Come, Yet Again, Come

So why get out of the bed and come to church?

Come because life is a puzzle that often eludes our desperate search for a solution or at least some understanding. And we are a puzzle to our self and others. As Norman Maclean observed in the book, A River Runs Through It, “It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.” This is a place to sort out the pieces, to make some sense of the emerging pattern, making it possible to fill in the spaces with missing pieces.

Come because there is still within you, regardless of your age or life experience, an acorn that yearns to become an oak tree, or a drop of water that could become a river, then a waterfall, then an ocean of possibility, or a flower that is about to bloom. There is always the challenge of becoming more nearly yourself, of completing your life before death ends it. There is a Hasidic tale intended to remind us of what is at stake here. “Before his death Rabbi Zusya said, ‘In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”

Come simply out of need, realizing that you are not self-sufficient, self-sustaining, or self-derived. George Odell wrote, “We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs. We need one another in the hour defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again. We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey. All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.” You need to know that here you will find gentle hands and hearts. You need to know that your gentle hands and heart are needed to create and sustain the beloved community.

Albert Schweitzer said, “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.” Come because the flame of your being needs to be rekindled through music and silence and poetry. Or you might come willing to be the one to rekindle the light of another person.

Come out of despair in. We will offer you comfort, hope, and a song: “Come, come, whoever you are, wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving/ Ours is no caravan of despair. Come, yet again come.”

Come out of a sense of profound reverence. This is the practice of Namaste: “the God in me greets the God in you.” This is an awareness of the need to cultivate desire, desire for Life, for the holy, for God or for the Goddess, for whatever you consider most precious and profound. Coming here on a Sunday morning could be and perhaps should be a spiritual practice that you do for the good of your soul. Unitarian minister, A. Powell Davies said that, “The purpose of life is to grow a soul.” The Quakers would ask, “How is it with thy soul?” Let us risk asking that question. Let us risk finding answers worthy of our desire.

Come because you are trying to make sense of those things that make it impossible for you to sleep through the night. I am reminded of Paul Simon’s song, The Obvious Child. “Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself/ How it's strange that some rooms are like cages/ Sonny's yearbook from high school/ Is down from the shelf/ And he idly thumbs through the pages/ Some have died/ Some have fled from themselves/ Or struggled from here to get there/ Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls/ Runs his hand through his thinning brown hair.” Now we become real. Now we admit to sorrow and regret, the profound need for forgiveness, especially self-forgiveness; the need for healing, even the need for salvation by which I mean wholeness. Now we accept our mistakes and failures, willing to have them teach us as we choose authenticity over artifice, depth over convenience.

Come because you finally accept the premise, as I have, that life is a hire wire act without a net. There is no way forward but forward and you must risk who you are, which means risking everything, in the service of who you might become. Mary Oliver wrote, “When it's over, I want to say: all my life/ I was a bride married to amazement./ I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms./ When it's over, I don't want to wonder/ if I have made of my life something particular, and real./ I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,/ or full of argument./ I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”

Come without expectation, but willing to place yourself in a sanctuary of possibility. You might come because you are intent on creating the Beloved Community, one worthy of your commitment, knowing that your presence is essential to that undertaking. You might come out of a sense of holy discontent demanding that together we fulfill the incredible promise of our faith. You might even come with a sense of urgency knowing that it is the only way to make a difference in whatever time you have remaining.