Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Maureen Killoran, Interim Minister at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach ~ September 21, 2008
“I wasn’t even awake until I began to fall . . .” So said the esteemed UU professor and theologian Dr. Gordon McKeeman. I’ve spent time with Dr. McKeeman – Bucky as he is called -- on several occasions. He teaches with a narrative style, telling a homespun story or asking apparently simple questions. And somehow, by the time he’s done, whatever problems you’re looking at seem easier to resolve.
It’s like what Jesus did, with his Parables, those everyday stories that connected his hearers with the problems of their lives . . . the profligate son (Luke 15:11-32), for example, or the neighbor who bangs on the door at midnight (Luke 11:5-8). Biblical scholars like John Dominic Crossan have shown that Jesus told ordinary stories with a twist, so that when people are really listening, something can change.
That’s the reason for that line in the gospels, “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.”
Jesus isn’t alone, of course. Native Americans teach by story. So do Sufis, Zen Buddhists, teachers in nursery school.
For example – there once was a Zen master who had a particularly rambunctious cat . . . such that, when students came to meditate with him, the master tied the cat to the bed for the duration of their visit. In the fullness of time, the master died, but his reputation lived on, and his house became known as a shrine. When one of his early students approached the house, she was astonished to find a whole line of men and women waiting to get in, each clutching a cat. The student pushed her way into the house, and immediately got down on her hands and knees. She started scratching ears and patting fur and untying knots. Her master’s teachings were forgotten – and all that remained was a belief that one could achieve enlightenment by making pilgrimage to his house – and tying up a cat.
My point is, that every time a story is told, if there are 100 listeners, there will be at least 100, probably closer to 200, lessons gleaned. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
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Going back to our reading, I’m intrigued that Bucky McKeeman took the trouble to say, “I wasn’t even awake until I began to fall.” That’s what interests me – the whole business of being “awake.” Etymologists tell us that “awake” is related closely to “vigil,” to “keeping watch.” It’s connected with “strength,” with “liveliness.” To be “asleep,” on the other hand, is to enter that place where, as John Updike put it, we “sink out of reach.” When you are asleep, you may be having a great interior life, but in Bucky McKeeman’s words, ". . . you’re likely to miss some great new happenings, like the ending of a conflict, a truce between old enemies, a bit of new community taking root in a casual acquaintanceship, or a new blossom sprung from an old plant."
By now I have asked something like forty of you to talk to me about why you come to this fellowship – why you came here in the first place, and what keeps you coming back. Some of you have talked about, “the public programs,” or “this great building.” One person is very insistent that, for him, this is a social club. A few spoke about freedom of belief, or of the positive impact religious education had on their family. But most often what I hear is, “I come here because of the people.”
And so I take another step, and posit what may be a very elementary distinction: When you come here “for the people,” are you AWAKE or are you ASLEEP? And, let me ask another question – how would you know the difference?
I once facilitated a support group for people who were regular sleepwalkers, “somnambulists” is the technical term. I heard stories of people getting up in the morning and discovering that they’d been up packing suitcases during the night. Someone found a bag of donuts on the bed, which indicated they’d been to the corner store while asleep. One woman hunted around and found her clock radio in the microwave. And another told about the time she found her husband, sound asleep, hopping down the stairs, shouting, “I’m a kangaroo!”
Please don’t misunderstand me – I know that somnambulism can seriously disrupt your life. But as a concept, somnambulism leads me to suggest that we can engage life from one of two conditions, either being AWAKE or being ASLEEP.
When I lived in
An internet blogger named Rudy applies the term “autopilot” to our significant relationships. You know you’re on autopilot, he says, when:
You or your partner can’t remember when you last enjoyed a day doing absolutely nothing – together.
You know you’re on autopilot when your conversations are mainly about money or what’s needed for the house.
When what comes to mind first when you think of your partner are things that irritate.
When you know that YOU are most often right when you disagree.
You know you’re on autopilot when you can’t recall when you last told your partner WHY you love him or her . . . or when you heard the same message coming the other way.
The sad thing – I’ve seen it, so have you -- is when couples fall apart without ever knowing they’ve spent a chunk of their lives asleep.
Let me take this from interpersonal relationships to this congregation. Think about it -- In your relationship with this Unitarian Universalist fellowship – are you ASLEEP or AWAKE? Are you on autopilot, or are you living in the present, awake and alive and fully engaged?
You may be on autopilot if . . . you’ve been a UU for ten or thirty or fifty years, and you know how it was once and how it’s supposed to be.
Try this: a five-year plan or a ten-year plan was created a while back, and no matter what has changed in the interval, you believe that plan is still the way things are intended to be.
Or you may be on autopilot if you’re dug in . . . you know what’s right and you know the other guy’s wrong -- and what matters most is which subset of the congregation gets to decide what this fellowship is going to be?
Sleepwalking – somnambulism – has sometimes had spectacular and even violent consequences. In 1987, for example, Kenneth Parks got up in the middle of the night, drove his car 14 miles to the home of his in-laws. He beat up his father-in-law, killed his mother-in-law, managed to sever tendons in his hands in the process. Then he took himself to the police station where he finally woke up and cried, “I think I killed someone!” Although other juries have been less open to the somnambulist defense, Parks’ acquittal was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada. The ethical question is interesting: Can we – should we -- be held accountable for our behavior when we are asleep.
I’m no a lawyer, but I am an ethicist and a parish minister . . . I say to you that when we live a portion of our WAKING life on autopilot, this is a form of moral somnambulism. And we are very definitely accountable. We are accountable for the many truths that go unheeded . . . for the interesting people we haven’t bothered to know . . . for the inappropriate behavior we have tolerated . . . for the questions we haven’t asked or the insufficient or inadequate information we may have ignored.
Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
I confess to having a slightly warped sense of humor. If you do too, you might enjoy the website that Mike Kessler alerted me to this week, despair.com. There are all sorts of little goodies for sale there, including what they call “de-motivational posters” with messages like:
“Let’s agree to respect each other’s views, no matter how wrong yours might be.”
“It’s always darkest just before things go pitch black.”
And my personal favorite from Ashleigh Brilliant, “As long as we have each other, we’ll never run out of problems.”
I’m particularly fond of what they call the “pessimist mug,” marketed as follows: “Specifically engineered by the chronically cynical pessimists, this crystal-clear mug promises to help all who drink from it to Stay Grounded™” by forever reminding them, with a clear mark and label, when the glass is half-empty.
Despair dot com. Fun if you treat it lightly – but cynicism is easy. And when it becomes a way of life, we are avoiding engagement with possibility. We are living in a condition of moral somnambulism, spending at least part of our lives ASLEEP. Sleeping walking through life is akin to what Jean Paul Sartre dubbed “bad faith,” living in a way that denies our human responsibility to make choices. And I say that the choice we are called to make is the choice for wholeness. The choice to be engaged. The choice to be . . . AWAKE.
In our chalice lighting, you were invited to read these words:
This gathering bears witness
to our belief that community is possible.
This gathering affirms that human beings
can make a difference,
that by living our values with love,
we contribute to the healing of the world.
One of the reservations I have around unison readings in general is that, too often, we go on liturgical autopilot, sleepwalk our way through the words – We struggle to read the small type. . . or maybe you are the one person in five for whom reading is difficult, or maybe you forgot your glasses. We hear the voice of the leader, pay attention perhaps less to the meaning than to when it’s our cue to jump in . . . And so I want to offer these words again:
This gathering bears witness . . . bearing witness is not an abstract thing, it is a matter of being AWAKE, of stepping forward, putting your own body on the line, your own life and actions . . . we bear witness to our belief that community is possible.
This gathering affirms that human beings can make a difference, that by living our values with love . . . living our values, my friends, living them here in this congregation, the easy ones and the hard ones . . . by living our values with love, we contribute to the healing of the world.
I close with one more story, and as with many good stories, this one may be familiar:
A monastery had fallen on hard times. It had a great history, but some monks had died, some had left -- now only the Abbot and four monks remained. All of them were over seventy . Clearly the order was dying.
Deep woods surrounded the monastery, and in them was a little hermitage sometimes used by the Rabbi from a nearby town. One day, the Abbot decided to visit the hermitage to see if the Rabbi could share any advice that might save the monastery. The Rabbi welcomed the Abbot. "I know how it is," he said. "The spirit has gone out of the people.” So the old Rabbi and the old Abbot wept together. They read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things.
"It has been wonderful being with you,” said the Abbot when it came time to leave, “but I have failed in my purpose. Have you no piece of advice that might help save the monastery?" "No,,” said the Rabbi. "The only thing I can say is that the Messiah is one of you."
The monks pondered the Rabbi’s words. What could he possibly mean? The Messiah is one of us? One of us, here, at the monastery? If that's the case, which one? He must have meant the Abbot, he’s been our leader for so many years. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Thomas is a holy man. Certainly he could not have meant crotchety old Brother Elred. But then, you’ve got to admit it -- Elrod is wise. But he couldn’t have meant Brother Phillip, he’s too passive. Although Phillip does always seem to be there when you need him. Of course the Rabbi didn't mean me -- yet supposing he did? Oh, Lord, not me! I couldn't be that much for you, could I?
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one of them might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect as well.
Now, because the forest was beautiful, people occasionally came to picnic at the monastery or to wander along the old paths. They sensed the atmosphere of extraordinary respect that surrounded the old monks. They began to come more frequently, bringing their friends, and, their friends brought friends in their turn.
Some of the younger men began to engage in conversation with the monks. After a while, one asked if he could join. Then another, and another. Within a few years, the monastery was once again a thriving order and, thanks to the Rabbi's gift, it was known as an authentic community, a place of wholeness and love.
That’s it, my friends. I tell a story, and the conclusions are yours to draw. We close with words of Rumi that you may recall from last week:
The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell. - Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want. -Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds meet.
The door is round and open.
Today’s reading, “Falling out of Bed,” by Dr. Gordon McKeeman, may be found in Singing in the Night (Collected Meditations v.5), ed. Mary Benard, and published by the Unitarian Universalist Skinner House Press, 2004. Court cases involving the somnambulist defense are discussed at http://www.askmen.com/sports/health_100/121b_mens_health.html - and many other internet sites. The Parks case may also be found in the 1992 proceedings of the Supreme Court of Canada which upheld the acquittal.
The story about the Rabbi is widely cited, including its unattributed inclusion in M. Scott Peck’s Different Drum. The author is unknown.