Who Do We Want To Become?
Written by Gary E. Smith Sunday, 10 May 2009 00:00
Do you remember the passage in Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians in which he says, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,” and then he goes on to give his own definition of love. “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant or rude.” And then he says, “Love does not insist on its own way.” That’s the piece of love I want to get at today. “Love seeketh not her own,” saith the poetry of King James’ day. “Love does not insist on its own way.” “Love seeketh not her own.”
That’s where this sermon begins. Well, it really begins with the trip these young people took to El Salvador, but we’ll come back to that. I begin instead with this question: who do we want to become? What do we want from this life? And from many answers, from many choices, I’m suggesting today that the response is happiness. Do you know the definition of ‘happy’? “Favored by hap, by chance, by luck, by fortune.” That’s the definition. Let’s just say that most of us would like to be standing in the right line when hap is passed out.
And so how is it we go about seeking happiness? The first stage – and this stage comes at different ages for different people, and for some people it does not come at all - at the first stage, we are faced with the task of a full-scale self-assessment. Who are we? Which is to say, what do we have to work with? What cards have genetics and heredity dealt us? How damaged are we - by our background, our history, our parenting, the choices we’ve made? Who are we? What are our roots? Where did we come from? Has the sailing been rough? Has the sailing been smooth?
Who are we? Do any of us now see or have we ever seen a therapist? Are we trying to untangle the strands that have made up our lives? Do we wish we could? Who are we? Does coming to First Parish help to answer that question? Do insights come here, not just from words spoken, but from the place we go when we hear a particular piece of music or when we glance out the window just so? What about groups we might be in, or friends we have? Do they mirror back to us who we are? Do they see something in us that we do not or cannot see? Are these people willing to tell us who we are? Can we handle it?
Who are we? If we are brave enough, we may, from time to time, catch a glimpse of ourselves. This leads to stage two. Who do we want to become? Do we like what we see? The first question is “who are we?” The second question is “who do we want to become?” It is often in the answering of the second question that we get into trouble. If we do not like what we see, and I mean this both literally and figuratively, we may try to fix things. If we do not like how we look, and this is the literal part, we may tinker around with our body. This culture of ours gives us constant reminders of what the ideal person looks like: young, trim, healthy hair, confident but not brash, tall rather than short, good complexion, which is to say articulate, erudite, brave, clean and reverent.
If we do not like what we see when we answer the question “who are we?” we may try to fix things. We want this thing called “hap” and we equate it with things and the things cost money, so we work harder and longer to make more money to have more things. The problem is we don’t always end up with hap.
“Who do we want to become?” is the second question. If only we had that job instead of this job, if only we were in relationship with that person instead of this person, if only my children had the same grades/ambition/skills as those children, if only we lived in that house instead of this house, if only our marriage were like that marriage, if only we were seen with that crowd instead of this crowd, if only… This is the way some of us answer the second question, “who do we want to become?” in response to the way we have answered the first question, “who are we?”
Two things must be said here. First, not all of us, by any means, respond to the “who are we?” by asking these questions. And secondly, those who do know they are falling into a trap. They know that’s not who they want to become, but they can’t do anything about it. They think they’re expected to answer the question that way, and this pursuit of happiness is not all that easy.
The fact is it is a trap. We’re given mixed messages. We need self-knowledge. We need self-esteem. It’s the way we hold it all together in the face of all the forces that would pull us apart. The trap is when we consider the pursuit of happiness and the desire to make ourselves as perfect as we can as an end in itself instead of a means to something even better. We are now circling around to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and to something called the Golden Rule.
All this business of the pursuit of our perfect selves, this way we sometimes fall into when we think of what we want to become: have you heard the expression “House of Cards”? It all comes to naught. It is doomed. And we know that. And we pursue all of it anyway, most of us. But there is a Plan B. Plan A was my self and your self as an end in itself. Plan A was imagining the perfect self for ourselves and going after it, at all costs. [Please notice the phrase “at all costs.”] Plan A was an outcome that, at the end, comes up empty, as in “my life is empty.”
Plan B suggests that we can accept ourselves, with all of our shortcomings, all of our pretensions, all of our blemishes. Plan B suggests that we can always keep working on coming to the place we want to be, and in the meantime, we can try love. “Love does not insist on its own way,” says Paul. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” says Jesus. The Church has called it the Golden Rule, as in “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
If we wish to be favored by hap, try loving others “as yourself”, which is to say, love your neighbor without thought of yourself, without thought of any “thank you”, any reward, any stars in your crown. Don’t wait to be perfect to do this. There’s no time. Don’t make an action plan. Just try some simple thing today that involves loving your neighbor. Do it without guile. Do it without thinking about it too much.
It is Mother’s Day. We have dedicated a child here this morning. We have welcomed wonderful new members, to add to our ranks. We have heard from young travelers about new Salvadoran friends. This is a morning of “who are we?” and “who do we want to become?” This is a morning about love.
Your support for First Parish has made all these youth mission trips possible: to El Salvador and New Orleans last month, to Transylvania in July, trips trying to find a balance between doing and being. When our young people in the past have gone to Arizona to help on the Native American reservation, when they’ve been in Washington, D.C. helping in a homeless shelter, when our young people go to Transylvania on work trips, there are always things to do: paint a fence, haul dirt, tile a roof, cut firewood, teach children. But it is all for naught if there is not a piece of “being” in there with the “doing”, a piece of love in there with the doing, for how else are we transformed, how do we engage, how do we remain present, how do we not hurry on?
“So faith, hope, love abide,” Paul writes, as he concludes the passage with which we began, “but the greatest of these is love.” And then the next two words that are seldom cited: “Pursue love.” “Pursue love,” Paul says. And practice love, too, I would say. That is what we have done this morning. This is what the parents of Graeme are doing. This is what our new members are doing. This is what mothers do, day after day. This is what our young people did on their trip. We are all practicing love.
Try it, and synergy might take over. You may like it, this love of neighbor stuff. And you will want to become a better person so that you can love more. The two forces will work on each other: becoming the person you want to be and loving your neighbor. They will become one. And you will find happiness. This is not some pop culture, “feel good” piece of advice. This is ancient wisdom. This is the core teaching of our Christian brothers and sisters for centuries. What if love is some divine force that pulls us toward our neighbor? What if we find ourselves living into the paradox that the more we love our neighbor the more we come to love our own selves, accept our own imperfect selves. What if we find ourselves living into the paradox that the more happiness we bring to our neighbor the more happiness we find for ourselves, and that it just happens, and we can’t plan on it, and we can’t force it.
“The precious life that is in you and me is the same in all,” writes Daniel Rhys Williams.
“Rich and poor, wise and simple, strong and feeble, we are joined together by a mystic oneness whose source we may never know, but whose reality we can never doubt.
When one suffers, we all suffer.
When one hungers for bread, we all hunger.
When one tramps the streets in search of work or shelter, we all tramp the streets.
When one defrauds another, we are all implicated.
When one undermines a human life, we all share the guilt.
When one attains the heart’s desire, we are all partners of the joy.
This mystic identity of the one with the many has been glimpsed by all the great souls of the world.
We are each other’s keeper, because the other is but our larger self.
Let a sense of our vital unity with all persons everywhere possess our minds and hearts.
Behold, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, because thy neighbor is thyself.”