First Parish Unitarian UniversalistWho Am I?
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
March 9, 2003
Reading: Hebrew Scriptures, 1 Samuel 3:1-10
Has God ever come to you in a dream, like Samuel? directly to you? Have you ever heard a “still small voice” give guidance as you made an important decision? Have you ever witnessed thunder and lightning or a burning bush and taken it as a sign to direct you on your path?
How do you discern what is right when you are considering a change in your life? When you’ve considered a new job or career; a new relationship or making new demands on an old one, or ending it; when you were looking at colleges or a graduate program; wanting to start a new exercise regimen, put money into a new hobby, enter therapy; possibly move (maybe to assisted living or to a different town)? How do you discern what to do or not do?
How do you discern what is right regarding public issues and your responsibility as a citizen in a democracy? How do you discern what is right regarding the possible declaration of war by the United States against Iraq? Is the discernment process about public affairs the same as in your personal affairs?
How have you made, how are you making, your life decisions?
Have you ever been visited by the voice of God in a dream? Three times in a row? Remember how Samuel was sleeping in the temple when he heard a voice call his name? Presuming it was the elderly, nearly blind priest Eli, calling for help from his room, Samuel went to him and said, “Here I am!” And Eli said “I did not call you; go back to sleep!” Samuel lay down again and again he heard a voice call, “Samuel!” And again he went to Eli, who sleepily told him to go back to sleep. I guess Eli didn’t like being woken up, or maybe he didn’t like to think he was talking in his sleep! Samuel went back and lay down, and again he heard his name.
The next time, Eli roused himself enough to realize that it must be God speaking to Samuel. So he instructed Samuel how to listen for the word of God. “If he calls again, say, ‘speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’”
How do you listen for God’s guidance?
Perhaps you do not think of it as “God’s guidance.” We may speak of it as discernment or intuition, or as “listening to our gut” or as Joseph Campbell would say “following our bliss.” But, however we speak of it, we each need ways to give soulful consideration to significant decisions.
I have a friend who says, “I’m going to cast the question out into the universe and see what answer I get.” She doesn’t mean that the heavenly bodies are going to call down an answer as to what she should do next in life. She means that she feels held by the universe, perhaps as some feel held by the love of God. She means that, if she is able to name her specific truest, deepest, highest hopes, without expectation of a particular outcome but with open heart, mind and hands…she is sure that something will open up for her, a sense of direction will soon evolve and that if she follows that direction with courage, it will lead somewhere good.
She’s quite the extrovert. I can’t quite imagine myself announcing my most personal quandaries to the entire universe!
My mode is more one of intuition, growing into an answer by seeing how it feels, how I feel, and what happens, as I move along in that direction. I look for a sense of rightness and signs showing the way.
Is my intuition the voice of God? Not to me. But, some fourteen years ago, when my father was ailing with cancer, I asked him what God was to him and his response was “a sense of rightness that comes, sometimes, in the living of our lives.” In that sense, maybe it is God I seek as I intuit or discern a new direction.
Well, I returned to First Parish last weekend, after my four weeks of sabbatical, quite rested and refreshed, and with several new resolves, born of intuition and reflection, to put into action in my work as your minister. But, an opportunity has come my way that may, if I say yes to it and the Parish Committee gives its blessing, be a distraction from those resolves, at least for the next few months.
The opportunity? I was invited to join a just-forming interfaith group of Boston-area clergy planning a peace delegation to North Korea in late April or early May.
The resolves? To take the time for inner work, for “being” rather than “doing, doing, doing” and grow as a spiritual leader who can lead from within, helping this congregation to find deeper purpose for itself in the months and years to come.
Resolves, or opportunity? As you might well imagine, these days I am in the throes of being the “listening servant.” But, I don’t feel like Samuel. I’ve not been called three times. Rather, I feel more like Moses who said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh to bring my people…out of Egypt?”
Who am I that I should go to North Korea? What qualifications could I possibly have for this? Why me? I’ve got a job to do here at First Parish and a family, and I’ve very recently been apart from both. This will take me away again, and require significant before and after organizing effort. I know very little about North Korea. I’ve never even been interested in visiting that part of the world.
Besides, it could be dangerous. We know they have at least one nuclear bomb, while US warships sit ominously in the waters nearby. Just this past week, the skies over head were anything but friendly. Plus, the FBI would probably have files on us by time we get back, for visiting one of the three so-called “axes of evil!” I don’t really want to risk my personal civil liberties for peace.
Send someone else. That’s what Moses said in the end, “send someone else.”
But, it’s Moses’ first response that echoes most in my mind these days, as I decide how to respond to this opportunity. “Who am I to go? Who am I?” That, I think, is the question at the heart of any of our best ways to make important life decisions. Not, who do others say I am, but “Who do I say I am?” Not, what will I get, but “who will I be?” Not, what will this do for me, but “What do I have to offer?”
I invite you now to think for a moment of one of your most recent difficult decisions—were you, “to thine own self,” true? Did you ask yourself, in one way or another—prayer, discernment, intuition, gut feeling, bliss-following—did you ask yourself, “Who am I?” Did you relate your truest, highest, deepest hopes to the decision at hand? I believe a sense of rightness comes when we are true to ourselves and honor our best hopes, as best we can.
The sense of rightness hasn’t come to me on this one, yet! I made these resolves at the end of my sabbatical, and I really don’t want anything to get in their way. To become the kind of spiritual leader I want to become, the visionary who leads from within, will be difficult enough, without this distraction. On the other hand, as they say, life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.
There’s an interesting little twist in this story. Maybe it’s an uncanny sign pointing me in the direction of joining the delegation, like a burning bush of sorts. It happened during my day at the United Nations the week I was in New York City helping my sister and her husband with their newborn twins. I arranged to obtain a pass from the Unitarian Universalist UN Office (you can do that, too, if you visit the UN). It entitled me to attend a briefing that morning by organizations working with youth round the world. It was rather disappointing, but on the way out I picked up a flyer announcing a far more timely briefing, about the Nuclear Crisis on the Korean Peninsula! With the Ambassador from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (ie, North Korea) himself speaking, as well as two American experts on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty! I was so excited, and hoped the guard in the hallway would not notice that my pass was only good for the earlier briefing!
I slipped in and took a seat at the edge of the room. There was a head table for the speakers at the open end of a long U of tables, where there was a set of headphones at every seat, for simultaneous translation into the six official UN languages, the most spoken languages in the world: Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish. The room was warm and it was full; some people were using the headphones; there were cameras. During the Question and Answer time, I learned there were reporters present as well as representatives of concerned non-governmental organizations; most were probably staff from the various UN member states. The Ambassador spoke in English and read from a prepared text, as did the two American speakers.
I will tell you about what I heard in that briefing, in another sermon in a week or two. Then I can take the time to place what I heard that day in its historical context. I’ve begun a crash course in Korean history, with an emphasis on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and I would appreciate any help you can offer. I will share what I am learning with you, so that if I go, you will feel like you are going with me.
Having heard now about that briefing, I hope you will appreciate my conflicted reaction when my friend called and said, “do you want to go to North Korea on a peace mission?” Part of me said, “so that’s why I got to go to that briefing at the UN” while the other part said, “Me? Go to North Korea? Who am I to do that?!!”
I’ve begun to answer that question for myself. Who am I to go? I am someone who is filled with foreboding by current US foreign policy. I am fearful of its new defense policy, which takes our nuclear arsenal out of the locked cupboard marked “for defensive purposes only,” where it’s been for fifty years, and puts it all on an open shelf with conventional, biological, and chemical weapons, ready for preemptive use. This is scary beyond comprehension.
Who am I to go? I am a person of hope and of faith, someone who believes that people-to-people contact provides a necessary support to diplomatic initiatives between governments.
Who am I to go? I would go because, to my knowledge, this American peace delegation to North Korea is a first begging to happen. I would go because the Korean pastor inspiring it fears for the safety of his people, longs for the reunification of the Korean peninsula as a democracy, and is convinced this delegation will help his dreams come true. I would go because I know my Unitarian Universalist faith perspective will be useful and unique in fostering dialogue within the delegation. I would go because there is no Unitarian Universalist activity on this issue yet, and there should be. I would go because my organizational and communication skills would be of use to the group. I would go because I am as scared and reluctant as I am intrigued and compelled.
And, finally, somewhat facetiously, I would go because then I would have good reason to say “no” to any other requests for my time and energy!
Seriously, I am a servant listening now, still listening for a sense of rightness. Among the voices to which I will be listening will be yours. To that end, I will attend the Sermon Circle today to answer questions as best I can if there is interest. And I expect to have a preliminary conversation with the Parish Committee, our governing board, at its meeting on Tuesday night.
I ask you to hold me in your thoughts and prayers during this time of discernment for me, as I do for you when you seek answers to the harder questions in your lives.
For all of us, may the answers come.
May they come calling to us in our dreams, thundering down from the heavens, whispering in our ears, singing a song in our hearts. May they come slowly, signs pointing each step of the way. May they come quickly, with easy assurance.
However, from wherever, they come, may we have the wisdom to respond, “I am listening!”
Amen.