“Spiritual
Maturity: The Mystical Path”
Sermon for MCC
New Haven
July 21, 2013
Rev. Brian
Hutchison, M.Div.
Colossians
1:24-28
Luke
10:38-42
When
I was twelve years old, I went on a middle school retreat with my Methodist
church’s youth group. I was nervous because I was a shy kid. I wasn’t very
social and I didn’t know what to expect from the retreat. We went into the beautiful
mountains of West Virginia for Spring Break. Wildflowers were in full bloom. We
stayed in cabins, took hikes, and took paddleboats onto the lake. On the second
day there, I learned that Christians are fallible… because one of the
chaperones went out on a paddleboat with me and a gust of wind sent his toupee
into the lake. The words that came out of his mouth after that made me giggle.
He didn’t find it so funny.
On
the last night of the retreat, we all sat around the campfire and took
Communion together under the stars. It was probably the first time I had ever
taken Communion. Our Youth Minister Wendy told us about Jesus and how much he
loves us. And while looking up at a million stars and taking that simple
sacrament, I asked God if we could be friends. And it was as if God said, “Of
course! Let’s go on an adventure!”
My
inner life transformed from that point on. With all the turmoil and loneliness
of my childhood, I finally had an Eternal Friend. Soon after that experience, I
began preaching at the age of thirteen. I preached a few times a year in the
church of my upbringing until I was 17. During that time, I led prayer groups, led
worship, and attended wonderful retreats and Christian work camps. My faith
became my strength.
I
have always known I was attracted to the same gender. I had crushes on boys
since I was 4 years old. I actually started to wear my mom’s wig and clothes
since I was 4 as well. Whenever I was alone in the house, I would sneak into my
parent’s room and put on lipstick and stare into the mirror for hours. I didn’t
want to be a girl. I was just fascinated with gender.
I
was also fascinated with God since I was a small child. I remember teaching
myself to meditate without even knowing what it was called when I was 3 or 4. I
had a special hiding place under the record player where I would sit and just be with the Divine. I remember
feeling like I remembered being in the womb, safe and warm, and growing with
potential.
I
have always been a mystic. A mystic
is someone who has a natural inclination to feel the Divine on an intuitive
level. Even before I knew the word “God” or went to Sunday School, I knew who
God was. God was my friend then. But until my Middle School retreat experience,
I all but forgot. “Growing up” began to erase that element in me. But I did
spend most of my childhood in the State Park that led up to the back of my
house in Maryland. Almost like Snow White, I befriended the trees and the
animals of the forest. I played “Oprah” and interviewed the squirrels and
birds. I took refuge next to the stream. I dove into my imagination about what
had happened among those trees over the centuries.
This
is what I know to be what Jesus called “Faith like a child.” It is a faith with
an open heart. It is a vulnerable faith. It is a trust that God will guide the
path, even when I feel I am lost. It is a right brain, creative faith. It doesn’t
require dogma, doctrine, creeds, or fear of a Boogie Man. All it requires is a
deep love for life, and that I had.
A
deep love for life is a fundamental element of adult spiritual maturity. The paradox that Jesus gives in the Gospels
is that we are to be mature through being
childlike. Note that there is a
huge difference between being childish
and being childlike. Being childish
is demanding what you want without regard to the needs and desires of others.
We also call this ego. There’s an
annoying element to being childish. Being childlike
means embracing the creativity that we were born with. It means remembering
that we are co-creators of our lives with the One who gave us life. It was once
said that the creative adult is that
child that survived. Being childlike is wise.
The
other element of adult spiritual maturity has to do with a willingness to be a
lifetime learner. Even when we graduate from one school or another, we are
always learning. A diploma is not an ending; it is a new beginning. My 90
year-old grandmother is still learning. You are still learning. Don’t be
ashamed of it; embrace it! Some of my seminary colleagues were in their late
sixties. They hadn’t given up on their dream of becoming ordained ministers and
so they took a leap of faith and attained their goals. It is never too late to
learn.
Mary
(of Mary and Martha) embraced the opportunity to learn when she could. She sat
down at the feet of Jesus and listened intently. In Jesus’ time, that was not
proper for a woman to do. Women were not supposed to listen to the wisdom of
prophets. They were only supposed to serve them politely. So Mary’s sister
Martha did as society told her. She worked away in the kitchen to entertain
Rabbi Jesus. The Scripture tells us that she was “distracted”. Martha
notices that her sister Mary is transgressing gender norms by placing herself
as a student of Jesus and angrily asks Jesus, “Don’t you care that she left me
to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
Instead
of catching himself off guard with the rules of society, Jesus tells busy
Martha, “You are so distracted! Only one thing is important. Learn from Mary;
what she has chosen is eternal.” This must have shocked Martha. “Who is this
Rabbi to make women equal to men??”
Jesus,
a mystic himself, had taught Mary to be a mystic. Jesus empowered women
throughout his ministry to embrace the Spirit of God within them. When Mary did
this, it absolutely shocked Martha. This may have happened to you too. People
who knew you for a long time learned of your spirituality and were intrigued.
Could you be a mystic too?
Christian
mysticism has been condemned for a long time by the institutional Church. Why?
Because being a mystic means subverting
oppressive power. When we are truly connected with God with an
unsurpassable vulnerable trust, God takes precedence over the powers of this
world. And that scares those in power; especially those who claim to speak on
behalf of God.
If
you didn’t know, in the fourth century after Jesus, the Roman Empire chose to
become Christian. It had long embraced the Roman pantheon of gods and
goddesses, but decided to embrace Christianity. This was a blessing and a curse
at once. On the side of blessing, the Roman Empire would stop killing those
pesky Christians who challenged the empire’s oppressive ways. On the other
side, Christianity itself would be changed for the worse for the rest of
history.
When
any group becomes the dominant group, it is destined to become tainted by
power. As feminism teaches, only shared
power is truly good. We know by historical record that for 1600 years, the
Christian Church has used to name of God and Christ to oppress peoples around
the earth. It has killed those who refuse to convert, such as during the
Inquisition. It has embraced anti-Semitism (also known as the hatred of the
Jewish people). It has officially damned all non-Christians to eternal torture.
And remember, the Nazis claimed to be Christians.
This
kind of history alone is enough for millions of people to stay far away from
anything bearing the name of “Christian.” But there is hope! Though the
institutional church has carried this oppressive power for 1600 years, there
has always been descent within the
church from a minority that disagrees. Over the centuries, these folks have
been identified as mystics. They were
not necessarily ascetics, hiding away from the rest of society to just think
about God. No, there have been many bold saints who stood up in the face of
abused power and bad theology to say instead that ALL people are born with
Original Blessing and are sacred children of God.
Among
that cloud of positive-thinking, loving, creative witnesses as living
theologian Rev. Matthew Fox lists are Hildegard of Bingen of the 10th
century, Francis of Assisi (whom the current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church
took his name), Francis’ close friend Clare, Mechtild of Magdeburg from the
century, and Thomas Aquinas all in the 11th century. And then there
is Meister Eckhart, a German Christian theologian in the 13th to 14th
centuries, who was declared a heretic by the institutional church, but has been
revered by Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus alike for centuries. Teresa of
Avila of the 16th century reminded humanity that we are the hands
and feet of Christ and that Christ is indeed our Mother. We never forget
astronomer Galileo of the 16th century who insisted that the world
is spherical and revolves around the Sun. Then George Fox of the 17th
century who recognized the Divine Spark in every human being and founded the
Society of Friends that we know as the Quakers.
More
recent on the list include African American spiritual leader Sojourner Truth,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Mahatma
Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, lesbian feminist Audre Lorde, and the list goes on.
Are
you in the list of mystics? Do you with your whole being embrace a trust in the
Divine Mystery that created the Universe? Do you believe that the whole Human
Family has been created good? Do you believe that human potential is always
greater that human downfall? Do you value the Earth that God has given us as
the most beautiful gift for our use and not our abuse? Do you recognize God in
the world every day? Then you are on the list. You, my friend, are a mystic.
Mysticism
is not witchcraft. It is not a silly celebrity fad. It’s not confined to the
category of “New Age” that fundamentalists warn people about over the airways.
No, mysticism is looking into the sky as I did as a young adolescent and just
standing in perfect awe of creation. It is saying, “Wow, I must be special to
be alive in this Universe.” And it’s also saying, “Wow, this whole Universe
also lives within me.”
As
we come closer to the time when we will define ourselves as a community in the
future, I challenge you to “try on” the title of “mystic.” See how it fits. If
it gives you joy unspeakable, if it feels right in your gut, and if it helps
you to feel whole, then I encourage you to embrace it and move into the future.
God bless our sacred, mystical journey together. Amen.
You also heard from the Book of
Colossians today. The institutional Church has said for centuries that the
Apostle Paul wrote it, but we now know that is not true. But we can still find
truth within it, like we can in any text. We heard that the author felt a call
to “Make the word of God fully known.” The author also says that the word of
God is the “mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages, but now has been
revealed.” Though God has probably been put in a box for you throughout your
life, it is never too late to open your whole life and embrace that God is the
Mystery Beyond Our Naming. We know that fireflies exist and that they are
beautiful. We don’t need to keep them in a jar to light up until they die. We
can observe creation and take in the beauty that fills our souls. In that
experience, Colossians tells us that WE are the “hope of glory.” The word
“glory” means “prosperity.” Think of that. WE are the hope of prosperity in the
world. Hear and believe today.
