Did you know that the earliest known poem in the English language is a little hymn to summer?
Summer is acummen in,
Loude singe cukkoo.
Here comes summer.
Sing forth the joyeous word, cuckoo.
I hope you feel that way. I certainly do. Cukkoo, of course, has a second connotation these days. It's not just a sweet singing bird any longer, but also a person who's a little off his rocker.
So translated, the old poem might read: "Here comes summer. Do something outrageous."
But I've already preached that sermon this year. So for counterpoise, this morning instead I'd like to suggest that we each take a little time out as the days are long and the pace eases, to simplify our lives, which can best be done by putting our spiritual households in order.
One old fashioned term for this, which also has a summery ring to it, is spiritual refreshment. Another is spiritual discipline. They may at first seem contradictory, these two descriptions, but certainly they don't have to be.
I admit, the term spiritual discipline does have a kind of ominous ring to it, evoking images of tattered saints expatriated from the world, desert or garret creatures forever lost in contemplation. And, indeed, spiritual discipline can entail all that and more.
For instance, a common type of spiritual discipline, one which stems from early Christian roots, roots planted in the soil of the sectarian Jewish Qumran
Covenanting Community -- the community of the dead sea scrolls -- and which also flourished in the early Christian monasteries, has just such a flavor. Marked by a radical dualism, the object of spiritual discipline so defined is to free oneself from the fetters of the world in an attempt to be purlfied in anticipation of inclusion in the Kingdom to come.
This form of spiritual discipline, types of which are evidenced by many of the cults which have so great an appeal to some young people today, is distinguished by four characteristics. First, it is anti-worldly. Accordingly, there is little impetus for any expression of societal concern or social commitment.
Second, it presumes the presence of demons, world spirits, which must be battled constantly to be kept at bay. Third, it demands that the disciple, this being where the word disciple comes from, spend hours every day contemplating God. And, finally, it proposes a radical discontinuity between this world and the next.
Almost every form of Christian spiritual discipline is predicated upon the existence of paradise. One lives not so much for today, but for the eschaton, the final day, which once having come will last forever.
Now I admit that it is surely possible through a regimen of prayer, abstinence, and disengagement from worldly doings and strivings, to attain a kind of mystical remove. I not only do not question the religious validity of this approach, but even have found it at times in my own life perversely attractive.
For instance, almost 20 years ago, when I was an Intern minister at the Stanford University Chapel, for six months I followed a regimen whereby I would go to bed at one and awaken at 5, proceed to spend the morning drinking lapsong tea and reading philosophy and the afternoon serving as Guru and guide to a few ragtail disciples; evenings I listened to Mahler and read Milton, the two primary sources for my eschatological vision.
I lost thirty pounds, grew a long red beard, got a crew cut, and ffnally collapsed. Though my friends were not impressed in the least, it was all very dramatic. I was positive that I had consumption or some equally romantic 19th century disease.
I can still remember how scornful the doctor was. She told me that I was behaving like a little idiot, and that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me that a little more sleep and a little less tea would not cure. She told me she never wanted to see me again. I never wanted to see her again either, so I intentionally cast myself from grace, abrogated my regimen, and began to follow the somewhat less presumptuous spiritual path which led me to Unitarian Universalism.
From that experience, however, I discovered first hand one of the principal dangers of spiritual discipline so def~ned. One ends up taking the world lightly and oneself very seriously. This morning, in sketching some elements of a liberal religious spirituality with spiritual refreshment as its goal, I should like to propose the very opposite, that we move instead toward taking ourselves more lightly and the world more seriously.
Let's consider this in light of the same four points mentioned above. One's affltude toward this world, demons, God, and the eschaton.
First the world. A man is beaten by thieves on his way to Jericho. Halfdead, he lies on the side of the road, stripped to the skin and suffering greatly. First a priest sees him, no doubt on his way to a very important meeting at church having to do with the annual canvass. He crosses to the other side of the road, passing the man by. The levite, a lawyer, a politician perhaps, happens along, on his way to speak at a mass rally protesting the government's curtailing of benefits for the poor. Far too self-important to be diverted from his purpose, not to mention press coverage, he too crosses to the other side of the road, looks the other way, and passes the man by.
Then a Samaritan comes by. Remember, back then Samaritans were anything but good. They were the untouchables of their day. No way they could take themselves too seriously. In any event this Samaritan sees the man at the side of the road, lifts him up, takes him to an inn, washes his wounds, gives him money and then goes on his way. "Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" Jesus asks. "The one who showed mercy on him." "Go and do likewise."
And then there are the demons. Where are they lurking? What do we have to protect ourselves from them? Well, the short answer is this. They are lurking within us, in our hearts and minds. And the only sure way to root them out is to laugh at them, that is to say, ourselves.
We may chafe at the real or imagined wrongs that others have perpetrated against us, yet our real enemy is the enemy within. We have little control over how others may act. But we can control our own responses. And this too offers a kind of spiritual refreshment.
As Marcus Aurelius put it: "Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves that anger or annoy us." And it's true. We tend to become preoccupied with ills that have befallen us. Time and again, we relive negative experiences. So doing, we eat away at our own inner casings, leaving ourselves more vulnerable than we need be to the inevitable buffetings of life. Others may supply us with the poison, but from that point on we ourselves are free to administer it to ourselves, keep refilling the prescription, and make ourselves permanently miserable if we so wish. I propose that a little laughter, at ourselves, at our foibles, will go a long way toward liberating ourselves from our own bunkers. Taking oneself lightly is the surest way to neutralize the enemy within.
What then about God? Again, I think that the surest approach to oneness with God, or to put it in other words, to harmony with the spirit of life that unites and sustains us, is to take oneself lightly and the world seriously.
In and of themselves, our individual lives may be worth very little. But by giving of ourselves, our love and talents and attention to one another, our spouses, our children, our neighbors, our friends, we become a part of something much greater. Remember that the word discipline comes from disciple. Both are from a Latin word that means to listen, to pay attention. When we are attentive to something we are united with it. This mutuality or interparticipation, is, for me, the closest approximation possible to oneness with God. One of the problems with taking oneself more seriously than one takes others, is that we forget how to listen. And when we forget how to listen, we can no longer hear the small, quiet voice of God telling us to serve and love.
Which leads us directly to the fourth point, the final days, the eschaton. Right after this service some of us are going to talk about what we can do to prevent it. But believe me, far more people over the next few months are going to crawl out of the woodwork to announce and celebrate the end of the world. Millennial theology is world denying and world destroying. What is missing, what we try to offer instead, is the vision of community, here and now on earth, a shared humanity in which all God's children must find their way haltingly, but together, toward peace and justice.
One motivation for each of these forms of world-denying spiritual discipline is to help one endure living here and now in this world, in the hope of attaining to the promised perfection of the world to come.
Again, I would suggest precisely the opposite. I call it nostalgia for the present. This involves, in part, our looking longfully at what we have, here and now, to savor and to save. Imagining that today was yesterday; imagining that what we have today, especially the companionship of our loved ones and friends, was no longer ours to enjoy. Instead of pining over a past that is no more or longing for a future that may never be, one greets the present moment with a wistful welcome, thankful for the time that is given us to love and share and serve.
Nostalgia for the present involves abstracting oneself just a bit from any given situation and looking at it in a different light, not taking it for granted but rather accepting its fragility and wondering at the miracle it represents. Again, to take oneself lightly, and the world, this world and its people, seriously, cherishing each moment as it passes, not to possess it, but rather to celebrate it for what it is, a wonder fflled with mystery and enchantment.
So there we have it, my own list at least, suited I hope for summer contemplation and practice. To give of oneself unstintingly to others in the spirit of the good Samaritan. To laugh out of doors the enemy within. To find union with God through our loving attentiveness to God's creatures and creation. To be nostalgic for the present, greeting every day before it passes as a good old day.
Is this religion? Of course it is, in the highest sense of the world, a depth response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die. By its light and through the practice of its discipline we are continually refreshed. Appearances are stripped of their transitory allure, and the truth of a deeper, more sustaining reality is brought into view. This light I call the light of the Kingdom, or better, of the commonwealth of God. It has nothing to do with getting or possessing or amassing, for its essence is that of eternal value.
As I have said so many times, the language of the kingdom is often paradoxical. Give and you shall receive. Lose your life and find new life. Empty yourself and be filled. Each has intimations of a gentle charge, to take oneself lightly and others seriously, to simplify--to embrace this world, this moment, this time, to redeem and savor it.
Let us pray:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they know the unutterable beauty of simple things.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they have dared to risk their hearts by giving of their love.
Blessed are the meek, for the gentle earth shall embrace them and hallow them as its own.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall know the taste of noble thoughts and deeds.
Blessed are the merciful, for in return theirs is the gift of giving.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall be at one with themselves and the universe.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs is a kinship with everything that is holy.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for the truth will set them free.