Lily Pads
(6/15/03)
Rev. Gary Cox Wichita,
Kansas
University Congregational Church
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the idea of
fate. Oh, I believe God is ultimately
in control, and that God knows how everything is going to turn out, which is for
the good. But that has much more to do
with my concept of faith than with my concept of fate. If I stub my toe on the coffee table as I
walk through the living room, I don’t think it is necessarily a part of the
divine plan. I assume God has better things
to do than play practical jokes on me.
And I can’t imagine that at the beginning of creation, while setting
this glorious cosmos in motion, God decided that on some June evening 14
billion years later, Gary Cox would stub his toe. That may well be the way things are, but it is not a part of my
personal theology.
However, I don’t believe God is an
absentee landlord. The deists, you may
remember, were the Enlightenment era thinkers who decided God was like a
clockmaker. Deists believed—and still believe—that
God designed and built the world, sort of wound it up, and then set it in
motion. But after that, all God has
been able to do is sit back and watch—perhaps with a sympathetic eye—as things
unwind.
I guess my theology lies somewhere
between those who think fate determines every little thing that happens, and
those who believe God is basically uninvolved in the universe. I think the Spirit is at work in the
world. I really do. I think the Spirit has a way of moving
people into places where they need to be.
Everything sort of works together, if not like clockwork, at least in a
way that makes everything turn out okay in the long run—which may be another 14
billion years—who knows?
Now, that is not especially
brilliant theology, but maybe it explains why I received a great book in the
mail few months back—a book I did not order.
I went online and purchased over a dozen books from a seminary bookstore
in Chicago. This was all required
reading for my three-week residency at Chicago Theological Seminary. Not all of the books were in stock, so they
came dribbling in over several shipments.
In the midst of these shipments I received a book called Traveling
Mercies by a writer name Anne Lamott.
It didn’t look familiar, and sure enough, when I checked it against my
order, I discovered that I had not ordered the book.
However, after reading the back cover of the unordered
book, I decided to pay the invoice and save it for a time when my reading
schedule was a little less frantic.
Okay, I’m pushing things a bit to claim the surprise arrival of this
book on my doorstep was a part of the mysterious workings of the Spirit. Call it serendipity, or good luck, or happy
coincidence. But the fact is, after
reading all those dense books in preparation for my doctoral work in Chicago,
this was exactly the book I needed to read.
It was light, and airy, and refreshing, so I will happily file this
little incident away into that mysterious gray area between the pre-determined
universe of a micro-managing God, and pure dumb luck.
Traveling Mercies is what my
wife would call a chick-book. A
chick-book is like a chick-movie. You
know, a guy will take his wife or girlfriend to a chick-movie, but he has to
make it clear he is being drug along to this thing against his will. I mean, even if he likes it, it would be a
complete insult to his manhood for him to admit it. No blood, no car chases, no awe-inspiring explosions—it’s a chick
movie. Think The Ya-Ya Sisterhood,
or Fried Green Tomatoes—one of those.
A lot of us guys secretly like them, but you’ll never hear us admit it
publicly.
This book falls into that
category. Anne Lamott is a single
mother, and a recovering alcoholic, who suffered from bulimia for many
years. She writes about her faith, her
8-year-old son who has never met his father, and the battles she has with a
body that is pushing fifty in a world designed for women in their
twenties. Nobody is going to mistake
this woman’s writing for Tom Clancy.
And while this is not a book I would have picked off the shelf at the
bookstore where there are a couple of thousand other books competing for my
attention, I couldn’t help but read it when it just sort of fell into my
lap.
Again, serendipity, kismet, fate,
happenstance? You make the call. But I was hooked after reading the first
chapter, which is called “Lily Pads.”
You see, people who write sermons are constantly on the lookout for
material. And all we need is an image—the
right image. Because all it takes is
one great mental snapshot to trigger all the little synapses required for
crafting a sermon. I want to read the first paragraph of Anne Lamott’s book,
which provided just the mental picture I was looking for. I hope the image she creates resonates with
you like it does with me:
My coming to faith did not start
with a leap but rather with a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe
place to another. Like lily pads, round
and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which
I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear. When I look back on some of these early
resting places—the boisterous home of the Catholics, the soft armchair of the
Christian Science mom, adoption by ardent Jews—I can see how flimsy and
indirect a path they made. Yet each
step brought me closer to the verdant pad of faith on which I somehow stay
afloat today.
That’s good writing. I really identify with that idea of jumping
from lily pad to lily pad—from faith to faith—while trying to find the right
spiritual home on which to make my stand.
Many of you have shared your faith journeys with me, and this morning I
want to talk about the way many of us have arrived where we are today—in this
unique place we call University Congregational Church. The membership of this
church comes from practically every imaginable Christian background. And depending on what lily pads we landed on
over the course of our faith journeys, we have different ideas about why this
place is so special.
Now, as I reflect on some of the
stories you have told me about your faith journeys, I want to be very clear
about one thing: I am not denigrating any other faith tradition. The people in this place are here not
because we have gotten it right and everybody else has gotten it
wrong. We are here because this place
is the right fit for us. I have great
respect for all the major religions of the world, and I think it is good that there
are hundreds of denominations within the Christian faith. It allows us to learn from one another, and
it provides a religious home for everybody.
Many members of this church were raised as
Catholics. I have a great respect for
the Catholic Church. It has a
remarkable tradition, and some of the greatest theological scholarship
continues to come from the Catholic Church.
While it is the perfect home for many Christians, those who have found a
home in this place tell me they felt oppressed and stifled by the Catholic
Church of their youth. The word I have
heard used more than any other is “guilt.”
There was a lot of guilt placed upon the children, and as they grew
older, they felt that the fear of hell was too much a component of that faith
tradition.
I don’t know of anybody who jumped directly from the
Catholic Church to University Congregational Church. For everybody I’ve talked to about this, there were several lily
pads between there and here—often other churches, and even more often long
periods of rejecting church altogether.
Those who were raised in the mainline Protestant
churches—and that is the majority of people here—usually moved from
congregation to congregation within the denomination in which they were
raised—Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, Lutheran, and
so on—and eventually sort of stumbled into this place. This is called “church shopping,” and that
is considered a bad word in most denominations. My personal feeling is that faith is the most important element
in a person’s life. I agree that people
should become a church family—that the people of a congregation should love one
another and take care of one another.
But I refuse to believe that a person should spend his or her spiritual
life in a place that isn’t their true spiritual home. It’s sort of like arranged marriages. I would not like it if from the day I was born my future wife was
picked for me. And I do not think it is
fair or wise for a person’s faith to be picked for them. The fact is, sometimes, congenital Catholics
are born and raised in Presbyterian churches, and sometimes Congregationalists
are born into fundamentalist families.
That’s just the way it is. We
should all explore our spiritual side, and plug in wherever it is we discover
we truly belong—even if it means hopping from lily pad to lily pad until we find
the right fit.
Another segment of our congregation was raised in no
particular faith tradition. I fall into
that group. When I was a child my
parents took my brother and me to church, and we found it absolutely
boring. We had to sit through these
long and tedious sermons that were clearly written for people who were older
than six or seven, and frankly, the adults were bored stiff too. It was excruciating. And then we sat through Sunday School
classes led by teachers who didn’t seem to care much for children, and who were
annoyed at any questions we asked.
We finally convinced
our parents that church was not for us.
But then, as a teenager, I fell in love with philosophy and
religion. I started studying all the
religions of the world. The only one I
stayed away from was Christianity, and for a couple of reasons. First, I remembered that awful experience I
had at church as a child. Second, all I
knew of Christianity was the Bible thumping hell and damnation preachers I saw
on television, and the kids in high school who were always asking me if I’d
been saved.
I didn’t want any part of that, so I jumped from lily
pad to lily pad, privately reading everything I could find on religion. Eventually I discovered there was an aspect
of the Christian faith that I knew nothing about. And each of the mainline denominations had certain
congregations who were a part of this more open faith. But they were hard to find, because they
were quiet. In later years, I found
great truth in the words of an English theologian whose great words I have
quoted often: “Christianity is like a swimming pool—all the noise comes from
the shallow end.”
I can’t imagine where I would be, spiritually, if not
for Jesus. Jesus Christ is the center
of my faith life. But my Christian
faith continues to be nurtured and strengthened as I study the great texts of
other religions.
A large percentage of the people who attend this
church have made a huge leap, over a series of lily pads, winding up here on a
journey that began in fundamentalism.
This place is about as far as you can get from the fundamentalist
church. And for me personally, I take
the greatest pleasure in those who have found themselves trapped in
fundamentalist churches, and who have managed to find this place. Now, I’m not going to make this an attack on
fundamentalism. What is right for one
person is not necessarily what is right for another. People who love this place feel smothered in a fundamentalist
church. We reject the black and white
answers that come from fundamental pulpits.
On the other hand, I think we should all understand that many people
want and need black and white answers to their faith questions. It is good that they have a place to worship
together, where they are provided the answers they need to make it through life
with a spiritual foundation.
But what a joy it is for me when a person who has felt
oppressed in that atmosphere finds University Congregational Church. Those people appreciate this place more than
anybody else. If I ever have doubts
about what I am doing with my life, and what role this church is playing in the
lives of others, all I have to do is go to the notes and letters that have been
written to me by those who have found true liberation from the grasp of
fundamentalism in this place.
Now let’s turn to those folks who
were raised as Congregationalists. We
have people here who were born and bred in the Congregational Church. But not all that many! The overwhelming majority of us came from
other traditions. Sometimes I think how
fortunate those people are who are dyed in the wool Congregationalists—who were
raised with head and heart as equal partners in faith, and with the right to
question anything they want to question.
They were born on the right lily pad.
But more often I think the rest of us are the really lucky ones,
because, having jumped from pad to pad, it feels really good to finally land
upon this place.
Still, even life-long
Congregationalists have done their share of searching when it comes to
faith. Congregationalism encourages the
inner faith journey. The church serves
as the vehicle for the journey, but the path is not pre-programmed. Each person in the congregation has his or
her hands on the steering wheel. To
push the analogy to the extreme, the preacher isn’t driving—the preacher is
simply trying to provide fuel for the trip.
(By the way, I truly resent it if some of you are thinking to
yourselves, “Well, if Gary is providing the fuel, this place is running on hot
air!” Come on—this is high-octane jet
fuel!)
Another thing about the nature of a Congregational
Church—it is self-governing. No outside
authority is going to make the rules for a Congregational Church. That is our greatest strength, and our
greatest weakness. Because while it is
the very foundation of our tradition, it also means that I could stand up here
this morning and tell all of you that we’re going to collect all of your
jewelry, melt it down, fabricate a golden calf, and that calf will be the
object of our worship in the future.
Yes, that is the very form of
idolatry that upset God greatly in the Bible, and yes, if I did such a thing,
you would (I hope) give me my walking papers.
But the fact remains, I could do that. Or at least I could try to do that. There is no bishop, district supervisor, or other church
authority that could come in here and say, “You can’t do that! You’re fired!” Only the congregation has that power.
So as you can imagine, there are
undoubtedly times when certain congregations go off the beam a little bit. A charismatic preacher leads people down a
questionable path. Maybe they become
rabidly politically partisan—and it can be either to the left or to the right. Maybe their theology goes way off the beaten
track. This doesn’t happen often, but the
freedom of the Congregational pulpit means that one Congregational Church can
be very different from the next one. So
even our born and bred Congregationalists have jumped from pad to pad as they
made their faith journeys, especially as they’ve moved from city to city, and
state to state.
As I bring this morning’s sermon to a close, I think
it is appropriate to say one more thing about this place—University
Congregational Church. As I pointed
out, a Congregational Church can take a variety of forms. Each one is unique. This place has become the ultimate lily pad
for so many of us. It has become the
place where we feel free to examine the whole spectrum of religion, free of
guilt, knowing that we can ask any question, and that we are loved for who we
are, and not because we adhere to the “right” religious ideals. The person who is responsible for that, more
than anybody else, is Robert Meyers.
Immediately following today’s sermon, I will leave for
Chicago to continue the work on my doctorate.
Over the next four weeks, Bob will have the honor of leading you in
worship from this pulpit. Obviously, it
is a well-deserved honor, and we are all grateful to him for the vital role he
has had in shaping this wonderful lily pad that we call our spiritual home.