Archived Sermons

Introductory Words:
Spirituality is, I feel, about holiness, or wholeness. It is the quest to perceive, feel, embrace, [engage], address any person, any event, any object in its wholeness. It is also the struggle not to address persons, events, objects as separate or apart from or alien to oneself—[to not address them] as objects.

It is to see reality relationally. "A rose is a rose is a rose", according to Gertrude Stein. But it is not truly perceived in a holy way apart from the rose bush, root, stem, thorns and all, or apart from the earth, sun, rain, fertilizer, gardener, admirers and the rest of the wholeness/holiness. It is this way of seeing/perceiving/embracing that makes the rose-experience awesomely, wonderously religious. 'There are many true and vital steps on the way—seeing the gradations of color, feeling the velvety texture of a petal, catching the aroma wafted on a breeze, recoiling from the thorny spine—all ingredients, little truths on the path to holy truth, holy beauty—of engaging the fullness of the rose.

Roses are simple compared to people. Roses are lovely and placid. It is very easy to forget the quest for holiness when a person appears to stand astride the path—cranky, obtuse, stubborn, violent. How great the temptation not to see, sense or address the whole person, the whole circumstance, the whole situation, and the whole of oneself. How great a religious discipline it is to try to achieve that holiness, that universal embrace—accepting what is as it is, accepting who we are as we are—broken, fragmented, unholy, yet hungering and thirsting for the holy. How everpresent the challenge to be on the road to the holy—to eschew the temptation to power over, to manipulation of, to winning, to judgment--and to be obedient to the holy vision.

Ah, yes, and how transforming. Witness those who have been humanity's great souls, those who refused unholy temptations to divide the world into good/bad, women/men, black/white/yellow/red, saved/lost, pagan/Christian, capital/labor. They said "we" without implying an excluded "them". Transforming spirituality indeed, for it opens the possibility of a non-violent, non-adversarial, non-exclusive world. It transforms the potentially religious into the actually religious—bit by bit, moment by moment, word by word, deed by deed, little by little.

Gordon McKeeman

Sermon
As has always been the human condition, there is a hunger for spirituality in this world--there is a hunger for a greater sense of connection with the holy. Perhaps we are not always conscious of this yearning, but still it shapes our lives. And so we strive in countless ways to satisfy this hunger—sometimes we act with understanding and intentionality, but most often without a clear sense of what we seek.

This morning, drawing on the work of the Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin Buber, I will tell you what will satisfy that hunger. If you listen and believe what you hear then you have a spiritual direction for the rest of your life—you will understand what must be done. And the more you can make real this understanding, the more holy and whole will be your life.

The work of Martin Buber is not easily accessible to most of us mortals. I don’t claim to understand to any great depth Buber’s line of reasoning or his conclusions. But from some of his writings and from the work of those who have studied him, I can glean what I think to be important insight about our human condition. These words I share with you are an attempt to communicate the heart of that insight.

My wrestling with Buber this morning begins with an observation about a stuffed animal—with my childhood toy—dog named Snoopy.

Now I am most likely the last of my brothers and sisters to become a parent. Due to my late start there is a good chance that Sam and Emma will be the final children in the Brosier family of their generation.

Coming at the tail end of the grandchildren pack has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that my children have over the years inherited considerable amounts of toys that their cousins outgrew. On a number of occasions we have returned from family visits with large bags full of assorted toys. Toys that have been sitting around unused for years—toys saved because they were too “precious” to throw out. Toys saved to be passed on.

Of course we always sorted through the stuff. Those toys that were broken or missing pieces or inappropriate would go into the garbage, those that were in good shape but not age appropriate were placed in storage, and the rest went into the toy box for current use.

One class of toy that nearly always gets pitched is the stuffed animals. I look at the crumpled fur, sagging limbs and think of all the dirt and germs which have been accumulating for years. I see the stuffed animal as I do an old kitchen sink sponge—dirty, smelly, and best disposed of. The more it shows its use, the faster the animal ends up in the garbage. I am rather merciless in this regard.

All the while I am doing this, in the bottom drawer of my dresser is a 50 year old Snoopy Dog. It is a stuffed animal with dirty matted fur and sagging limbs—looking worse than most of the stuffed animals I have thrown in the garbage. But instead of seeing Snoopy Dog as junk, I see it as a treasure.

I doubt that my children want this stuffed animal because it looks so worn compared to their other stuffed toys, but actually they rarely get a chance. On occasion when they go through my drawers and find Snoopy Dog I will let them touch it for a little bit, but I make it very clear that they have to be very gentle and careful.

And if you were to see my Snoopy Dog in a pile of stuffed animals it wouldn't seem special at all to you. You would probably throw it in the garbage or burn it. But to me it would stand out above all the other stuffed animals. To me it is exceptional. You and I would see the same dog—but we would see it differently and that makes all the difference between the parties involved.

In this particular case the “other” (as opposed to the “I”) is a stuffed animal. But the other could be a tree, a river, an Iraqi, or your neighbor. How we see and thus relate to the “others” we encounter makes all the difference. Martin Buber wrote, If you choose to be aware of life as holy, then it is. According to Buber’s translator Walter Kaufman, “the essence of Buber’s thought is this: we realize that each thing we encounter can be a Thou if we choose to see it as such.”

Martin Buber was one of the great religious thinkers of the 20th century. He was and still is a major voice in what I would term relational theology—that is, theology that believes the holy can be found in what happens in the in-between—in-between us, in between us and the world, in-between us and that force some call God

Martin Buber was born in Vienna, Austria in 1878. At the age of three, because his parents’ marriage was failing, he was sent away to live with his grandfather in another town. Buber ended up spending his entire childhood there.

As a philosopher and theologian Martin Buber came to be concerned about alienation—concerned about the “sense of alienation that overcomes every human being from time to time. He wondered whether this alienation is an essential aspect of the human condition and whether it might indicate a deep-seated yearning for something necessary to human life, that is, for a true unity with the world and with God.” Buber was concerned about finding a way beyond or through that alienation. He was concerned about what this sense of alienation leads humans to do.

Buber says we are alienated—alienated from each other, from the world around us, from God, and sometimes from ourselves. We are alienated in the sense that we don’t feel connected to or a part of what is around us. This alienation brings with it a sense of aloneness—a painful aloneness that eats away at our spirit.

Buber’s work starts here, with a feeling—with an almost universal feeling—with feeling separated and estranged. And that is why so many people have paid attention to what he has written. People have paid attention because so many of us know that feeling—so many of us hunger for greater connection--and Buber addresses our deep yearning.

What Buber concludes is that this sense of alienation doesn’t have to be. He believes that we can experience meaningful and satisfying connection and thus not feel alone. Again, people pay attention to this because we have been searching for a way through our alienation. And we believe that it is possible because we have experienced moments when we have broken through our aloneness to experience an awesome connectedness. We call these spiritual experiences, and many of us have had them ever so briefly. We have experienced a sense of connectedness, of being a part of something larger than themselves, of a unity. And we like the feeling, and we yearn for more.

Buber says we feel alone because we relate to each other, the world, and God in a way that estranges us. He says we engage in “I–It” relationships. I–It relationships create a sense of aloneness because they involve treating the other as an object to be observed and manipulated and judged. Whenever we engage the other as an “It” we distance ourselves from the other, and thus we greatly limit connection. The widespread alienation that humans suffer is the result of us turning so much of the earth in to “its”. We have turned each other into its, we have turned the natural world a collection of its, God into its, and sometimes ourselves. And because of this we feel so much less connection.

We turn the “other” into an “It” in a variety of ways. We turn the other into an “It” when we put it into a category (like conservative, or fat, or troubled) and generalize about it. We turn the other into an “It” when we don’t care about its well being. We turn the other into an “It” when we only think of our needs. We turn the other into an “It” when we don’t try to understand what the other experiences. We turn the other into an “It” when we deny the wholeness of the other’s existence.

Whenever we do this we not only create for ourselves more alienation, but we set the stage for greater violence. Turning groups of people into “its” has occurred repeatedly over the history of human kind and the resulting violence has been unimaginable. An “I–It” engagement allowed the Nazis to exterminate millions of Jews, homosexuals, people with disabilities, and gypsies. It allowed Euro-Americans to slaughter millions of Native Americans. It allowed light skinned Americans to oppress darker skinned Americans for hundreds of years. It allowed two men to torture and kill Mathew Shepard because he was gay. It has allowed us to pollute our natural world. It has allowed us kill off numerous plant and animal species. It allowed a handful of men to crash four commercial aircraft full of passengers into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. All involved turning the other into an “It” which allowed the violence to follow. Buber, as a Jew, saw this first hand in 20th century Europe.

Engaging in “I–It” relationships creates alienation and violence. To ease our sense of alienation we need to see and engage the other differently. We need, as Buber put it, to see the other not as an “It”, but as a “Thou” or a “You”. The parties involved are the same, but how the “I” sees the other is radically different, and how the “I” relates to the other is radically different.

What is different is the “I” does not observe from a defined position, but engages. The “I” does not keep itself separate but fully shares itself with the “You”. The “I” opens itself to be changed through its engagement with the “You”. The “I” knows that the “You” will be changed as well. How the “I” views the world is impacted by the “You”. There is mutuality. There is concern. There is respect. In a nutshell, there is love.

We turn the other into an “Thou” when we relate to them without preconceived notions. We turn the other into an “You” when we listen to what they have to teach. We turn the other into an “Thou” when we respect their right to exist as much as our own. We turn the other into an “You” when we share with them the fullness of our being and open ourselves to theirs. We turn the other into an “Thou” when we confront rather than turn away. We turn the other into an “You” when we realize that we are all part of the interdependent web of existence.

On the other hand, we turn the other driver who almost hits us into an “It” when we call them jerk—and as a result we are more alienated and the possibility of violence increases. We turn the people in Iraq who attack our soldiers into “Its” when we label them terrorists or extremists—as a result we will not open ourselves to learning about them and the violence will continue. We turn children into “Its” when we call them spoiled brats—as a result we turn away from engaging them and thus isolate them. We turn farm animals into “its” when we participate in a system that raises and slaughters them inhumanely—as a result we get used to overlooking others pain, and the world becomes less caring.

I remember in the movie “Silence of the Lambs” that a young woman was kidnapped by a man who planned to kill and mutilate her. The woman’s parents went on TV and made a point to speak the woman’s name and tell stories about her in the hope that the perpetrator would hear. They wanted the perpetrator to associate a name with the woman he held captive, they wanted him to hear her story, to know her dreams so he would begin to see her as a “Thou” rather than an “It”. The investigators knew that it is harder to kill a “Thou” than an “It”.

And I remember as a child bringing stray cats home with the understanding that they could stay while we tried to find them a home. My parents discouraged us from naming them during that time because that was a step in changing the stray “It” into a “Thou”, and that increased the odds that we would keep the cat.

And I wonder if in the past women who miscarried or gave birth to a stillborn were discouraged from naming the child because it would make it more of a “Thou” and this was thought to bring a greater sense of loss and pain.

How we engage the world does make all the difference. Whether I see you as an “It” or a “Thou” changes our individual and common experience significantly. I believe in what Buber says for I have glimpsed this through experience. I believe this to be a fundamental spiritual task facing us all. We flip back and forth between “I–It” and “I–Thou” engagement, but increasingly we need to see more and more of the world as a “Thou”.

Doing this of course is not easy—at least it is not easy for me. I understand to a certain degree the difference between “I–It” and “I–Thou” relationships, but clearly seeing those dynamics in my life is difficult. First of all I don’t usually think about it. Then I find it hard to know if I am engaging the other as an “It” or a “Thou”. I get a disturbing sense, though, that most often I am seeing the world as an “It”—sometimes I see existence itself as an “It”. And I don’t know if Buber would say that is unusual.

It is not easy understanding and changing how we engage the world. I don’t remember Buber outlining the steps as to how to increasingly see the world as “Thou”. It could be there and I couldn’t see it. He does say, though, that if we can establish an “I–Thou” relationship to God (however you define that word) then we will be transformed. “We will come to feel affection for everyone and everything, and to have a sense of loving responsibility for the whole course of the world. This transformation, Buber tells us, is divine revelation. It is salvation. Filled with loving responsibility, given the ability to say "You" to the world, we are no longer alienated, and do not worry about the meaninglessness of life. We are fulfilled and complete, and will help others to reach this goal as well. We will help to build an ideal society, a real community, which must be made up of people who have also gone through absolute relation, and are therefore willing to say "You" to the entire world.” [quote might be from Kaufman]

But again, how do we get there from here? The only suggestion I have to offer is that we pay more attention—that we pay attention to how we engage the world. That we notice to what degree are we treating the other as an “It”. How much judgment is going on? How much sharing of your life is involved? How much avoidance is present? How well do we listen to the other? How well do we confront the other? How much effort do we put into understanding the other? How honest are we? What motivates us in the engagement?

All this of course takes time—more time than most of us currently give to such matters. I suspect that if we are to learn to see more of the world as “Thou”, then we will have to shift our priorities to make the time learn how. For most of us that is a significant hurdle in itself. And to be honest I am not optimistic about our chances. But as strange as it sounds, we might be aided in this if we remind ourselves daily, as a particular order of Catholic monks do, that we too shall die.

Buber writes: Whoever says “You” does not have something; s/he has nothing. But s/he stands in relationship.

The basic word “I–You” can be spoken only with one’s whole being. The concentration and fusion into a whole being can never be accomplished by me, can never be accomplished without me. “I” require a “You” to become. In order to become “I”, I must say “You”. All actual life is “I–Thou” engagement.

God is present in the “I–Thou” encounter. But if I look away from you, I ignore God. As long as I engage you as an “It”, I deny God. But when I encounter “You”, I encounter the holy.

Of course Buber is not alone with such understanding. I hear similar wisdom as well in the following Navajo chant:

The mountains, I become part of you...

The herbs, the fir tree, I become part of you.

The morning mists, the clouds, the gathering waters,

I become part of you.

The wilderness, the dew drops, the pollen...

I become part of you

And I hear it in the words of St. Augustine who said, “Love, and do as you will.”


©2003 Rev. Daniel S. Brosier