Sermon:
One of the most bizarre books I’ve ever read is called "Salvation On Sand Mountain," by Dennis Covington, who explores the peculiar culture of snake handling churches. Covington is a reporter who has dodged bullets in Central America, but decides to return to his own roots in the Appalachians to see why some people behave in such a dangerous way.
Covington attended their services and became an accepted part of their religious community. He tried to figure out what makes those people tick. When Covington asks Uncle Ully Lynn of The Church of Jesus with Signs Following Church, "What's it like to take up a serpent?", Uncle Ully responds, "It's hard to explain. You're in a prayerful state. You can't have your mind on other things. The Spirit tells you what to do."
"But why do some people get bit?", asks Covington.
"In that situation, somebody must have misjudged the Spirit."
Apparently quite a few people misjudge the Spirit since almost all the members of the church have relatives who have died of snake bites. But for some reason people keep coming back.
Covington tells of one night when a snake-handling preacher came up to a car of teenaged boys and asked, "You boys got any snakes in that car? " They told him they didn't. "What? You mean to tell me you don't have any rattlesnakes in your car?" "No, sir." His eyes widened. "What's the matter with you boys?" he said. "Are you crazy?"
Most of us don't have those kind of expectations, but we're talking about a much different world. Covington tells of one service where the preacher, Brother Carl,
"...laid (a big rattlesnake) down and was treading barefoot on it from tail to head, as though he were walking a tightrope. Still, the snake didn't bite. …Then Carl picked the snake back up and draped it around his neck. The snake seemed to be looking for a way out of its predicament. Carl let it nuzzle into his shirt. Then the snake pulled back and cocked its head, as if in preparation to strike Carl's chest. Its head was as big as a child's hand.
"Help him, Jesus! someone yelled above the din. Instead of striking, the snake started to climb Carl's sternum toward his collarbone. It went up the side of his neck and then lost interest and fell back against his chest."
What fascinates me is why anyone would want to do such a thing? Why in the world would people want to take their lives in your hands every time they walked into church?
Most of us think of church as a safe place to come on Sunday morning, a sanctuary from the fears and anxieties of the world, a place where we can sit back and relax, enjoy the music, and be enlightened. But generally our blood pressure stays relatively stable and our heart doesn’t jump out of our chest. We certainly assume that at the end of the hour we will still be in one piece.
What’s surprising to the reader of “Salvation on Sand Mountain” is that Covington himself actually becomes caught up in the spirituality of snake-handling, even daring to take up a snake himself. He found that there is something exhilarating and spiritual about being in such a dangerous church.
Perhaps we need a few snakes around here. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting we resort to snake handling. I imagine if snakes started slithering out from under the pews there would be some unhappy campers. But I wonder if we do need to be a more dangerous church.
This weekend our church has been the host for the Joseph Priestley District Large Church Conference. It was an excellent conference with Rev. Forrest Church from All Souls UU Church in Manhattan as the keynote speaker and workshops on a variety of fascinating subjects.
This conference reminded me of a national Large Church Conference in Portland, Oregon a year ago. I remember Stefan Jonnason, the UUA Consultant to Large Churches, telling a story that challenges us as Unitarian Universalists.
Stefan tells of having a discussion with an official in the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City who oversaw the missions program of the church. Stefan was surprised that this official knew everything about our movement, including our demographics. Stefan was even more surprised when the official told him that according to his research Unitarian Universalism is more successful in attracting people than the Mormons. There are many people in our society who need and want what we have to offer, and so they eagerly walk into our religious communities.
That’s the good news. The bad news according to this official is that we are terrible at retaining them. For some reason the reality does not meet their expectations and they drift away. The Mormon official ended the conversation by saying if Unitarian Universalism could retain even half of the visitors who come to us we could become the most dangerous church in America!
The most dangerous church in America! That’s quite a thought, isn’t it? What would it mean to be the most dangerous church in America? It would mean that instead of being a footnote of religious institutions, we could be competing with the Mormons, the Baptists, the Catholics and other churches, not only in numbers of members but even more importantly in our influence on society.
That’s what makes a church really dangerous: the ability not only to change people’s lives but to change our world. What would really make us dangerous is that we would be competing with other religious institutions in the principles we promote, the values we instill, and our capability to transform the future.
Think about it. What would it be like to be a member of the most dangerous church in America? It would mean that if our government attempted to abuse its power by waging war indiscriminately or by usurping the constitutional rights of its citizens then our voice of outrage would be heard not as a whisper but as a prophetic proclamation.
To be the most dangerous church in America would mean that if large numbers of people in our society were not receiving adequate health care, education and employment, our voice of outrage would be heard not as a whisper but as a prophetic proclamation.
To be the most dangerous church in America would mean that if racial minority groups and gays and lesbians were not treated as equal citizens, our voice of outrage would be heard not as a whisper but as a prophetic proclamation.
The question we must ask ourselves is why are we not the most dangerous church in America? Why are we instead in the back waters of religious and political influence?
Actually our history is one in which Unitarians and Universalists have long been considered to be dangerous. “That's why Calvin had Michael Servetus burned at the stake,” explains Stefan Jonnason, “and it's why Francis David was left to waste away in the dungeon at Castle Deva. That's why his opponents threw bricks through the windows of John Murray's church in Boston, and it's why Theodore Parker composed his sermons with a loaded revolver on his desk, while giving sanctuary to runaway slaves. That's why Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting, and it's why Margaret Sanger was the object of ridicule and character assassination.”
It’s true that throughout history it has been dangerous to be a Unitarian or Universalist. We have been and continue to be a dangerous church to those who exploit others with irrational superstition, to those who abuse the rights of others, to those who seek to divide instead of unite. Any church that insists on protecting the dignity of all persons and striving for peace and justice in a world where both are continually threatened is a dangerous church to those who maintain the status quo.
Let's face it: we are members of a revolutionary religious movement, one that throughout history has sought to overthrow old ideas and dogmas while promoting radically new theological and social concepts. Looking around this church you must admit that we don't look like revolutionaries, but when you set foot in this church you become a part of this revolutionary tradition. This is our heritage, and this is the legacy we are challenged to leave behind for those yet to come.
For many centuries Unitarians were persecuted as heretics not only for proclaiming that God is one indivisible unity but that religion’s highest values should be reason, tolerance and freedom. But they were not alone. Universalists were condemned as heretics for their belief that God is a loving deity who would never condemn a human being to damnation.
In the late eighteenth century it was the Unitarian and Universalist spirit of Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush, and others who risked their lives to bring about a political revolution that was infused with their radical religion.
Our individual lives are also revolutionary at times. It may take a personal revolution to leave a church you grew up in that never ceased to tell you that you were a sinner and not worthy of God's love. It may take an individual rebellion to throw out an old concept of God and create a new one. It may take a courageous revolt to disconnect from the structure of dogmas and creeds that have been handed down to you and then to creatively construct a personal theology that is far more demanding. These are daring and dangerous acts of liberation.
The dangers are more recent than we may think. When I was minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans in the late 70s and early 80s, I followed Rev. Albert D'Orlando who had just retired after serving that congregation for over 30 years. Albert was an audacious man who had struggled for many years in the civil rights movement in New Orleans. His home and the Unitarian church had been firebombed by the KKK, and he had been called before the House for Un-American Activities Committee in Washington D.C. as a suspected communist.
Our church has also experienced dangerous times when members have been arrested for standing up to segregation and daring to try and stop an absurd war. We are a dangerous and revolutionary church whenever we dare defend the personhood of all people and when we promote the sacredness of all human beings.
We do that in many ways in this church, but where we do it best I believe is when we reach out into our community – and our Working Together Weekend at the end of October is an excellent example of that – and in our covenant groups where we honestly grapple with the big questions and answers of the soul.
I’ve been watching the PBS series on the Civil War once again, and they fascinate me. How could those men so calmly walk into death? How could they so innocently kill each other? I’m horrified by the specter of 600,000 Americans dead in those four terrifying years, and we are in the middle of where much of that killing took place.
It seems so distant in some ways, but then I remember that our nation is ready to take up arms once again, and we seem to have the same naïve attitude that war will solve our problems with a reasonable sacrifice. How can we be so cavalier about such a venture?
My hunch about warfare is that it is a distraction from and an alternative to the more dangerous and fearful war of the soul.
We too easily rush into war instead of committing ourselves to the inner struggle with our own demons and shadows, our brokenness and fragmentation. We too easily use war as a substitute for learning how to defeat fear and ignorance within ourselves. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within me.”
Perhaps we do need some snakes around here. Perhaps this should be a place where we seek not sanctuary but boldness. Perhaps this should be a church where we handle the terrifying snakes of war, injustice and poverty, as well those of loss, grief and death. Why aren’t we putting signs in front of our church that read, “Beware! Danger! Enter at your own risk!”
The author, Annie Dillard, asks the question, "Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? …Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with chemistry sets, mixing up batches of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews..."
Yes, we should be afraid when we walk into this place. We should be scared out of our wits of terrorists and snipers, of death and destruction, of meaninglessness and indifference, of being alone and unloved.
Yesterday Forrest Church told us that “Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die.” That should scare the bejesus out of us right there, and I’m not sure which is the scariest, the being alive or having to die.
As your minister I see many of the battles that you fight, battles with grief and depression, with relationships and parenthood, with disease and death. From sharing in your journey and from learning from my own I know how difficult life can be, how many battles there are to fight.
And I know too that it is easier to fight those battles when you are a part of a community of people who care for and about each other. Though each of us must ultimately account for our own life and die our own death, I believe we can grow and gain knowledge only by traveling with others on our spiritual journey.
What the religious prophets of all the worlds religions tell us is this: that to live the religious life is the most difficult and dangerous path we could choose -- and it is the most joyful and fulfilling.
Don Juan, the Yaqui Man of Knowledge, says that we must ask ourselves, "Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. … One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you."
This is our task: to choose a path that not only challenges us, that is risky and dangerous, but a path that has a heart, that gives us joy at being alive, that leads us to love. May you find that path in this place with these people.
Spoken Meditation & Prayer:
This is a dangerous world we live.
There is much to fear.
We fear disease and death, terrorists and snipers, loneliness and no time to be alone.
Sometimes we may wake in the middle of the night afraid for our future or our children's or the fate of the planet.
Sometimes anxiety about our career or education or our financial state may shake us at our core.
At other times it may be the irresponsibility of our leaders or the plight of the poor or the possibility of war that causes us to worry and anguish.
We do live dangerous lives.
But there is a deeper peace within each of us that can calm the fears.
There is great strength in this community of caring people, not only those who are here today but those who have come before us and will come after us.
May fear become an ever diminishing power in our lives and may courage fill us with its spirit.
Let us quiet our minds and find courage in our hearts.
In the silence let us seek the quiet place within ourselves where there is no fear.
Let us go to the center of ourselves where our inner lives and the outer world are in balance.
Let us fill ourselves with the present moment, leaving behind the past and the future.
Let us now open our minds and hearts to the place of quiet,
to the silent prayer for the healing of pain,
and the soft, gentle coming of love...
Amen.
