“Living Stones”: Communion Sermon
This sermon “Living Stones: Good News in the Garden” by the Rev. Naomi King of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Utica, NY, was preached at one of the UUCF Communion Services during General Assembly in St. Louis. June 24, 2006
Song of Songs, Luke 18:1-8, 1 Peter 2:4-5
In the morning, one of the early matters of my day, after first prayer, is to pray the news. Sometimes I do this by listening to reports, sometimes by watching, sometimes by reading, sometimes gathering in the coffee shop near the church, sometimes cloistered with a colleague or a parishioner. Praying the news means absorbing the stories, for good or ill or indifference, watching my responses, praying the response of lamentation or praise or prophecy or reconciliation, and searching always for the good news. It is not that I turn away from bad news, but some time ago, I learned just how bad the bad news can be, how unrelenting grief and anger and injustice can challenge my capacity to see and feel and walk with my Beloved. Bad news has a capacity to possess me and torture me as wretchedly as any demon named in scripture; today’s powers and principalities may be best named in the local and in the global, but they always show up through the medium of the news. The good news, the evangelion, is much, much harder for me to hear.
And so I pray the news, daily, with lament, with prophetic anger, with humility, with forgiveness, and with praise, seeking out the good news in all of the tough news. Praying the news, like praying scripture, is one way of staying in touch with my Beloved and listening for God’s word blowing through the world.Whenever I pray the news, the twin questions arise for me: what of justice? How do we keep keepin’ on?With these questions, I turn to the great scriptural stories where the questions, “what of justice?” and “how do we keep keepin’ on?” are always treated, including the story of the dispossessed widow and the unjust judge. I find people there in the scriptures listening for and making the most of the good news whispering, singing, and shouting this good news through the less good news of their daily lives. Yet….just how was the widow – bereft of the comfort of the beloved – sustained to make her case, day after day, hour after hour, against the powers and principalities, the judges who care not about justice? How does the widow recreate the Beloved’s garden in the world, filling the world with good news so persistently that even the judge relents? How are we to be the living stones building the spiritual house, a holy priesthood of all who love God through this teacher and child of God, Jesus? The Song of Songs sings: “Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind!
Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to the garden, and eat its choicest fruits.” (4:16)I recite this verse frequently in the mornings as I put on my clerical collar. I often wear a clerical collar, always when I travel, and frequently through the week. I do this persistently even though I serve an avowedly scared-in-the-name-of-Christ congregation, for I have discovered time and again, that I meet people praying for the good news when I wear this symbol of my faith in public. Keeping my hand on the gospel plow, I’m holding on to the experience of my Beloved and keeping my eyes lifted to see who else is walking on the arms of the Beloved.
“Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages.” (Song of Songs, 7:11)
One day, stopping for coffee at a town along the highway, I met a woman, flushed, weeping, and wringing her hands. She came up to me and implored me, “What kind of priest are you? You’re the third priest I’ve seen today.” Wondering whether there was new joke in the making – three priests come through a roadside stop, one Episcopalian, one Lutheran, and the third…I answered her, wondering what her response would be: “Unitarian Universalist.” Her immediate reply: “Edg adj ishten.” — “God is One”, the cry of Hungarian Unitarians everywhere. We both smiled – she through her tears, me through my road weariness – and embraced. Persistent in her quest, praying for God to provide someone she could speak with, she ignored the judges all around her, and held forth her case. Her faithfulness strengthened my faith; her reliance on praying to hear the good news taught me another round of that lesson I seem to keep needing to hear.As the Song of the Songs sings, “I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen! My Beloved is knocking.” (5:2a) As the Beloved’s messenger said, “Ask and you will be answered; knock and the door will open; seek and the way will be found.” (Luke 11:9-10). Come, you living stones, and be a spiritual house. (1 Peter 2:4).“Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on the arm of my beloved?” (Song of Songs 8:5)“Come, my beloved, let us go out early to vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms are in bloom…There I will give you my love.” (Song of Songs 7:12)I was riding the subway one day, reading psalms, when I was approached by a man. First, he stood across from me and watched me read. Then, he took a seat a few seats down from me. Finally, he moved to be in the seat right next to me. “Are you a Christian minister?” “Yes, I’m a Unitarian Universalist Christian minister.” “What’s that?”“We believe in the unity of God, that God is so loving, all will be saved, and that we’d better to get to work on making that salvation real, now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“That’s often suggested, but no.”
“How can you believe God loves people?”
“How is that you believe God doesn’t?
“You can’t answer a question with a question.”
“I can’t?”
Silence.
“It’s that stuff about sacrifice.” And from his lips tumbled a story – a story many of us know full well – of being full of fear and trembling at the mention of the Beloved’s name, of not knowing the wonder and love of the Holy One, of being estranged from God. We left the subway together to pray and talk in the park. Come, spirit of hope, and bring the living waters to wash over us!
“Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on the arm of my beloved?” (Song of Songs 8:5)Most of my encounters with the Good News begin with a question – often a harshly spoken question, a persistent question. Few of us have the luxury of the persistent widow, bringing her case to only one judge. Most of us seek from pillar to post, through the trials and tempests, for the ports of safety, for the garden moments where the Beloved is so clearly present with us, we cannot help but overflow with joy, hope, and love.“Who is that coming up from the wilderness,leaning on the arm of my beloved?” (Song of Songs 8:5)“Pastor?” It is very late at night or very early in the morning. The sky is shot with stars and a thinning grey blueness. The trip to the emergency room is brief, all right turns, no traffic. The light is bright and the smells of fear and pain bitterly present. There is a young person, nearly a child, waiting. Another story of betrayal, of deep hurt, of pleading and yearning. Though rejected by mortals, yet chosen and precious in God’s sight. (1 Peter 2:4) O, where is the Beloved?“I sought my Beloved, but she was not found. I called him,but the Beloved gave no answer.” (Song of Songs 3:1)
We sit together, and rock, and sing a song often parodied, but here, now, it holds us, and brings near something of that comforting presence of the Beloved. “Someone praying, Lord.
Kum by yah.
Someone praying, Lord.
Kum by yah.
Someone praying, Lord.
Kum by yah.
Oh, Lord, Kum by yah.”
The garden opened in singing, in singing those favorite familiar songs. [Kum By Yah; Psalm 23]
“Someone crying, Lord.
Kum by yah.”
“The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.”
“Someone crying, Lord,
Kum by yah.”
“The Holy makes me to lie down in green pastures”
“Someone crying, Lord,
Kum by yah.” “She leads me beside still waters;
she restores my soul.”
“Oh, Lord,
Kum by yah.”
Come to the Holy One, be built into spiritual houses, into a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices through love. (1 Peter: 4-5) Do not lose heart, but sing out to the Beloved!
The way the notes change — through their vibrations, through their lyrics, through their structures – the way the notes change our being, opening our hearts, bring us once again into the presence of the Beloved. Remember the ways that singing shakes the prison walls and breaks chains, the ways that singing binds us together and hold us fast, the ways that singing bring us most fully into ourselves and out of ourselves. With the Beloved always near, the ways singing entwines my soul – each and all of our souls –entwined with the Beloved in the embrace of embraces. “Oh, Lord,
Kum by yah.”
“Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
leaning on the arm of my beloved?” (Song of Songs 8:5)Why, it is you, and me, and all of us, many thousands come, and many thousands gone, and many thousands to come. “Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.” (Song of Songs 8:7)We, who rise up singing, into the sweetness of the garden of the Beloved, living stones, make here, there, and everywhere, evidence of the good news, of the love that cannot be taken away, of the love that suffuses everything, of the love that holds you, and you, and you, and even me. Amen.