Opening Words: Ted Loder Rev. Pamela Rumancik

Gentle me, Holy One Into an unclenched moment A deep breath, A letting go Of heavy experiences Of shriveling anxieties, Of dead certainties, That, softened by the silence Surrounded by the light And open to the mystery, We may be found by wholeness, Upheld by the unfathomable Entranced by the simple and filled with the joy that is you.

Readings:

Start with a story…

A Middle Eastern story tells of a man who is oppressed by his family. His wife dominates …His children make fun of him. He feels a victim, and thinks that the time has come for him to go away and find paradise. … meets an old sage who gives him detailed directions on how to get there: You have to walk for a long time, but eventually you will arrive.

The man sets out. During the day he walks …exhausted he stops at an Inn to sleep. Being a precise and methodical man, he decides before sleeping to place his shoes pointing toward paradise so as to be sure not to lose his way. But a mischievous little devil sneaks in and turns his shoes around the opposite way.

Next morning the man sets off, this time in the direction opposite the day before – toward his starting point. … the scenery looks more and more familiar to him. He arrives at the town in which he always lived, but he believes it to be Paradise: “How much like my old town Paradise look!” But he feels good there and likes it immediately. He sees his old house, which he thinks is Paradise: “How that looks like my old house!” But since it is Paradise he finds it very enjoyable. His wife and children greet him: “How they look like my wife and children! Here in Paradise everything looks the way it was before.” However, because it is Paradise, everything is beautiful. His wife is a delightful person, his children are extraordinary – they are full of qualities that he, in his daily life, never would have suspected to exist. “Strange how here in Paradise everything resembles so precisely what was in my life before and yet everything is completely different!”

Thus ends our story…

From Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott Rev. Pamela Rumancik

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Anne Lamott describes leading a writing workshop for inmates at San Quentin. After describing how she told them the same thing she tells people at all her workshops, she describes her friend’s experience:

Then I introduced Neshama, with a concern that the prisoners wouldn’t quite get her – this intense grandmother with a nice big butt and fuzzy gray hair, wearing a loud plaid flannel dress. I had invited her because I love her stories and knew it would be more fun for me…

I had extremely low expectations – I hoped a few prisoners might form a guild, like the one to which Neshama belongs; I hoped they wouldn’t hurt her, or overcome her, or try to make her marry them. Neshama walked to the mike and told her first story, her version of a folktale. It was about a man with no luck, who comes upon safety, wealth, and a beautiful woman, but is too busy looking for fancier luck, somewhere else, to even notice her. Neshama painted the story with her hands, leaning into the crowd, and drawing back, hopeful or aghast at the unlucky man’s journey, smiling gleefully at the story’s close. And the place went nuts… Here they had thought Neshama was going to teach them a lesson, and she had instead sung them a song. Their faces lit up with surprise. She was shining on them, and they felt her shining on them, and so they shone back on her. ..

Neshama stripped her story down to its essence, because only essence speaks to desperate people. And the men rose and gave her a standing ovation. It was a stunning moment. All she had done was tell them, “I’m human, you’re human, let me greet your humanness. Let’s be people together for a while.”

Sermon: Grace in a Graceless Age Rev. Pamela Rumancik

Full of grace, moments of grace, surprised by grace – all phrases which point to something that we recognize but find hard to define.

In the physical sense we think of grace as the ability to move easily. When I wake up in the morning and my joints are stiff, I hobble to the kitchen and am anything but graceful.

Grace in this sense brings up the image of an athlete flying down the field, avoiding opponents and smoothly making it to the goal;

Or a dancer, lithely defying gravity and beautifully breaking free from the laws of nature which keep us so solidly on the ground.

Or a beautiful horse galloping gracefully across a field – embodying joy, freedom, power, possibility.

But there are other ways to look at grace.

The Christian scriptures have Mary being greeted as Full of Grace – Full of the possibility of transformation – full of the entirety of God. Does this speak to us today?

In later Christian theology grace had a very definite meaning. It referred to God’s gift of salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Grace was a vehicle to be freed from the bonds of sin and death and welcomed into the kingdom of God.

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In Hindu teaching grace has another flavor entirely – it could be described as the ultimate key to self understanding – not so much a gift as something that could be earned through hard work and dedicated practice.

Through the Bakti yoga – which path of devotion you can open yourself up through worship and devotion to work toward Moksha – the freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth. But still – grace is an agent for change.

So we have grace as a way of moving fluidly through the world; and grace as an opening for change.

Why am I talking to you about grace this morning? While on first glance it might seem anachronistic in our post- modern world I believe it does offer us a new lens to look at our lives.

Grace – as an opening or possibility for change is extremely important – especially today. We find ourselves stuck in so many ways. We get stuck in unhealthy relationships, in unfulfilling jobs, in self destructive patterns of behavior.

Our country seems to be stuck in a giant pattern of immobility. Our leaders argue but make no movement forward, our economy seems stalled. We keep doing the same things over and over while expecting new results.

Grace: we need grace.

Not a supernatural answer from some other realm – but as a way of approaching and living in the world which allows the possibility of newness.

In my life, moments of grace which stand out are those places where something changed, where a perspective that hadn’t been visible suddenly opened up, when new possibilities became apparent.

They can be small moments – One I remember clearly is driving on my way to work on a summer morning. I turned past a field I saw every day and something seemed to catch my eye. A sparkle or glint across the wet farmer’s field. I looked over and was struck by the rich green of the day, noticed the fresh moist morning air, really felt as if someone had just winked at me conspiratorially from the other side of the field – inviting me to appreciate the glory of that morning. I did. I breathed it in. I still remember it decades later.

That was a moment of grace. A place where I was called out of my mindless reverie – was opened to the beauty of the morning in a way that took my breath away.

They can be moments initiated by someone else – the time Mrs. Teitlebaum complimented my essay in 9th grade and said I was a fine writer. Me? A writer? It was not a thought that had occurred to me before and it opened up a whole new definition of self. I count that as a moment of grace because she recognized and called forth a dimension of myself that I had not been aware of. It gave me permission to live into that new self identity. It both revealed and invited.

A moment of grace. A place where I was called out of my narrow identity and invited to new possibilities.

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They can be totally mundane – driving in Chicago traffic. A thing up until recently I did on a daily basis on my commute to the hospital where I worked as a chaplain. Some days things I would just chug along – lost in a song, thinking about bills, wondering what the day would bring. I dutifully follow the car in front of me and trust I’ll get where I’m going eventually.

Other days however seem to flow. I’m awake and aware, gaps open seemingly like magic, and I move along at wonderful pace. Tiny mundane moments when those opportunities to move present themselves – and I am able to take them.

And then… those scary moments, when some noodkin swerves right in front of me and I am able to avoid the collision and continue, gratefully, to work. My life has been opened in front of me. I am still here. I am grateful.

A moment of grace. A place where awareness allows possibilities which might otherwise be missed; which might otherwise end badly.

Last night Karen and I went to see the movie “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” - very entertaining. It’s about a bunch of retirees who outsource their retirement in exotic – and cheap – India.

Many ongoing stories – great cast, won’t give away story- one woman, Muriel, who starts out very unlikeable.

Doesn’t want “brown” people to be around her. But as story progresses and she is recovering from surgery she is invited to the home of one of the servants at the hotel. The young woman is an untouchable and wants to return the perceived kindness she has felt from Muriel because she has actually acknowledged her presence. Muriel asks the translator – why does she want me to meet her family? Replies – because you have been kind to her. Muriel say – wonderment – “but I haven’t.” It opens her in that moment to a deeper truth of who she has been in the world.

A little later Muriel goes back again – to actually try and be kind. This time she ends up talking about her own life – and how she had been taken for granted by the family she had cared for all her life. In this scene she again finds a deeper moment of truth. She has rejected the world because she had been rejected.

A moment of grace; a place to see something which was not visible before; a moment in which to claim our deeper humanity.

Sometimes moments of grace can be genuine, awesome, life altering events. Mountain top or peak experiences which change the course of life entirely.

Back in Colorado in the late 90’s I had one such experience. It was a difficult period in my life & I was suffering from depression and insomnia. I went home from work one afternoon to try and get some rest but the moment my head hit the pillow I was wide awake.

I erupted in a rage of frustration and anger at the God of my youth asking why – when I did everything I was supposed to do as a Catholic woman – God didn’t do his part and give me what I wanted.

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Sounds funny, right? What happened next was pure grace. I was flooded with a feeling of unconditional love which wiped away every bit of sadness and depression and filled me with a sense of light and hope.

The words “why don’t you want what I’ve given you?” filled my consciousness and I suddenly became aware of the deep blessings in my life. My family, my home, my location in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

This experience changed me to the core. A faith which relied on rules and regulations became insignificant and I started exploring other faith traditions as a way to understand this experience and my own place in the universe. This exploration led eventually to my ministry in the Unitarian Universalist faith and opened my life to previously unimagined possibilities.

A moment of grace: a place where I was called out of a narrow world view and began exploring new possibilities.

Where are the moment so grace in your life?

I believe that as a world community we need grace now more than ever. It’s part of the human condition to become stuck – to get into ruts, to become preoccupied and distracted, to see what we expect to see.

We need moments that break us open – allow for newness – for hope.

In the first story we heard today the man had his life given back to him with a new lens and appreciation. It was the result of a little demon who turned his shoes around and sent him right back to his old life – but with different expectations. He was able to see things with new eyes – appreciate goodness which had always been there. It was a gift that was given to him by that mischievous act.

But in Anne Lamott’s story we see a different aspect of grace. Perspectives are opened, a moment is transformed – but it is precipitated not by a supernatural event, but by Neshama’s ability to bring her whole self to the situation.

Lamott writes “Here they had thought Neshama was going to teach them a lesson, and she had instead sung them a song.” Transformation occurred which brought forth joy and hope and generosity.

Neshama stepped out of the assigned roles – out of teacher / student, out of prisoner / visitor, out of us / them. “All she had done was tell them, “I’m human, you’re human, let me greet your humanness. Let’s be people together for a while.” But this was a powerful act of grace. It opened them all up to being the people they could be – freed them from past life definitions of who they were.

In the same way Muriel was called out of her stuckness by the appreciation of the young woman who invited her to her home. In being thanked, she realized how much more she could be doing – how much her own pain had kept her locked up and lonely.

We all need that. We all need moments to wake up from the world we have created around us and open up to something new – to something fresh – to new possibilities of being.

We look around and know that the world needs grace today. We are stuck, stuck, stuck, in so many ways. Stuck on that hamster wheel of consumerism, constantly chasing after whatever new gadget Madison Ave

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is dangling in front of us now. Never stopping to look around, to see the world differently, to act from our heart rather than from our wants.

We need grace today in our political arena – oh boy! Our country is so stuck in its opposing polarities that it’s beginning to feel like there is no way forward. We need grace – some opening of possibilities, some new perspective to lift us out of our stuckness – help us take a lesson from Neshama and just “be human together – just be people for a while.”\

We need grace. Need new possibilities, new ways of seeing & being seen. But if a little devil doesn’t show up to turn around our shoes, what can we do? We can turn them around ourselves.

Grace might work most like my traffic example. Some mornings on my drive I see the openings – and take them – and some mornings I am too lost in the news or my own thoughts to even be aware. When I bring my full attention – my full self – good things happen.

And it happens in life as well. We can begin by opening to our own deepest selves – paying attention to our hearts, paying attention to those things which bring us alive, which give joy.

And we can also do that for those around us. Notice the extra effort, the quiet kindness, the qualities that people bring which are not expected, not right out front.

We can not only find grace – we can be grace to this world. We can be agents of change – opening possibilities for those around us even as we transform our own lives.

Grace is not some rare, magical or arcane quality which comes from outside of us. It can be an unexpected gift but it can also be a way of life that we choose; a way of being open to new possibilities, of looking at the world in new ways each and every day.

Today and always may you be open to the gifts of unlimited possibilities in your lives. May you find them in moments tiny and large, may you be surprised in all its many manifestations and may your lives be full to overflowing with the power of grace.

Hymn #206 / 298?

Closing Words: Denise Levertov Rev. Pamela Rumancik

As Swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, As hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, So would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace. Benediction Rev. Pamela Rumancik

Go forth in this world being instruments of grace – May you be opened, be surprised, be challenged, and be comforted by those places which surprise and open new horizons. May you be full of grace.

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