Jeremy: What kind of tattoo? Pierce: I don’t know…something that says who you are and what you believe in. Jeremy: I got it. Hand me that pen. (writing) Something…like…this? Pierce: It looks like a barbed wire question mark. Jeremy: Signifying that I’m not sure who I am or what I believe in. But with attitude!