"God Within...the Stillness"
Joan Riebel
Sunday, November 27th 2005

Wake up Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel. It is the beginning of the liturgical year – the first Sunday in advent. Wake up! Good things are about to happen. Christmas is coming. There’ll be a celebration. Wake up, so you don’t miss it. As Rachael Naomi Remen wrote so beautifully:

This past June a number of us from St. Joan’s went to Portland, Oregon for three days to learn about “Mysticism, Empowerment and Resistance” at Trinity Episcopal Church. It was an incredible three days of listening to three prophets – Joan Chittister, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossen. The absolute only downside was sitting on wooden pews for three days, though I do think they probably contributed to our staying alert!

Each day began with a one-hour lecture by each, followed by discussion, questions and answers. I have a brief time today, so I will focus on the first day’s discussion of mysticism. We will be sharing more of these wonderful discussions during Lent, when we will focus more on the empowerment and resistance lectures and discussions. Today we begin our focus on the God within.

I grew up, like many of you, studying the Baltimore Catechism. And I studied it rigorously, because the more we knew what was in it, the more we memorized, the better Catholic we’d become. And I think it was right on the first page we learned that we were born in the image and likeness of God. It was a wonderful thought. But then we studied further to learn that God was a God of judgment, a God of laws and, most certainly, God was male. And then to further complicate the paradigm, even though I was born in the likeness of God, I was unworthy of God’s love unless I behaved and thought perfectly and purely which, of course, I didn’t. In short I learned dogma. I learned to think God. I learned to think of a God “out there” who was very interested in observing and judging my every action.

Mysticism calls us to a different paradigm, a different way of being, a different way of knowing, a different way of living. Mysticism moves us from a belief-centered paradigm, “I believe in God” to a transformation-centered paradigm, “I know God.” God is here, in my being, in all that is. The Divine is everywhere. And mysticism calls us to act, because when we see the world as goodness, as full of the Divine, we are drawn beyond ourselves to a cosmic consciousness. And I come to know God, that Holy Presence within me and within all else, through contemplation and prayer. We come to know God within the silence. We come to know God as we listen to that authentic voice within.

Joan Chittister says it clearly in her book Called to Question. It’s a must read for anyone interested in transformation – the transformation of ourselves, of our church and of our world. On page 69 she writes, “When we temporarily take ourselves away from the things that distract us from what’s going on inside of us – when we step back from the work, the children, the house parties, [the shopping], the rapids of daily life – we give ourselves back to ourselves…What is needed is honesty of heart and some kind of distance from the daily.” Wake up to the God within. The God within the stillness.

Now here’s the tricky part, we each make the God who is within. Belief in God is not unique to us. Every civilization at every time and place on earth has found some kind of God – the belief in something beyond itself. It’s not the idea of God that’s unique. It’s the kind of God we create. Some people create a God who directs our lives, even tells us who should be President! Even tells us what numbers to put on our lottery tickets. Some people create a God of wrath and judgment and blow up buildings with airplanes while calling God’s name. Some people create a God who is so interested in genitals that their God even decides who can govern and who can preach and who can preside at Eucharist. We know, accept and project onto others the God we create.

As Christians, following the teachings and life of Jesus, we know that our God is a God of love. A God of love that draws us to compassion, to community, to justice. Over and over Jesus taught and showed love, acceptance and compassion. He taught us to question, question the purity codes of our time and the dominant paradigm. Our hearts and souls, that deeply personal and silent space, know that God of Love. The God within liberates us to be the best we can be, to see goodness where it is, and to be drawn toward good, loving action. We must take the time to listen. What better time than Advent! Waiting for and imagining Christmas.

As I was contemplating this homily, this new way of thinking, embracing this Great Mystery, I found myself remembering what I now name a mystical experience – an experience of seeing the world as God sees the world. It was just after the birth of my first son. I was 24 years old. I was holding him and looking at him and I found myself consumed with love. It was a love I’d never felt before. And then I found myself thinking that no matter what might happen, no matter what he ever did, I would never not love him. My next thought, a transforming thought, was that God loves all of us that way. God loves and embraces us every bit as completely as I was embracing my son. There cannot be a reason God would send us away. We are all saved by love.

It was an incredibly spiritual and powerfully transforming moment for me. It called me to question much of what I’d learned in the Baltimore Catechism. I stopped going to church. Being only called a sinner, wrapped in unworthiness, labeled and divided by gender, it just didn’t fit with what I knew. A few years later I found St. Joan’s. And I know so completely through this community that God is love, welcoming and accepting and guiding me on my journey.

Joan Chittister tells us that community is very important to us mystics. Communities are essential for us, especially those that celebrate the gospel of Jesus, especially those that question the dominant paradigm, and those that lift our hearts and our hopes and our dreams to believe that all things are possible with God’s love. Communities whose members listen to that voice of God within, take time to reflect and pray, are drawn together in love. What’s deep within each of us draws us together. It is in knowing that love, trusting that goodness, that we are empowered to act, and empowered to resist. And so while a mystic reflects, prays, listens to that God within, a mystic is always worldly – in the world acting for peace and justice.

Marcus Borg says, “The Christian experience is not primarily about doctrine, it is about union with God through prayer.” When we see God as goodness and love, mysticism grounds us in the goodness of this world. And from that grounding we gain the courage to respond to the injustices around us.

Today is New Year’s Day in the church year. It is the first Sunday in Advent. Wake up! Good things are about to happen. Christmas is coming. The Holy may speak to you from its many hidden places.