“Wisdom, She Calls”based on Psalm 8 and Proverbs 8:1-4,…
I’ve recently gotten
feedback that many people around here like it when I preach from the
heart, from authenticity, from … myself, and not JUST from context.
This is a bit of a challenge because the authentic me is sort of a
mystic, and I’ve never been entirely clear how comfortable that is
for all of you. However, I’m really grateful for feedback, so I’m
going to give it a try, and trust that you’ll continue giving
feedback if this is not what you were looking for at all.
Today is Trinity Sunday.
Thus, our lectionary readings have given us space to consider the
Spirit, who in Proverbs is the Spirit of God’s Wisdom, the firstborn
of creation. In its purest, most orthodox
forms, Trinity says that God IS Three Persons that are also One, and
the love between the 3 Persons is the foundational energy and
motivation of the universe, from which creation arose, and from which
God’s love for all humanity begins. I’ve never been able to commit
to an orthodox understanding of Trinity, although I did give it a
good faith effort for a decade or so. I adore this idea of love as
the foundation of the universe, but I’ve had to come to that
conclusion in other ways. I don’t hold a traditional view of
Trinity, although I think those views can be strikingly beautiful.
Instead, I’ve been most
formed by the thinking of Marjorie Suchocki, professor emerita of
theology at Claremont School of Theology, and the author of the book
“God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology.” In
it, she talks about the idea of Trinity as a symbol for the
complexity and unity of God. She says, “God
as trinity becomes a symbol to indicate the sense in which the unity
of God embraces a complexity of a magnitude grater than which none
other can exist.”1
In more simple words, she says that God is one and God is infinite.
She doesn’t actually think the specific 3 of Trinity is the point,
but rather acknowledges that there is inherent value in thinking of
God as being transcendent, immanent, and relational. That is God is
beyond all that is, God is IN all that is, and God is in relationship
to all that is – and those are three things, so we think of God in
three ways.
Suchocki’s
idea that Trinity means many and yet one has resonated for me. God
is, of course, one. We’re monotheists!! And there is force of love
undergirding and infiltrating all parts of Creation, unifying us all.
At the same time, of course there are many facets to the Divine.
God is beyond our words, our metaphors, our understanding. God is
complicated. Any aspect of God we attempt to speak about or connect
to is both a part of God AND not the entirety of God. God is love,
unconditional all encompassing love!!! And, God is also one who
wants justice – so that good lives and good relationships can be
present for all people and not just for some. And that doesn’t
ALWAYS feel only like love. God is eternal, and yet God is also
present. God is for us, and for each of us, and for all of us, all
at once. In these ways, it makes sense to think of God as many, even
though God is also one.
In
some very similar ways, I think it makes sense to think of ourselves
as many and as one! I mean each of us, each person, is both many
and one. (Although, come to think of it, we are also one body of
Christ – one and many.) We’re now at the mystical point of this
sermon 😉 If mystical isn’t going to fly for you, you may want to
think of all of this as development of compassion, although I’ll
admit to you that those are not well differentiated for me.
Years
ago, my spirituality professor told me about a prayer form called
with an acroynm FLAG. In it you notice a strong emotion and
anthropomorphize that strong emotion as a young child.
Then you ask it:
Fear – what are you afraid of?
Longing –
what do you long for?
Ache – what is your ache/wound?
Gift –
what gift are you trying to offer that I’m not receiving?
This
prayer has been a great gift to me over the years, but in recent
years I’ve noticed that it relates to a whole bunch of other areas of
thought who are also looking at “self” in different ways.
Because this now comes from a lot of disciplines, to explain it I’m
going to glob them all together like we do when we work with all 4
gospel narratives at once. We’re going to call it “parts theory.”
Because of how useful it has been in my own prayer life, as well as
in conversations with people, it is one of the theories that I now
use to make sense of human beings- myself and others.
Parts
theory says that we are a conglomeration of parts. When this emerges
out of “non-violent communication” work, the parts are associated
with human needs. In “Focusing”, the parts are associated with
physical sensations in various parts of our body. In sensorimotor
psychology, parts relate to coping mechanisms necessary for survival,
particularly in childhood. Going back to the prayer form I first met
this idea in, the young children we imagine are often expressions of
our self and our past. I think it may even be true that in the Center
for Courage and Renewal Teaching, where we talk about the maps of our
souls and the various terrain within, that we are actually
approaching parts from another angle. Most places I’m looking for
understanding of how humans work seem to be moving to parts theory.
Now,
once we acknowledge that in our internal landscape there are various
parts doing their own things, then we think about how they relate to
each other and to our self as a whole. Parts theory suggests that
dealing with ourselves is a lot like presiding over an unruly Church
Council meeting (who, us?) or perhaps an Annual Conference committed
to nonconformity (who, us?). Parts tend to have their own points of
view, they remember the things that fit their narratives, they push
the things that fit their narratives, they ignore things that don’t
fit their narratives, and when they want things they ask. And when
they ask, and we ignore them, they get louder (and sometimes meaner)
and this cycle can continue until we have a LOT OF INTERNAL
screaming. Also, parts build connections with other parts, and parts
are antagonistic to other parts.
If
you think of parts as trying to meet needs, this can become clearer.
So a part that is seeking out peace
is likely to be well partnered with the parts that seek rest
and beauty
and maybe even acceptance.
However, the part seeking out peace
is
likely in some conflict with the parts seeking out spontaneity,
stimulation, or
even growth. And
when we’re talking about parts that have been harmed in the past,
this can be pretty strong. For example, when a person lived through
abuse as a child, and the abuser was the caregiver, then the natural
human instinct to draw close to caregiver for safety and the natural
human instinct to run away from harm are in constant conflict…. and
those parts are trained to be on constant alert.
There
is also a Part in Charge. I have tended towards calling this the
adult self. While
the adult self is the moderator/chair of the council, the truth is
that sometimes the adult self loses control of the body. In parts
language, that means that sometimes other parts hijack the adult
self, and the other parts are the ones running the show – by which
I mean the body, the facial expressions, the words, the tone, etc.
So if you think of a recent time when you said or did something that
you later regretted, and wondered “Why didn’t I have better
control?” the answer is likely that a part hijacked the adult
self
and “you” weren’t in control at that point.
Prayer
can be a time when we make space for our parts, listen to our parts,
create the capacity for empathy for our parts, and stop fighting them
in general. The FLAG method works for this, as do many others. It
can also be a time when we teach the parts meditative practice so we
can all have some much needed peace within. Building the capacity to
listen to ourselves also builds our capacity to listen to each other.
That’s one of the goals – if we are going to be part of building a
more peaceful and just world, we’re going to have to learn how to
find peace within, and that will likely require learning how to
listen to (rather than silence) parts.
Many
forms of contemplative prayer teach us how to be in the present, in
our bodies, and how to be connected to our breath. These are
wonderful practices on their own. They’re also the skills needed to
bring the adult self back from being hijacked. In the neuroscience
part of these theories, the parts are mostly in the amygdala part of
the brain and the adult self is in the prefrontal cortex. So
whatever we can do to THINK, and be PRESENT, helps move us back to
the prefrontal cortex.
Parts
theory both feels TRUE, and feels exciting to me. I appreciate how
inherently spiritual it is, to listen. Now, many parts that we are
familiar with speak in … less than constructive ways. Because of
that, we’re often a bit scared of them. However, there is some good
news. The horrid things that parts say are ALWAYS meant to be
helpful. If you actually listen to the things they say, then you can
sometimes figure out how to flip it around to the positive thing the
part wants for you. They’re shockingly transparent. “You aren’t
enough” can mean, “You were really hurt one time when someone
said you weren’t enough, and I don’t want to you be hurt again, so
I’m going to keep your ego small so you don’t experience a drop in
self-confidence again.” You know, stuff like that.
We’ve
talked about some of this before. Some of our parts communicate
through criticism, and they manage to tell us we’re wrong A LOT. My
parts have a lot they want to get done. No matter what I’m doing,
they have about 50 other things I should be doing, and they tell me
I’d get them done if I were a “good person” / “good pastor.”
None of the parts is able to notice that I can’t do 51 things at
once, so my adult self is always having to work at setting
priorities, at listening, and at soothing, so all the parts aren’t
screaming at once that their thing isn’t getting done. That said,
knowing about parts, thinking in terms of parts, and listening to
parts has quieted things within me significantly, and I experience a
lot less internal angst, and thus more peace. (On good days.)
Did
you hear the end of the Proverbs passage? In it, Wisdom talks about
delight – the delight in being with God, and the delight Wisdom and
God had in humanity. Delight is part of what we’re going for, and
there are many paths to it. Finding peace within is a form of making
space for delight. When we can see what’s happening, and remain
present and loving, there is a LOT of delight available to us. It
really is a bit like traditional Trinitarian doctrine: love spills
out. Thanks be for that. Amen
1Marjorie
Suchocki, 229.
–
Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady
June 16, 2019