This sermon was preached by Dan Harper at Unitarian Church of Norfolk, Virginia (Unitarian Universalist). As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2003 Daniel Harper.
Readings
The reading this morning is from the Christian scriptures, a story from the travels of the wandering rabbi and teacher named Jesus:
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept these commandments since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Sermon
Just before the offertory, I read a story from the Christian scriptures. A wealthy man comes to the rabbi Jesus and tells Jesus all the good things he has done with his life. He has led an exemplary life, and Jesus praises him, but says, “There’s just one more thing you have to do — give away all your money.” You noticed, of course, that reading came just before the offertory, and not long after an eloquent statement about the pledge drive. I promise, this was a coincidence, and not a ploy to increase your pledge or the amount of money you dropped in the plate this morning. Although if you did drop more money in the plate, more power to you.
In any case, Jesus tells the rich man to give away all his money. The man is shocked, and he goes away grieving. Of course he is shocked! All his life, people have been telling him how fortunate he is to be wealthy. He has kept all the commandments, he has led an exemplary life, but then Jesus tells him it’s not enough. All his meritorious conduct, the fact that he has honored his father and mother, refrained from committing adultery, neither lied nor cheated — this is not enough, he must give up all his money besides.
Isn’t adulthood like that? We try to do everything we’re supposed to do. We try to stay more or less honest, we take care of family as best we can, we put money in the collection plate most Sundays, we do all those things that we’re supposed to do. And it seems to me that every time I get to the point of feeling a little bit comfortable, something comes along that that causes me to question what I’ve learned: one of your parents dies, you get laid off, much to your surprise you find yourself separated from your spouse or partner, — a war begins.
The children’s story this morning told a similar kind of story. The scholar from the university at Kyoto is writing a treatise on evil. But he gets stuck at a certain point, travels to visit with the Zen Master. He wants to ask her what she thinks about evil, but being a good academic first he has to rehash all the authorities he has consulted, he has to tell about all the research he has done. And what does the Zen Master do? She pours hot tea all over his hands and into his lap.
Haven’t I been in that situation myself? I’m living my happy little life, chattering on about this, that, and the other thing, when suddenly reality painfully intrudes. I get into hot water, either literally or figuratively. And like the Scholar, every time this happens I am surprised by it. You’d think I would have learned by now.
It was so easy when we were little kids! I remember when I was about seven years old, my older sister was learning long division. I had no idea what long division was, but I knew that once I learned it, I would be a big kid, too. It seemed like there was such a clear progression through life: you learn your multiplication tables, then you learn fractions, then long division, and algebra, and next thing you know, you’re a grownup and you’re done.
By the time I was a teenager, it was starting to seem less clear-cut. I got my driver’s license, and then I found out that I had to pay for the insurance and the gas myself — that was a shock! And by the time I reached adulthood, nothing seemed simple any more.
Psychologist Robert Kegan tells us that the kind of learning we do in adulthood is indeed different than the kind of learning we do in childhood. In childhood, we pretty much know where we’re going: we are on the way to becoming adults. Kegan writes we have learned that the minds of children are indeed different than the minds of adults. When we see a child expected to handle something beyond his or her capacity, like working 12 hours a day in a factory at the age of ten, something inside says, “That’s just too much to ask!” We feel protective, we feel outraged, we feel sympathy.
But, Kegan contends, once we get to adulthood, we aren’t yet finished. Adulthood is not a finished state of being — we keep on growing and changing as adults. Nor is there any one correct way to grow as an adult; we adults face many possibilities. Kegan calls these many possibilities “a vast evolutionary expanse.”
As Danny told you, I am the interim religious educator for the Church of the Larger Fellowship, also known by its initials “CLF.” CLF is a Unitarian Universalist congregation that serves isolated religious liberals around the world, both through our print publications and through Internet services. And what I see in our members is a real hunger for adult religious education of all kinds. Our ministerial intern offered an online “New UU” course this winter, and it filled up almost immediately. Parents who are doing Sunday school at home tell me that they want religious education material that’s for their children, but that they can learn from, too. We have online discussion groups going on. There’s this real hunger for adult religious education out there, and we just can’t meet the need.
Religious education for children is a lot simpler than religious education for adults. We know what the basic goal for children is: we want them to grow up knowing to be moral, ethical, and religious persons. But we adults are already grown up. We’re already supposed to know how to be moral, ethical, and religious beings, and I don’t know about you, but as I ease into my forties there are times when I feel less sure of myself rather than more sure of myself. Children grow up, constantly increasing in competence, heading towards adulthood. It’s not that straightforward for adults.
This is what I see in the story about the rich man who comes to talk with Jesus. Even though the rich man has kept all the commandments, Jesus tells him to give away all his wealth and focus instead on the Kingdom of God. You can interpret Kingdom of God in any way you want, but in essence Jesus is saying that there is something more important than acquiring and keeping wealth; there is something more important than doing what the rich man thought he was supposed to do; there’s another whole set of rules out there.
Not that money is necessarily bad. Jesus doesn’t say that. I know have been in moderately precarious financial situations, and I’m here to tell you that it’s just fine to have enough money to buy food and keep a roof over your head. I believe Jesus is trying to tell us not to get obsessed with money — or not to get obsessed with anything, for that matter. Life is bigger than that.
Life is big enough to contain both good and evil. Jesus certainly knew about evil, just as he knew about goodness. But we can be distracted by trivial things, like lots of money, and try to ignore the big things, like good and evil. One of the things we have to do as adults is to confront evil.
Evil is out there in the world, there’s no doubt about it. We are at war right now in order to confront evil — of course, some of us disagree with war as an appropriate method for combating this particular evil, and we may disagree if this is the evil we should be confronting first.
But I don’t want to look at evil from the point of view of politics, I want to look at evil from the point of view of religion. We are religious liberals, and we have never found evil to be simple or straight-forward. We do not see simple black-and-white outlines; we see shades of gray. More importantly, evil for us is not simply something that is “out there” somewhere — evil for us can be found anywhere, in families, in institutions, even within ourselves. We know that evil can be right here next to us, or right here inside us, and this knowledge tends to make religious liberals cautious: we want to be sure of our ground before we actually go and do something. We would rather argue and discuss and take classes for an extended period of time before we actually go out and do something. I’m sure you all know the old joke: a Unitarian Universalist is on the road to heaven. After she gets over her surprise that heaven actually exists, and that there is a road to it, she comes to a fork in the road. She reads the sign there: to the left, heaven; to the right, a discussion group about heaven. And of course she turns right.
As a religious educator, I hear a call for more classes, and for more discussion groups. They have their place, no doubt about it. But we can’t always step aside from the main path to talk and argue. At some point, we have to get ourselves back on the road to heaven — assuming heaven exists. Learning, being, and doing must coexist all at once.
Right now, the force of daily events requires immediate action from some of us. If you are in the military, your course of action is clear: your vocation requires you to put aside any ambivalence and act. If you are a peace activist, your course of action is clear: your convictions require you to put aside any ambivalence and act. Such people don’t have time to take a course or go to a discussion group before getting started. This may be true of all of us: we soon may all be swept up in the events of this time.
What Jesus is telling the rich man applies equally to us, however different our circumstances might be. The danger for the rich man is that he will be swept up by his wealth, so much so that he ignores what is truly important. The danger for us — in these confusing, overwhelming times — is that we will be swept up in the events of this time, so much so that we ignore what is truly important. Jesus has a name for what is truly important — he calls it “the Kingdom of Heaven.” We don’t have to call it that, but we can mean approximately the same thing if we say that what is truly important is a world where peace reigns supreme, and where all persons live in dignity and without fear.
We must hold on to this vision; in the words of the civil rights song, we have to “keep our eyes on the prize,” and hold on. I know of at least one way to hold on to that vision, and that is to do what we are doing right now: to gather together as a congregation of loving and caring people. Edward Frost, minister of the UU Congregation of Atlanta, Georgia, recently wrote: “We [must] hold each other in love and respect, regardless of our disagreements, regardless of how deeply at odds we may find ourselves with the convictions of others. This is the meaning of community. In time of crisis, our religious task is to be united in our desire for peace but united also in our fervent prayers for all who grieve, for all who suffer, and for all whose conviction of duty has placed them in harm’s way.”
I want to go back to the story of the rich man and Jesus one last time. Most of the time, when you hear this story, whoever retells it assures us that the rich man has failed; he is not going to give up his money, he is not going to follow Jesus, and he is not going to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. But I understand the story differently.
At the end of the story, we hear that the rich man was shocked by the words of Jesus, and that he “went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” I believe he is grieving because he knows that he is going to go and give up his wealth and his many possessions — he is grieving the loss of his wealth. He knows he is going to find it hard to make this change, but he is going to do it. In my telling of the story, after he goes and gives up all his possessions, he returns to Jesus, and joins the little community of people that has gathered around Jesus. He misses all his money, all his fine possessions, but he also knows that by finding a community that will support and nurture him and love him, he has found something infinitely more valuable.
In my telling, this becomes a story of hope — the hope that when confronted with a difficult choice, we can sometimes make the right decision. It is a story of courage — the courage of someone who accepts the hard lesson life has to teach him, the courage of someone who gives up precious possessions in order to gain even more precious community. And of course, it is a story of love — the love that we human beings are capable of giving to each other in blessed community.
May it be so with us. At the best of times, it is not easy to learn how to be an adult. At the best of times, we need one another, we need this blessed community. Today we live in times of trouble, times of gathering uncertainty. We know the way to overcome evil is to build goodness, to reach for heaven and bring it down here to earth. In times of trouble, we need each other even more, we need this blessed community even more, we need to build up the goodness in our lives. So it is we set aside time each week to come together, to remind ourselves of our vision of a world filled with goodness; we hold on to that vision together:
Our small, blue planet spins through the infinite void, headed towards a destiny that we are determined shall be ruled by peace.