Hail, Hail, the Gang's All
Here!
A Sermon Preached by Lloyd J. Averill
University Congregationa1 United
Seeing the title of my sermon announced this past week in Church & Home, I suspect that someone may have thought, "Age has finally caught up with him. Obviously the old boy has totally flipped out!" I certainly admit that "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here" lacks some of the of the soberness of my customary titles: sermons like "On Making Decisions" or "Hope and History"-and I a1so acknowledge with pleasure that advancing age does tempt me to take more risks, on the assumption that I haven't much to lose. My age a1so tempts me to try something exciting and innovative, like preparing a short sermon.
At the same time, I insist that my title has just the celebratory note I wanted to strike. It was inspired by what the presiding clergyperson says, at the beginning of the every service-words that me of you could recite, I'm sure. "Whether you're here this morning as a believer, a doubter, or a seeker, you are welcome in this place." And that really is cause for celebration. Where else can we go, in this fractured time of human history, where we can be assured of being welcomed and at home, whoever and wherever we are in our life's journey? So I gladly add my own welcome to that which Peter has a1ready pronounced.
But before we go too far in self-congratulation, let me offer what I think are some cautions. For some time now, especia1ly during the three years that I was Theologian in Residence here, and continuing on a somewhat less intense basis since, I have wondered what it means, and what it doesn't mean, to call this place "inclusive." Because one of its possible implications is that it is "shapeless," lacking any clear definition that would identify why we are together except for the simple pleasure of being together. While that would be sufficient for a socia1 club, in my view it fails totally as a definition of a Christian community, of a church. And randomness, shapelessness, are dangers into which some so-ca1led "inclusive" congregations fall, perhaps especially in the United Church of Christ. I once hem a prominent leader in our denomination say that it has set its boundaries so wide that the sheep on the inside are as wild and unpredictable as the goats on the outside.
We take some proper denominationa1 pride in the fact that we are not a creeda1 church. What holds us together is not a creed but a covenant. And the difference between those two is critically important. A creed is a commonly-held and -affirmed statement of what we agree to
believe together. In contrast, a covenant is a commonly-held and -affirmed statement-we affirm it at the conclusion of every service--about what we are agreed, not to believe together, but to do together.
Does that mean belief here is unimportant? Absolutely not! Whatever else it may be, this is the University Congregationa1 United Church of Christ. I don't see how it is possible to have a Christian community without some important, some essentia1, some distinctive beliefs that hold us together, not because we a1l believe them in the same way and with the same degree of assurance, but rather because we commonly affirm their importance and are gathered around them as believers, as doubters, and as seekers. In other words, they are important enough to inspire fundamental belief; to insinuate fundamental doubt-and who would spend time doubting something considered fundamentally unimportant; and important enough to seek some kind of fundamenta1 clarity about.
So when we hold an inquirers class to try to say what participation in this community is about, as we do a couple of times a year, it seems to me that we should begin it with a promise and a warning. The promise is the one we pronounce every Sunday morning: "whether you come here as a believer, as a doubter, or as a seeker, you are welcome" And the warning is this: however you may come here, and however short or long your stay, prepare to be actively invited to change as the result of being here: no longer a believer without doubts, no longer a doubter without beliefs, no longer a seeker without solid substance and direction.
Is this place so inclusive that no one should feel excluded? I think the answer must be, No. This is not a place for anybody who just doesn't give a damn.
To be called an inclusive Christian place means that in this church we don't have a predetermined plan for the direction, for the nature, of those changes that will occur in the life of any individual here. That kind of plan is what sometimes marks a creedal church. We don't expect that everyone here will have come out at the same place from the process of change. The most revered sources of Christian understanding are the Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, and they certainly do not speak in a single voice. But they are agreed on what are the essential things which life, and not simply the Christian life, demands that we achieve some clarity about: Whose world is this? What is my place within it? What animates my humanness? How can I become more of what I was created to become? What does it mean to be responsible for life, my own, my neighbor's, and the life we live in common? And what shall I do with the mystery that is within me and around me-mystery that frustrates and limits but also promises and sustains.
For me, a key task for this inclusive Christian community is not unanimity but shared clarity.
That means not merely casting an undiscriminating flood light where there are no distinctive shapes, and where one thing looks no more important than any other. That would be no different than the night in which all cats are black. No, the project of Christian theology in this church, in which we are all, lay and clergy alike, invited to find a place, should be precisely this: to engage in a shared and clarifying thoughtfulness about what it means to be fully human and distinctively Christian in the twenty-first century, no less than that and no more. It is the effort, in this place, to cast a focused light on what we can agree are the most imperative questions presented to us by the sheer dailyness of living, and of some responses to those questions that arise out of long Christian experience, so that individually and together we. can find our life-ways with increasing insight, direction, assurance, purpose.
So in anticipating Seabeck for some of us next week, and for all of us here in the weeks and months ahead, if we are to be both a vital human and Christian community, our common determination ought to be this: Let there be light!
"Wait, Wait! the Gang's Not
Sure"
A Response to Lloyd J. Averill sermon by Loretta Jancoski
University
Congregational United
Seattle, Washington
Lloyd, you don't hesitate to get us thinking, do you? Now that I'm here, I'm not so confident "Wait, Wait, The Gang's not sure," is exactly the right title for the thoughts that your sermon has stirred up in me. Be that the case, I have only you to thank for my title. I couldn't come up with some stodgy title after your spunky one. I hope you, Lloyd, and this congregation, appreciate how my being here with you today and being with you all week at Seabeck proves that this congregation has already taken your sermon to heart. Including a Roman Catholic woman theologian like me cannot almost not result in a bit more clarity for both of us.
Here's what you sparked in me. I heard your point to be this: though inclusion is core to the faith life of this congregation and is deeply cherished, it is not without its risks. One significant risk is that including everything and everyone puts you in danger of standing for no particular things and no particular ones.
My first thoughts were that you were expressing some wisdom about the human condition. In fact, you have pointed to the most important questions of life, questions which are at the heart of our Christianity. Whose world is this? What is my place within it? What animates my humanness? What does it mean to be responsible for life, my own, my neighbor's, and the life we live in common? If we are not asking those questions, we must be suppressing our very nature as humans. What you so poignantly articulate is that though these are integral to our humanness, they are not easy to answer. The answers come through reflection, discernment, suffering, loving, challenges. In other words through struggle.
All life, according to most developmental psychologists, unfolds toward maturity as we humans learn how to live creatively within tensions. We struggle to become trusting without being naive, to become autonomous and authentic at the same time we depend completely on communities. We struggle to be compassionate and caring of others while not neglecting a healthy and holy care for ourselves.. The trick for us is to keep these seemingly polar opposites in some kind of creative tension. That's what I think you are asking us to do in regard to our faith life. To keep our need to be all inclusive in creative tension with our need to have a shape and an identity and something to hold onto with conviction. You are inviting us to a full humanity after the likeness of Christ.
My second reflection is a bit more personal and confessional. As a cradle Roman Catholic woman, I hear your words with joy and a bit of jealousy. I have grown up in a church where authority and governance are about as big a deal as inclusion is for you. The leaders of my church not only claim the church is not a democracy but appear to fail to recognize that democracy is better than or is an advancement over the monarchial forms of governance it clings to. Even most Catholic historians and theologians would criticize our leaders for being too controlling, for not adequately listening to and including the voice of the faithful in their deliberations. As Catholics, we have a hierarchy that has an answer for about everything-and more often than not they seem to expect their answers to be taken as doctrines that oblige both belief and prescribed actions.
So, you may wonder why would anyone put up with this; why not move to this University Congregational United Church of Christ where that problem would be eliminated completely. But that is exactly what your point is. I would find the same struggle, only from the opposite end. Where your challenge is to get a hold on something that has staying power, that confers an identity, my challenge is to develop an adult and wise, light and gentle, hold on those officially declared interpretations of the Christian life--which have too much staying power.
Along with the oppressive governance I often experience, there is also the richness of a tradition that appeals to my need as a human to express my convictions in symbol and ritual and liturgy. I often feel that the execution of this liturgy is uninspiring and trapped in another age's symbols. But I would fear that you have too little liturgy and ritual and that you haven't found adequate contemporary symbols either. I also revel in my many choices for spiritual guides. I have centuries of mystics and models to choose from because I have learned about them all through my life; they are at the core of every good Catholic theologian's theological reflection. And, as different as they all are, they are all officially approved and allow me all kinds of freedom within and outside any current official proclamation.
My third reflection is
also personal. You, Lloyd, celebrate the invitation at the beginning of each of
your services for seekers, doubters, and believers to all be
at home here. At first I thought of different people coming, one a seeker, another a doubter, still another a believer. But that is
certainly naive and you have said as much. When we come here, if we are willing
to examine the openness and the risks, we will change. We will be moving in and out of doubt, and seeking, and
believing.
I have been all three, sometimes all at once, other times one or the other. There are moments when I am truly an atheist. The kind of inclusiveness you have in this church prepares you for dealing with doubts, encourages you to be seekers. What I hear you saying is that it may also make it somewhat difficult to be believers with convictions. All three are necessary for the Christian life. In my church, I have the opposite struggle. It's easy to be a believer. The beliefs are crystal clear. The danger is that I might fear or avoid doubts and therefore have no reason to seek. Doubts may be the best and essential catalyst for searching and seeking.
At whatever end of the struggle I begin, I know that at the heart of Christianity is a call to be in relationship to God revealed in Christ. I know that through my baptism I am called to be fully human and that my model for that humanity is Jesus himself. He was indeed inclusive, making big holes in the walls that kept out the marginalized and oppressed, the poor and women, those who consciously objected to the prevailing politics and ideologies. But he was a firm and clear believer in the power and love of God. He related to this powerful and loving God as Daddy. Yet he struggled. He prayed. He had doubts about his ability to keep heading for Jerusalem where death was waiting.
Lloyd, you are asking us to struggle with our understanding of this Jesus who was both inclusive and fun in his convictions. He wasn't without boundaries. Nothing of significance endures without boundaries. Even creativity, philosophers and artists tell us, must have boundaries within which to create. What are fruitful, healthy, liberating boundaries for us Christians? How do we choose boundaries that are porous without them becoming weak and ineffective.
All this week at Seabeck, we will be struggling with the questions you have posed, Lloyd. Part of our struggle will be to understand the questions themselves-to understand them from within the context of our lives in this moment of history, this cultural milieu, and this particular Congregational church. I look forward to these conversations being exciting and fruitful. I count on them also being fun and provocative.