Celebrating the Question
Sermon preached Sunday, June 5, 2005
by Aimee Brackbill
I suppose it is a dangerous thing, especially after having just received a degree called Master of Divinity, to preach about absurdity. It is a little absurd to be standing before you, offering you a sermon, when I hear that everything has already been said and done before. I can't add anything new. At graduation I enjoyed my "moment in the sun" being celebrated for all my very important accomplishments and achievements. But in the fall, the seminary I attended will be filled with new people who will never meet me, will never know me. I will not be remembered by those who come after me.
But now I am a "master" and I am officially qualified to speak about God. Patricia sent me an email the other day on this subject, welcoming me to what she called the "ridiculous club" - a group of people holding a degree with the most ridiculous title. As if it might actually be possible to master the Divine in some way! I agree with her. And I think partly that's why I wanted to preach on Ecclesiastes today. It seems like the most fitting text for this time in my life. But I also think it's a pretty appropriate text for all of us, especially in our current religious climate, and especially in America.
A couple of months ago I went to hear a lecture by Diana Butler Bass, who has written some books on American congregations. She spoke about the research she recently completed, which will be published soon, on 50 mainline congregations that are not in decline. If you haven't noticed, the mainline churches of America are apparently on the way out. That's a long story. But her point was that there is a persistent little stream in American mainline Protestantism that is viable, lively, and creative. There are lots of quirky little congregations doing some amazing things.
We all know that the big divide, the big debate for American religion in general, is between the liberals and the fundamentalists, and it has been for a long time. The interesting thing that Diana Bass has found in her research, however, is that this duality is no longer a helpful description of "the problem." Her research with American congregations showed that while there are vestiges of that old split hanging around, there is a different split going on today, which crosses the old lines.
She understands the more dominant stream as those who come to religion seeking certainty, an attitude which may even include some people on the liberal end of things. The other stream, which is not quite as large or vocal, but is no less alive, is something she's called the path of wisdom. The basic idea is that life in America today seems to be characterized by uncertainty, fear and a whole lot of questions. We live in a confusing post-modern world where we can't even seem to find ground to put our feet on that doesn't immediately shift under our weight. And then, you throw something like quantum physics into the mix! What are we supposed to do with that? Everything is in flux, nothing is a given, and things just plain seem to be out of control. Out of our control at least.
So her point is that people inclined toward religion, tend to respond to this state of affairs in one of two ways. One, we decide all this uncertainty business is a big problem and we search for the clearest and most secure answer. We latch on to absolutes with both hands. We have a very big God, full of power and might, and we define our faith in a likewise manner. Or, two, we somehow take a different track. The notion of certainty actually makes us kind of nervous. All the available answers just don't seem right somehow. We prefer to admit there really are some questions we can't solve. We live with the questions, rather than avoid them, and we seek out some way to let them actually shape our faith, as we attempt to live faithfully in our world. Authenticity trumps certainty.
This reminds me of a quote I keep on my desk. A number of years ago I bought one of those rip-away desk calendars. I forget what it was called, but it had something to do with quotes from raucous or outrageous women. Anyway, when I got to Wednesday, July 7th it rang so true that this calendar has been forever frozen on that date. I never ripped it off. I just kept it there on my desk with the quote from Gertrude Stein. It says "There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer." I love that. I have expended so much energy in my life trying to find answers, and especially the big answer. So I keep this quote to remind me to stop trying so hard.
So I'm intrigued by this idea of wisdom being a guiding method for faith. I've always loved wisdom literature, it's actually one thing that helped me make my escape from the religion of certainty that I grew up in. But there's something really odd about the wisdom tradition. It often seems to contradict, or at least raise questions, about the dominant orthodoxy we get most of the time from Scripture. How often do you remember hearing sermons from the wisdom books? Ecclesiastes only shows up one time in the lectionary. When we think about the broad scope of our traditions, do we even remember the wisdom tradition is tucked in there, just as solidly as the law and the prophets?
I encourage you to dig into the wisdom books sometime. You might be surprised. Not always by what they say, but more often by how the wisdom is presented. This isn't Moses coming down the mountain with the 10 commandments. And it's not quite the prophet, bringing a message of warning from God. It's much more organic, earthy, and observational. It's a lot more every-day, gleaned from lived experience. And the most exciting part is that it invites the reader to do the same. Pay attention, listen, look, reflect and see for yourself. It's engaged with the questions - real people asking real questions. And it doesn't always hand you an answer, at least not an absolute, once-and-for-all, and for-all-time kind of answer. Wisdom counsels us to pay attention to our context and figure out what might be most appropriate for our given time and situation.
That may be all fine and good, even mostly harmless. But then there's Ecclesiastes. It pushes even the wisdom tradition to its limits of how much and what we can question. It centers around the question "is there anything of enduring value in this life, especially given the ultimate certainty of death?" If we are all going to die, if we can't make any lasting or worthwhile mark on the world, and we probably won't be remembered, what's the point? What profit can we make from all our toil? It does sound pretty grim, doesn't it? No wonder we tend to skip over this book! But there's still something that keeps drawing us back in. Maybe it's the boldness to face the truth of life, even in its worst case scenario. If we strip away everything we rely on for comfort, is there anything left? If we let go of our need for certainty, for control, what will happen to us? Are we brave enough to go there?
Strangely enough, Ecclesiastes is considered by many to be an inherently joyful book, a liberating book. It is traditionally read at the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, a time of rejoicing. It may be that the basic theme of the book is the enjoyment of life. I bet you all know the passage from chapter three, you may be able to sing the song - "To everything there is a season." Life is balanced, everything has a place and a time. It goes on to say that there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we live, to eat and drink and actually take pleasure in our toil. God blesses this joy and enjoyment of life. But "vanity of vanities, all is vanity?" What do we do with that? It all seems pretty contradictory. But, maybe that's part of the point. We are left to steer our own way through the unresolved contradictions, all of which ring true. A dialogue is opened up, and explored with different possibilities. One possibility is that the realization of vanity itself can be a path to joy.
The Hebrew word that is often translated as "vanity" is actually pretty difficult to make sense of. Like a lot of words, it can have some very different meanings, which change according to the context. Literally it means something like a breath, or a vapor. Something very light and transitory, not too substantial or lasting. Some other possibilities are ephemeral, meaningless, useless, futile, irony, mystery, irrational. These all have difference nuances, and interestingly, no one really agrees on which is right. The book begins with and centers around something that cannot be pinned down. Remember that. It happens more than you might guess.
Most people who are Masters of this sort of thing, tend to think that "vanity" is not the most helpful translation for us. I like the existentialist leaning translation of absurdity. The core of reality is something we can't make sense of. If you could easily explain it or if people could agree on it, it would lose any shred of meaning it might have had. Yet you can sense this reality in the core of your being. Life is unresolved contradiction. This is similar to another translation I like, by a Jewish rabbi named Rami Shapiro, which moves more in the Taoist direction. The Tao, or the Way is the ultimate mystery, the source of all being, where all things return. The Tao te Ching begins this way "The Tao that can be named Tao is not the Tao." The Tao is the ultimate reality that you can't describe. You have to intuit it and adjust yourself to flow with it. Control and effort don't work. Is anyone still with me here? Since I can't possibly explain existentialism or Taoism, we'll just move on. Here is how Rami Shapiro renders the "vanity of vanities" passage from verse 2.
Emptiness! Emptiness upon emptiness!
The world is fleeting of form,
Empty of permanence,
Void of surety,
Without certainty.
Like a breath breathed once and gone,
All things rise and fall.
Understand emptiness, and tranquility replaces anxiety.
Understand emptiness, and compassion replaces jealousy.
Understand emptiness, and you will cease to excuse suffering
And begin to alleviate it.
In the Western world, which is us, we tend to get wrapped up in finding some single abstract entity or principle which might hold everything together. We want a unifying answer that we can explain in some logical fashion. So I have to ask, have any of you seen "the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" yet? Or have you read the book? I actually haven't seen the movie yet, since I've been a little busy with finals and graduation. But I love the book. I was thinking about it a lot when Patricia was doing her series on Quantum Christianity. And I actually think it fits in here too. I'll try not to give too much of the plot away here.
Toward the end of the book, people are fed up with arguing over the meaning of life. So they build this super computer called Deep Thought, which turns out to be the 2nd greatest computer of all space and time. Its one task is to answer the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. This made all the philosophers and sages really angry by the way, because an answer would threaten their job security. But since it would take the computer 7 ½ million years to figure out the answer, they all had plenty of time to capitalize on the speculation. So anyway, the "great day of the answer" finally arrived. There was a huge party and everyone was anxiously waiting for the computer to finally speak. When the moment came, in Douglas Adams' sense of humor, the computer assured everyone that yes, there really was an answer, but cautioned that they probably wouldn't like it.
The ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything turns out to be 42. Yes, that's 42. Understandably everyone was pretty upset, because this didn't make any sense, though it was a simple enough answer. The computer then says that the problem is that they've never actually known what the question is. They had thought the question was pretty obvious - it was everything. To which the computer replies "Exactly. Once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means." So they then set about building an even better computer to figure out the question to the ultimate answer, which of course would take another 10 million years.
So we like answers, and are often so focused on them, that we forget to even consider what the question might be. I think Ecclesiastes might pose a question of "how are we to live in this world? What are we to do with this strange and complex life?" Ecclesiastes doesn't give one definitive answer at all, no neat packaging. Instead, it presents a dialogue. Instead of using wisdom as something to be gained, or some sort of answer to questions, it uses wisdom as a method for asking the questions. A way to observe and reflect. The reader, each of us, is then invited to engage the questions and see for ourselves if we agree or not. It is an invitation to see if we see what the author sees.
The possibility that Ecclesiastes holds out is that we can take everything as a gift. Rather than something earned, a gift is undeserved, unexpected. It is temporary and we hold it more loosely in our hands. It's not what we do, how we spend our time, or how much effort we expend that is most important. It's how we regard it. Anything, no matter how good or noble can become toil. Is our primary motivation some kind of profit or recognition? Are we driven by some need to make our mark and be remembered? What are we striving for, and why do we always need more?
All this comes from an illusion of separateness, that we exist as individuals separate from the whole of life. It is the ego that wants to be distinguished and special. But when we look around, we start to notice that everywhere around us, we are connected. That it's not so easy to say where I end and you begin. There is no striving, because there is nothing more to be gained. Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." Rabbi Shapiro's translation in Ecclesiastes says it this way "For you the Way is not enough; for you it must be a Way To when in fact it is only the Way Of…There is no tranquility in the Way To; yet the Way Of is peace itself."
As Patricia has been reminding us, it's that realization that whatever we are doing, wherever we are, in the most mundane everyday tasks, this is the most perfect moment. That is where the joy springs from. Yet we each have to work this out ourselves. I believe we can know that all of life is a gift. It's certainly not due to our efforts. But I can't tell you what the gifts are, or how they are gifts. In some ways, the gift is in your own process of coming to receive life as a gift.
Life doesn't need to be anything else or to lead to anything else to be of value. Life doesn't have a point, rather it is the point. When we can truly see and experience, engage and question, we may catch a glimpse of that ultimate mystery. For those of us who feel drawn to a path of wisdom, this is the way to embrace life with joy. With God's blessing we can learn to celebrate the questions, not fear them. We can eat bread and drink wine, actions both holy and mundane, full of mystery and simplicity. Perhaps today we can experiment. Instead of toiling to make sense of all this, consider it play. None of us needs to be a Master, not even those of us with degrees. Especially those with degrees - we should know better. Instead, let us eat bread and drink wine, and celebrate the complex and wonder-filled world we are part of. And celebrate the questions that endure. Amen.
© 2005 by Aimee Brackbill. All rights reserved. Please consult the author at tabernacle@tabunited.org if you wish to use the text of this sermon, in whole or in part.
