Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
May 30, 2010
Trinity Sunday

Scripture Lesson:  John 16:12-15

The Whole Truth

"... I still have many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now. 
When the Spirit of Truth comes,
he will guide you into all the truth. 
(John 16:12-13)

Prelude

Memorial Day weekend:

unofficial commencement of summer;

a carousel of picnics and parades;

and the great race at the Motor Speedway

in Indianapolis, the "greatest spectacle,"

where the invitation will sound:

"Gentleman, start your engines."

(once upon a time, when Jim Nabors could still sing "Back Home

Again in Indiana," and the stars of the show had names like Foyt,

Rutherford, Unser, Andretti, I made a few pilgrimages to the track.

I progressed from time trial visitor to actually attending a race in

the luxury box known as the infield.  I saw little of the race, but

learned a lot about weather patterns and rain delays, car culture

and human nature.  It was a stage in life that did not last).

Memorial Day weekend. 

For some there is the custom of cemetery visitation,

harkening back to a time when across the land almost every city,

village, and hamlet churchyard had dead family and friends,

lives lost in a time of great rebellion. 

It was General John A. Logan, in early May of 1868, who issued

the orders calling for a "strewning with flowers or otherwise

decorating the graves" of the fallen; "garland the mounds ...

with the choicest flowers of springtime ...", so advised the general.

He was concerned, so he said, about neglect and what may come

of the ravages of time.  And so his orders included a pledge,

a challenge if you will.

If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack,

and other hearts cold in the solemn trust,

ours shall keep it well as long as the light and

warmth of life remain in us.

Memorial Day.  Keep it well. 

At our best, we carry as a blessing

the nurture of ancestors,

a people who believed there was a solemn trust

to be maintained with the past,

whose love of land and life and liberty

was great and sufficient and eager

to keep it well.

So may we honor them, and honor all,

who lived in hope of us.

          *****           *****           *****

Earlier this week I reacquainted myself with

the work of Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941). 

Underhill is best known and remembered

for her 1911 work on "Mysticism:  A Study in Nature and

Development of Spiritual Consciousness."

The writing of this work was in part done as a rebuttal,

response, to the work by William James (Varieties

of Religious Experience, 1907).

She took issue with his dissection of

mystic religious experience

and sought to balance, if not correct,

what she saw as a flawed analysis.

A side note:  Underhill was quite a pioneer in the first

part of the 20th century.  It is recorded that she was the

first woman to formally lecture to the male clergy of

the Church of England.  She was first woman officially

authorized to conduct spiritual retreats within and for

the Church of England. She was an important link between

churches in the early advance of the ecumenical movement. 

She paved the way for others as a theologian and lecturer to

numerous English colleges and universities.  The attempt is

made that her work not be ravaged by time - indeed, she is

venerated (this is a good word for the spiritually inclined!),

her life liturgically commemorated on June 15th, by both the

Church of England and the Episcopal Church (USA).

The Underhill work in my library is The Spiritual Life,

a reprint of four radio broadcasts aired in 1936.

In one section she writes,

"... each human spirit is an unfinished product,

on which the Creative Spirit is always at work"

          (The Spiritual Life, Evelyn Underhill, p. 50)

And then later,

"... the development of the spiritual life involves

both dealing with ourselves, and attending to God"

          (The Spiritual Life, p. 59).

This work, dealing with ourselves, attending to God,

is quite daunting. 

You don't need a doctrine of original sin,

nor a teaching of human depravity, to acknowledge

that our lives are incredibly twisted.

In the language employed by Underhill

we lead "tangled, half real ... lives ... ;"

we are "tightly coiled about ourselves."

Grace is unknotting what time and turmoil,

trouble and tragedy, has double and triple knotted. 

Grace serves to get us into what Underhill calls

"harmony with the great movement of Reality."

This is an echo of teaching sounded centuries before: 

"God is the only Reality, and we are only real

is so far as we are in God's order, and God in us"

(St. Augustine).

          *****           *****           *****

I make mention of Evelyn Underhill and her teachings

for a couple of reasons.  She was writing a century ago,

quite conscious of using language in a new way;

she was aware:  the eye can become dull, the hand grow slack,

the heart become cold, and so she sought to elevate and expand

consciousness of the divine at work in our midst for our good.

Traditional language didn't always work for her; it could be

dull and tiring; yet she remained insistent: 

that we deal with ourselves, that we attend to God,

to gain harmony with the great movement of Reality.

This runs parallel to the morning scripture,

the 16th chapter of John, where Jesus is teaching the disciples,

desiring to say so much, but realizing the limitations that are

imposed upon the conversation.  Jesus speaks of Spirit

that will come, Spirit of truth, God consciousness,

that will lead and guide, that will testify to the Word

once spoken, yet still speaking; the Spirit will not innovate,

nor deviate, but rather will honor and glorify

Jesus as Son, God as Father. 

The naming here (the masculine, patriarchal language) is not crucial.

The connection and the harmony is.

The Spirit will serve to lead into the truth. 

All the truth.  The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. 

The Holy spirit maintain trust with the past;

the Holy spirit serves as trail blazer for our future.

This teaching can be quite overwhelming.

I'm mindful of the fellow who visited IPFW, AJ Jacobs, who

embarked upon a quest to live one year as literally as possible

in accordance with biblical teaching.  Required always to tell

the truth, no matter what, his wife took to asking him,

"What are you thinking?"  When responding, he typically

found himself committing some sort of transgression:

be it vengeance or greed.  Dealing with the "airing" of his

thoughts was not easy.  All the truth, all the time, makes

for a troubled life. 

So also I sense the state of our lives.

What a challenge it is to deal honestly

with all our tangled lives so tightly coiled.

It is a Sunday set aside for healing prayer here at Plymouth.

And I'm simply wondering:

How do we deal with ourselves so that God,

the Creative Spirit, can work with, for us.

To heal us.

How do we deal with the unspeakable?

The scars of war?  The excess.  The blunders.

The tightly coiled heart, ready to rage.

How do we deal with ourselves, so that God can heal

the sorrows and grief that clog the soul, like cholesterol

clogs our arteries?

Joyce Carol Oates just published an excerpt

in Atlantic Monthly, on a soon-to-be-published book,

on her journey through grief, the death of her

husband of 48 years.

Is this grief?  - such exhaustion, melancholy?

A feeling of dazed, dizzy not-rightness, the

sensation you feel before acute nausea?  A

sensation of being off-balance - both

spiritually and physically - as if something

has worked its way loose inside my head?

Some here this morning can relate to this in

very direct and tangible ways.

Can we deal, honestly, with what haunts us,

the immeasurable losses that mount up

as time ravages?

Our wounds run deep, do they not?

Our hurts and fears, our debts and our trespasses,

if we face them all, they are overwhelming.

If the Spirit is leading us, where are we being taken?

Important question.  And how can we discern its work?

If the spirit is God's gift, how do we keep it well?

Evelyn Underhill makes mention of

St. John of the Cross, who understood the Spirit

of God to have three distinguishing marks:

(1)  tranquility,

(2)  gentleness,

(3)  strength.

I mention these this morning that we might ponder, examine,

consider, both what we need, and that which God provides as

expressions of love and grace. 

          *****           *****           *****

The grace of God is healing mercy in our lives.

This, I assert, is gospel truth.  But it is not the whole truth.

The whole truth is that we might serve as healers,

as a collective, capable of binding up what time and trouble,

sin and grief has broken.   

In an essay entitled, "Christ the Healer," Evelyn Underhill wrote:

"It is true that God is the unique source of all the

healing energies of life.  But as God reached out

through Christ, so God still reaches out through men

and women and often asks us to pay for part of God's

treatment."

This is high hope for the church, the body of Christ.   

It is grand view of faith.  It is trust with the past

that I pray we keep well. 

Ponder:  we each carry "a bit of the Divine healing love,"

and with the Spirit, we are suited to spread that healing love

to those who need it.  (see E. Underhill, The Soul's Delight,

Selected Writings, p. 49).  We become part of God's

treatment.  The bit in you may be just the bit your neighbor

needs.  We become what N. Nouwen called "wounded healers." 

          *****           *****           *****

Life is often overwhelming.

Staggering in its volatility.

Which is why we pray today,

for healing, wholeness, for

"reintegration of body, mind, emotions,"

that we might attain what God truly does desire

a full life "in a creation honored by prudent and

respectful use. "(UCC Book of Worship, p. 306)

I advise:  be alert.  What healing you need, will come.

Though we are capable of sinking to unimaginable depths,

so also can we rise to incomparable heights,

even harmony with the great movement of Reality.

In that Reality may we find our peace, our joy,

our strength.

Amen.