Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.  Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.  Are ye not much better than they?
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
And why take ye thought for raiment?  Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.
And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

SECOND READING - from “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”               Annie Dillard

“Starlings are notoriously difficult to “control.”  The story is told of a man who was bothered by starlings roosting in a large sycamore near his house.  He said he tried everything to get rid of them and finally took a shotgun to three of them and killed them.  When asked if that discouraged the birds, he reflected a minute, leaned forward, and said confidentially,  ‘Those three it did.’  (The starlings remained.)
“Thomas Merton wrote, in a light passage in one of his Gethsemane journals:  Suggested emendation in the Lord’s Prayer:  Take out Thy Kingdom come’ and substitute ‘Give us time!’ But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time.  Time gives us a whirl.  We keep waking from a dream we can’t recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end.  All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees.”

“I have been reading the sayings of fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian desert hermits.  Abba Moses said to a disciple, “Go and sit in your cell, and your cell will teach your everything.”

“Thomas Merton wrote: ‘There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.’  There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end.  It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.  I won’t have it.  The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright..

Ezekiel excoriates false prophets as those who have “not gone up into the gaps.”  The gaps are the thing.  The gaps are the spirit’s one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound.  The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells and the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery.  Go up into the gaps.  If you can find them; they shift and vanish too.  Stalk the gaps.  Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock - more than a maple - a universe.  This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon.  Spend  the afternoon.  You can’t take it with you.”
 
 

SERMON

It was a woman, a molecular biologist named Wendy Northcutt, who designated the first Darwin Award in 1993, “commemorating those individuals who ensure the long term survival of our species by removing themselves from the gene pool in a subliminally idiotic fashion.”  That is, people who kill themselves in such a bizarre and stupid manner that we, as members of the same species, can be comforted that they did not pass on more of their traits into successive generations.

 True story, taking place a little less that a year ago in the Philippines:  This particular Darwin Award is entitled “Homegrown Parachute”  On May 25 of 2000, a man boarded a plane from Davao City to Manila.  Equipped with his own homemade parachute, a hand grenade and a gun, he proceeded to hijack the plane.  Having robbed his fellow passengers of $25,000, he demanded that the pilot lower the plane to 6,500 feet.  He forced the flight attendants to open the door and depressurize the plane.  He tried to jump, but the wind was very strong.  “As he pulled the pin out of the grenade, a flight attendant gave him a push out the door.   He threw the pin back into the plane and held onto the grenade (this was a big technical error.)  And then he discovered that his “homemade” parachute wouldn’t open.  He apparently created a good size crater when he hit the earth going at “terminal velocity.”

 He didn’t let go of his grenade.  He didn’t let go of his parachute.  He didn’t let go of his criminal master-plan.  My question for you this morning is:  What you  holding onto that is not ultimately useful and life giving?

 Lent is the season, in the Christian liturgical calendar, that asks us to look more carefully at our lives.  If you can answer these questions in the affirmative, then Lent was designed for you:
 “Are you hungry for new life? Are you seeking transformation.  Enlightenment?  Greater understanding and compassion and truth?  Are you looking to see the resurrection of life over death?  And joy over sorrow?”

 Who isn’t seeking new Life?  This hunger is innate in the human consciousness.  Over time, religion has designated specific seasons when we are asked to consider our choices; to consciously reflect on our direction, our purpose, our ultimate destination.

  A psychoanalyst of this century, Eric Ericson, claimed that life continually presents us with critical moments - crossroads, where if we turn one way, we move in the direction of growth and new life or, if we go in the other direction, we face greater difficulties and restriction.  Ericson believed that as human beings develop some of their options would include:
trust vs. mistrust   intimacy vs. isolation
autonomy vs. shame and doubt generativity vs. stagnation
industry vs. inferiority  integrity and congruity vs. despair

  Now, I’ve never met anyone who would genuinely prefer any of the qualities from column B.   Given our “druthers,” we would be trustful and intimate and hard working and congruent; rather than filled with mistrust, shame and doubt, or, isolation and stagnation and despair.

  So when we get to the crossroads, what increases our likelihood of moving in the direction of growth and new life?

  Lent offers an intriguing response to that question.  Lent, as I understand the traditional religious discipline, tells us that Easter and Resurrection and New life will be ushered in when we “let go.”

  Lent is not about making resolutions, or finally getting your life under control, or learning those skills or concepts that will allow you to become more competent, effective and accomplished.  This is not about adopting a “Lenten Master Plan,” a “Lenten Strategy,” or a “Lenten Salvation Formula.”  The heart of a Lenten practice is not about giving up chocolate, or giving up TV, or giving up midnight snacks.  Lent is about giving up control.  Lent is about practicing giving up control.  This is a season when we are asked to remember that we belong to something larger than ourselves and our own preferences and habits and limitations. Practicing.  We are invited to adopt those practices that will help us to turn our faces in the direction of what gives life.
  The words “let go,” strike fear into the hearts of most Unitarian Universalists.  We seem to have a congenital preference for illusions that we are the captains of our own ship:  in charge and in control!  Planners!  Decision Makers!  Movers and Shakers!

  The words “let go” mean to abdicate control:  to release, to surrender, to give up our sense of possessiveness, our definitions of “mine,” and “not mine.”  Annie Dillard calls letting go, occupying the gaps, going into the mystery - leaving behind our itsy-bitsy statues, and savings accounts, and daily planners; and spending, freely spending, all of our time letting go of what we are grasping and clutching and holding onto, and entering into a much larger and spacious world in which we belong, in which we are held and carried and awakened to what sustains all life.

  The poetry of “letting go” is lovely.  But the cost can be steep.  We will be asked to let go of our children as they become adults.  We will be asked to let go of the walls we have so carefully constructed that we believe will protect us.  We will be asked to let go of what we believe is right now in our possession - the “little we have.”

  What exactly are we being asked to release?

  Thomas A. Kempis, in the Imitation of Christ, puts it simply and eloquently:  “The one who sees things as they really are, and not as they are said to be, or might be, is truly wise.”

  We must let go of our preconceptions of reality - of all that we heard and believed reality ought to be, of all we perceived reality would be - and we must attempt to see things as they really are.  At some point we cease to be at war with reality and relinquish our judgement as to what is wrong with reality and become curious, open, ready to receive what “is,” rather that what we thought we wanted or what we assume we had been promised.

  We have to let go of all illusions of control, what the philosopher, Henry James called the “private convulsive self,” that self-centeredness that proclaims itself ruler of all it surveys; the inner tyrant that imperially pronounces certitude, entitlement, and the right to rule.
  A modern theologian, Richard Rohr claims there are only three things we need to let go of:  1) being in control, 2) being effective, and 3) being right.  Having just read that list, I was a passenger in the car as my husband drove us to the movies Thursday night.  I couldn’t help but notice that he’d taken a very slow and, I believed, inferior route.  I shared this observation with him.  He reminded me that I was not driving ( no. 1, I was not in control.)  I replied that he was not being as effective as was possible (I wanted maximum efficiency) and finally I comforted myself with a smug sense of being right.  In less than a minute, I had violated all three precepts of “letting go.”  I had struck out.  Apparently, I need more practice. (I require constant reminders that there are more important things than being in control, being effective and being right.)

  You may prefer Blaise Pascal’s list of the three things you must let go of.  Authors, Ernst Kuntz and Katherine Ketchem describe what the 17th century mathematician and mystic, Pascal,  wrote of the “triple abyss.”  These are the three pitfalls of egotistical self-enslavement that you must avoid if you wish to move in the direction what is life giving:  (Will it help you if I give the Latin names?)   1) libido do minandi - the first abyss is the desire for power - to dominate others - to dominate over nature.  2) the second abyss is libido sentiendi - the lust for intense sensation, the desire to be distracted and enthralled by the extremes of beauty, fine food, music, romance, nature, to worship the life of the senses, to demand intense pleasure from the world.  And, as if the second abyss were not a deep enough hole for all of us who love having our senses bathed in pleasure, Pascal’s third abyss is even more seductive; 3) libido sciendi - as in “science,” the desire for knowledge with which to manipulate the world, so as to increase our own power, profit and pleasure.

  It appears that I, as your minister, and the staff, and indeed the entire congregation is being given an astonishingly vivid opportunity to practice being out of control.  All the many life forms currently growing in our sanctuary:  the mold and the fungi and the bacteria growing behind the walls and in the attic and beneath the pulpit are demanding that we let go of our schedules, our sense of ownership in the building.  We, as a religious community, are being asked to live in “right relationship” with our sacred space.  We are called to appreciate it. restore it, but at the same time, to continually relinquish any sense of possessiveness.  We are learning not to say, “It is ours, we are entitled to it,” or, “we can confidently plan on when it will be ours to use again.  We are learning to say:  “We don’t know.”  Whenever…”  “We will trust the architects and engineers and builders to do the work that needs to be done.”  And whatever is the reality that they uncover (including strange and unusual primitive life forms) is the reality that we are being called to address.  Entering the gaps, in the walls, in our own imaginations.  Discovering that the church and Unity Hall and the world is larger than we once thought.  We belong, wherever we are.

  Fredrick Buechner writes that, if we want to turn in the direction of what is life giving, we are going to have to let go of Winter.  As a participant in a 12-step program, Buechner quotes the slogan, “Let go, let God.”  He admits that this expression can seem hopelessly simplistic, but he has also found the expression (and what it points to) can save your life:
  “’Let go’ of the dark, which you wrap yourself in like a straitjacket, and let in the light.  Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you - your children’s lives, the lives of your husband, your wife, your partner, your friends - because that is just what you are powerless to do.  Remember that the lives of other people are not your business.  They are their business.  They are God’s business because they all have God whether they use the word God or not.  Even your own life is not your business.  It is also God’s business.  Leave it to God.  It is an astonishing thought.  It can become a life-transforming thought.”

  William James, in the “Varieties of Religious Experience” described this ‘letting go’ as a process of surrender, where “something must give way…a native hardness must break down and liquefy.”

  What happens when we let go of our demands, our war with reality, our hardness, our stubbornness, our claims of control and possessiveness?
  Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, tried to describe what we are a part of.  He tells his listeners:
 You don’t have to worry about what you will eat -
or what you will drink or what you are to wear.

  No matter what you think, or how you plan and strategize and manipulate, reality is not changed.  You are who you are.

  And you, believing you are loved, will be cared for and provided for.  There is an abundance that you don’t even see.  There is a beauty that you are not yet conscious of.  There is a spaciousness and generosity that you are not aware of.  You have glory and importance and value, and yet, you don’t even know your own worth!  Seek what is real and life giving, and you will discover that you will be given everything that you need.  “Take no thought for tomorrow.”  Relax about tomorrow.  All that you must do is to confront the challenges of today:  the evil that you must confront today and the goodness.  You don’t have to figure out how you will survive Monday, February 26th.  simply attempt to address the sufficient challenges of Sunday, February 25th.

  If we practice ‘letting go’ of the small convulsive, controlling self, the religious question is:  “What will the new landscape look like”  If we let go of our homemade parachutes, that we’ve put so much faith in; if we let go of our hand grenades, that we once were hoping would destroy our enemies; if we stop worrying about tomorrow; and about what we are to eat and drink and wear - if we actually “wade into the water” - what are we likely to find?

  Jesus promises we will discover that we are cared for by God, embraced by something larger and more loving than we can possibly imagine.  And the poets and the writers concur:  Annie Dillard tells us that only when we enter the gaps (only when we enter into the mystery) will we be able to unlock the universe.  The poets describe the experience as moving in with wonder and awe.  When we loosen our claw-like grasping grip on what we believe is “the little we have,” and then and only then will we find new life.  As we wake up, we will be able to spend the afternoon fully alive and aware that even the smallest monk-like cell contains the “kingdom of God.”
  In Lent, as in all seasons, we are given the chance, the miraculous chance to practice - to practice ‘letting go’ - to practice a larger sense of belonging.  I close with a story from the early Christian mystics, the Desert Fathers:
  Abbot Anastasius had a book of very fine parchment, which was worth twenty shekels.  It contained both the Old and the New Testaments in full, and Anastasius read from it daily as he meditated.  Once a certain monk came to visit him and, seeing the book, made off with it.  The next day, when Anastasius went to his Scripture reading and found that it was missing, he knew at once that the monk had taken it.  Yet he did not send after him, for fear that he might add the sin of perjury to that of theft.
  Now the monk went into the city to sell the book.  He wanted eighteen shekels for it.  The buyer said, “Give me the book so that I may find out if it is worth that much money.”  With that , he took the book to the holy Anastasius and said, “Father, take a look at this and tell me if you think it is worth as much as eighteen shekels.”  Anastasius said, “Yes, it is a fine book. And at eighteen shekels it is a bargain.”
  So the buyer went back to the monk and said, “here is your money.  I showed the book to Father Anastasius and he said it was worth eighteen shekels.”
  Th monk was stunned.  “Was that all he said?  Did he say nothing else?”
   “No, he did not say a word more than that.”
 “Well, I have changed my mind and don’t want to sell the book after all.”
  Then he went back to Anastasius and begged him with many tears to take the book back, but Anastasius said gently, “No, brother , keep it.  It is my present to you.”
  But the monk said, “If you do not take it back, I shall have no peace."
  After that the monk dwelt with Anastasius for the rest of his life.
  Let go of what was never yours to posses.

  Let go and wade into a never-ending sea of love.

©The Rev. Dr. Barbara Merritt, 2001