Worship Transition
Is that so?
Copyright 2010 Annie Lengacher Browning
February 7, 2010

Luke 5:1-11
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

Boston University's political science professor and historian Howard Zinn died a little over a week ago on January 27.

As Bill Moyers described Zinn in an interview about a year ago, “there's a long tradition in the America of people power, and no one has done more to document it than Howard Zinn.”

Howard wrote tirelessly about the missing and unwritten history of the United States, the stories that are marginalized, dispossessed, sometimes written from the losing side, or unnamed individuals.

In Zinn's “People's History of the United States”, he devotes an entire chapter to what he calls “The Unreported Resistance”. Stories of citizen's movements, educating, organizing, mobilizing, demonstrating for unpopular decisions against the cultural flow of the times.

Often unnoticed, Zinn would weave together how these small stands of resistance affected systems of power and influence.

These were not the resistances that made the front pages of newspapers, like the numbers that showed out in the Mall during Vietnam. Rather, they were the actions that often occurred in timely moments, often a bit after the fact, in smaller but influential and heart felt waves.

Like the letter that George Bush received and kept from a little girl, who began her letter about the Gulf War with “Dear President Bush, I do not like the way you are acting.”

Zinn felt that this sort of resistance was the essence of American life.

In fact, his chapter begins with describing how a writer in the New Republic magazine in the early 1990's  warned against the rise of a “permanent adversarial culture” in the United  States. A permanent adversarial culture would surely undermine our sense of identity and loyalty as Americans.

It was this permanent adversarial culture that Zinn paid attention to.

What I think Zinn was paid attention to was resistance that emerged in a fresh way. Our history pages as a country and people are full of tales of resistance. And we have our own stories of resistance as Mennonites, as a people of faith who drew lines of consciousness over ethical and social choices.

These stands of resistance are issues are critical to our identity, sense of purpose and vision.

However, deciding which resistance to pay attention to, which resistance to report, which resistance to mark as legitimate and notable is where Zinn diverged from the history books we read in second grade.

It is the resistance that we pay attention to that matters. Reported resistances often are written by those who won out. The unreported resistance is most often present but mum.

Often the unreported resistance is not what emerges most  immediately in times of change or stress. In other words, it is not our knee jerk reactions that constitute a resistance that has direction, vision, movement, and progress.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, noted author and director of  The Shalom Center, contacted Zinn two days before his death as to whether or not Zinn thought it was a good time to stage some sit-ins for peace across the country, well after the war in Afghanistan had started.

Zinn's last known correspondence said the following, “I believe millions, probably tens of millions of people are ready for this now because there is little left of the early euphoria that greeted Obama’s election.”

We are now ready for a resistance to the war in Afghanistan that has direction, vision, movement and progress now that some of the initial euphoria has died down. Now we are ready to look closely at this again.

And so what resistance do we pay attention to? Even those classic resistances within ourselves?

It's the initial waves that are the strongest.

It looks cold out there. I don't really want to take a walk.
Broccoli? Is there any cheese sauce to go with it? That chocolate cake looks good.
War and Peace? Great novel, but maybe I'll just read US Weekly today.
I know this money is for my IRA but that new TV would be perfect for the Super Bowl.
Homework? I'll do it later.

Or perhaps the classic learning that we all assimilated somehow from our mothers that the things that are really good for us we probably will resist the most.

Or, in other words, sometimes our most immediate of resistances are temporary, short-lived, like a wave of emotion, before we settle in to a good energizing pace on that walk, find that broccoli has good vitamins for us, War and Peace is digestible in chunks, we can perhaps save up for a TV, and that homework has some redeeming qualities along the way.

It is lingering long enough past the initial “no” to discover what second wave of resistance may emerge from us, the sort of resistance that perhaps is from a grounded sense of peace within us.

It is the unreported resistances that do say with clarity and grace, “No.” No to violence. No to injustice. No to intolerance. No to power blocks. No to oppression. No to control.

And not just “no” to broccoli.

Eckhart Tolle wrote  in “A New Earth”, the famous words, “This too shall pass”, and he further explains that understanding the impermanence of resistance can lead us to nonattachment.

Not in the “I don't care” sense of nonattachment, but rather a perspective of nonjudgment and spaciousness. The sort of perspective that leads us into true freedom and enlightened living.

Or in the terms of what is commonly called the law of  non-resistance, whenever we resist something strongly, immediately and with reactivity, we give more power to it then it really deserves.

This, of course, does not mean blindly acquiescing to every whim or inclination that comes to us. But, it is living with our resistances in a way that looks for a way of non-judgment and non-attachment to accompany our actions.

When we live into a state of non-judgment, non-resistance, non-attachment, we are comfortable with uncertainty. A willingness to step into what is unknown and unformed yet. A wide field of possibility that we may be surprised or disappointed beyond imagination.

And it provides us spaciousness within our experience. A spaciousness within well-grounded resistance. A spaciousness that is not built upon anxiety, control, manipulation or angst.

Or as Eckhart Tolle writes, “as we accept the transience of all things and the inevitability of change, we can enjoy the pleasures of the world while they last without fear of loss or anxiety about the future.”

“This freedom is the arising of inner space. It comes as a stillness, a subtle peace deep within us, even in the face of something seemingly bad. This, too, will pass. Suddenly, there is space around the event.

“There is also space around the emotional highs and lows, even around pain. And above all, there is space between our thoughts. And from that space emanates a peace that is not “of this world,” because this world is form, and the peace is space. This is the peace of God.”

And the unreported or unseen movements that often happen in spaciousness.

When I was growing up, my mother inundated me with what she called her “24 hour” rule. If I received a grade I wasn't happy about, if I was on the receiving end of a rude remark from a peer or sibling, If I got a haircut that I wasn't sure if it was quite right, or wasn't happy with what time I went to bed, I was usually ready to move forward with well-planned out resistance.

Instead, my mother would quickly acknowledge my feelings of frustration, anger, or hurt, and then encourage me to sit with it for 24 hours before responding with gusto. I remember being so frustrated by her rule because I was bent on confronting whatever raw hand in life I had been dealt.
I'm guessing that she developed this technique really only to cut down on the number of times her five children were running to her with claims of who punched who or who said what.

She would tell me to wait and see if the first resistance I felt continued into a second wave. If so, then it was probably very important to say or do something.

But, her advice was always with a major life event, or what I perceived to be major life events, “Wait 24 hours. If it is true, it will still be true for you in 24 hours.”

And, 9 times out of 10, the sisterly tiff had moved on to something else. The haircut that seemed all wrong wasn't so bad. The grade was warranted. And the enforced bedtime wasn't so bad after all.

And also 9 times out of 10 my resistance to whatever had emerged in my life had changed as well. It had deepened, matured, rested within myself, sifted through my ego, and emerged in a different voice.

The sort of voice that said, “Now is the time to hold on and resist.” or “Now is the time to let go.”

In the 24 hours I would also usually uncover the sense of “me” that was part of the problem. The lack of time I had put into studying. The snarky response I had muttered under my breath to my sister. The vague instructions I had delivered to the hairdresser. The fact that I was feeling better rested the next day after going to bed a half hour earlier.

However, the shift occurred only by sitting with my resistance and also sitting with the presenting problem. It usually no longer became solely my resistance against another. Or another's problem that was superimposed on me.

I sense that in the life of this congregation we are still figuring out what exactly we would define as a a “problem” here at First Mennonite. And, I do not expect that we will really come to any unified vision about what our “problem” is.

Vern and I have put forward a named problem of physical space, part-timey attendance, the rule of 80% full sanctuaries, our expanding numbers. And we have put forward a proposed solution for us to put our heart and soul into exploring.

In some ways, this is a good and welcome problem. However, it doesn't mean that is a unified problem that we all feel a sense of ownership about.

And this is perhaps what is most difficult for all of us in this time of worship transition and change.

And it is a universal struggle. One that I struggle with each day I come here.

That we are full. That we have a increasingly multi-dimensional sense of community. That we are wrestling with how to make decisions that will bring life to this community.

However, we are in this together. And the realities of our community are a collective problem. Whether or not we attend here once or twice a year or have been attending our entire lives, it is part of our ownership of this community.

Whether or not we feel like we are part of it or on the outside. Whether or not we whole-heartedly agree or disagree with changes and transitions. It is a problem that is not just located one place or another.

In order to well-locate our resistance, we also must well-locate the problem, cause or concern as being our own.

The sort of resistance that emerges after saying that I am willing, as Zinn writes, to educate, organize, mobilize, demonstrate about who I am and what resistances stir within me.

And it is the unreported resistance that emerges from believing that I am also part of the problem and the solution, because I am part of the system.

That I am part of militarism. Part of violence. Part of  injustice. Part of intolerance. Part of power blocks. Part of oppression. Part of control.

We all are part of the problems and the solutions at First Mennonite Church. We are all part of the discomfort and the newness of two services. We are all part of what it means to both resist and be part of this system together. And both spacious resistance and spacious participation are what we need.

There is a Japanese Zen story that goes as follows:

The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.
A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.
This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.
In great anger the parents went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say to their accusations.
A year later the girl could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth,  that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.
The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length. 
And all Hakuin said was: "Is that so?”

I ask the question today as we consider the upcoming transition, two service venture together, “Is that so?”

There are many reasons why it won't work or why it will. But, is that so?
There are many scenarios that could feel wonderful and painful. But, is that so?
There are many times in worship that will soar and flop. But, is that so?

It is often after we ask the question “Is that so?” as we encounter our own resistances, judgments, and  attachments that we uncover a spaciousness. A spaciousness that allows us to move into new experience unencumbered and open. A spaciousness that moves beyond immediate defensiveness and rationale into one that says “could it be so?”

In the Biblical text today, Jesus asks Simon Peter to put out his nets into deep water and let down his  nets for a catch.

Peter responds quickly with what I think we all would say, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.” It is the most natural and immediate of resistances to what seems to be a rather stupid suggestion.

And then in a moment of spaciousness Peter essentially says, “Is that so? If you say so, I will let down the nets.”

And he catches fish.

In the end, Peter's experience of what seemed to be an uncertain and implausible suggestion for his livelihood is one of power. So much so that he responds and leaves everything behind to follow Jesus.   A newness from him in saying “Is that so?”

We are moving into a two service venture, and we must ask the question with curiosity, openness, spaciousness and wonder, “Is that so?” And be willing to address our own resistances so that we can even ask this question.

No one, not even Vern or me, can say what our outcome, what our catch, will be. We cannot say with certainty whether or not it will solve a problem or create a bigger headache.

And we have to be okay with that uncertainty in order to even suggest that we venture into any solution.

But, I can say that if we enter this experience with an approach of nonjudgment and space, we will learn something. And something that will lead us into new awarenesses. An awareness that may have us leave our nets behind. An awareness that may have us cast again.

We will take time and space for our well-grounded resistances to emerge, the 24 hour resistances that are clarified by experience of what we need to say and what we let go of.

And this is the unreported resistance among us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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