The Fire in Your Bowl

November 27, 2022

Rev. Douglas Taylor

Sermon video: https://youtu.be/q5Vr9Jr5Hq8

A few weeks back we had our monthly Soul Matters Small Group Ministry with the Athens, Binghamton, and Cortland congregations. The theme for the month was around Change; and one of the questions struck me. I’d thought I might have it as my focus question that evening but instead, as I read it again, I thought, “Oh, that’s a whole sermon.” So, I answered a different question for the evening discussion. That bigger question, the one that first caught me but I waited to answer, was this:

It’s what many of us fear the most: becoming reconciled to injustice, resigned to fear and despair, lulled into a life of apathy. Have you put in enough strategies to avoid this fate?

Are you doing enough to avoid this reconciliation and resignation? There is a lot of trouble out in the world, many things that tempt us into despair, much that breaks our hearts. The phrases in that question are drawn from a poem titled “I Am Afraid of Nealy Everything” by an anonymous author. And, while I am not, (afraid of nearly everything – that is) I do find this poem compelling.

I Am Afraid of Nearly Everything                   by Anonymous

I am afraid of nearly everything:

of darkness,

hunger,

war,

children mutilated.

But most of all, I am afraid of what I might become:

reconciled to injustice,

resigned to fear and despair,

lulled into a life of apathy.

Unchain my hope, make me strong.

Stretch me towards the impossible, that I may work for what ought to be:

the hungry fed,

the enslaved freed,

the suffering comforted,

the peace accomplished.

And while I am not afraid of the first set of things mentioned in the poem: war, hunger – mostly I am heartbroken and angry about those things. What grips me, thought is the second set mentioned in the poem. I do find that second set of things unnerving. I do fear that I might become reconciled to injustice. There is a piece from Dr. King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail in which King says there are some things in our society against which we ought to be maladjusted. I don’t want to become reconciled to injustice, resigned to fear and despair, lulled into a life of apathy.

There are many things in our world that break our hearts or tempt us toward despair and resignation. There is a vast amount of need in the world, calling for our attention, for our action. But as Howard Thurman famously said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” The fear and frustration are a lot. But what the world really needs is our joy. The world needs our light and bright living. The world needs people who have come alive.

The world needs our joy? There is a strange wall between these two topics: the heartbreaking needs of the world and … joy. It is difficult to speak of fear, injustice, hunger, and suffering alongside something so bright and wonderful as joy.

Where do you find joy? Where is that brightness in your life? Set to the side for a moment all these heavy things I’ve been bringing up and give some attention to this question: Where do you find joy? Or to lean into Howard Thurman’s nuance of the question: what makes you come alive?

Many people will answer these questions with simple things: a quiet morning in the woods, holidays with family, making love, playing games with friends. Maybe your thoughts drifted toward larger events from your living – the culmination of a long project, a special trip or cruise, the birth of a child. There is joy in this world in so many places large and small. And the world needs our joy. The world needs people who have come alive.

Now turn with me to these heavier things I mentioned earlier. The things that break your heart, that spark your anger, that tempt you toward despair. If we are going to make this world a better place, if we are going to meet the world’s needs – we must be prepared to bring our joy with us to those hard places. The suggestion is not to forget about the pain. Or to only live in your bliss, neglecting the needs of others. No. The counsel from Howard Thurman and others is to not leave your joy behind, bring it with you as you go.

I shared with the children about the history and meaning of our Flaming Chalice. The symbol is still flexible, delightfully open to interpretation and reinterpretation. The fire in our bowl is spoken of as our fire of commitment, our spark of joy, our image of God, a beacon of hope, and our hearth fire of community. The way I am using the image today is as a combination of the fire of commitment and the spark of joy within each of us. Let me explain.

Earlier this month I was invited to travel to Buffalo for a healing conversation about racism and gun violence. 6 months earlier, on May 14^th of this year, a man from Conklin (near Binghamton) went up to a Tops market in Buffalo and killed 10 people. It is clear from his own writings that this was a racially motivated crime. He drove over three hours to get to a predominantly black neighborhood with the intent to kill as many black people as possible.

Our local interfaith group, The Children of Abraham, decided this was a topic that fit within our mission of building mutual trust and respect across our religious traditions. One member of our interfaith group had relationships up in Buffalo, and when the shooting happened, they reached out; and our recent trip grew from there. About a dozen of us from this area drove up to Buffalo to meet with clergy and lay leaders from the churches serving the neighborhood where the shooting took place. We shared a meal together and we shared our experiences of the event.

I and a few others talked about the vigil hosted that week in May on the Broome County Courthouse lawn – organized by the Black clergy in our area. I shared about our congregation’s serendipitous program already planned to have history professor Steve Call do a lecture on racist narratives of the history of the Civil War that foster white nationalism among us – and how that lecture and the subsequent Q & A helped bring some of our community together in awareness. 

I shared some of these things, some of these events that happened in response. I also shared some of my own feelings – about my frustration and anger, but also my desire to distance myself and my congregation from the shooter as if to say he is not an example of the people down here in Binghamton.

But he is. I shared how I wrestled with the fact that there is something in this community that allowed that man’s hate to grow and flourish. There is something in this community for which I am in part responsible.

I had a few opportunities to share. Mostly, I listened. Mostly, I held space for others to share. I heard about the vigil they had held in one of the larger sanctuaries and the crowds who showed up that night. I heard about the impact of the one grocery store in the neighborhood being closed as a crime scene for two months. I heard about the small memorial set up in the market to the ten people killed that day. I heard about how people in the neighborhood felt pressure to ‘be resilient and move on.’

One lay leader shared with us her experience of the day of the shooting. She said she’d been planning to met up with a niece at the Tops market that evening. She told us the grocery store was something of a community center – every time she went there, she saw several people she knew. When she first heard the shooting had happened, she had about 20 phone calls to make to family members to see if they were safe. Had they been at the store? Had they heard from anyone else? Did they know what was going on?

Her uncle was one of the ten people killed. Her uncle was part of a program to drive people places. “Where are you going,” he would ask, “how much money do you have?” And he would always take them where they needed to go for whatever they could pay. I am not sure if that’s why he was at the grocery store that afternoon, but it seems likely.

These were good people, normal people going about their lives. The shooter wanted to kill as many black people as possible. During my visit, I heard about the weariness settling in on them and the resignation settling in around them.

But most of all, I am afraid of what I might become: (Our poem had cautioned us,)

reconciled to injustice,

resigned to fear and despair,

lulled into a life of apathy.

The poem then turns and offers a call for something different.

Unchain my hope, make me strong

Stretch me towards the impossible, that I may work for what ought to be:

the hungry fed,

the enslaved freed,

the suffering comforted,

the peace accomplished.

You will recall, perhaps, that I promised this sermon would be about joy, about coming alive. I am grateful to have been invited into that conversation. It opens me up, I feel more alive when I can be a participant in a healing conversation like that. I’m not saying I found great joy through the experience; but I am saying I did not leave my joy back in Binghamton for this visit. It was a joy to meet a few new people, to learn about their lives and their passions, to be with them in a meaningful struggle.

There is a plan to have a dozen or so people from Buffalo come down here to Binghamton and Conklin for a similar event at the one-year anniversary. There is a plan to keep the relationships, to keep this bridge we’ve begun to build. And that is meaningful and can lead to strong neighborhoods and communities and, yes, to joy. By engaging with a meaningful struggle, a struggle for meaning in the face of suffering – we can overcome it. We can persevere together. We can come to a place of joy together. We can even find it along the way, in the struggle.

There are many things in our world that break our hearts or tempt us toward despair and resignation. There is a vast amount of need in the world, calling for our attention, for our action. But as Howard Thurman famously said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” The fear and frustration are a lot. But what the world really needs is our joy. The world needs our light and bright living. The world needs people who have come alive.

What is it for you? Where is your joy? What makes you come alive? Perhaps it is teaching or sharing music. It doesn’t have to be a justice issue – although it easily could be tangled up with justice-making in some way.

I find I come alive when I am invited into the sort of healing conversation I found up in Buffalo. I also found it last week when I participated with the students at the Transgender Day of Remembrance at Binghamton University. I find it every time I put together and lead a memorial service. It is about being invited into meaningful struggle with others. It is about being trusted to hold a vulnerable space open for healing. This is what makes me come alive. What is it for you?

The fire in our bowl is that light leading us on. It is the spark of passion we offer the world. It is the center of our bright living. I invite you to lean into the place of your joy, to know what fire helps you to come alive. Where we work for what ought to be:

the hungry fed,

the enslaved freed,

the suffering comforted,

the peace accomplished.

The world needs our joy. The world needs us to come alive.

In a world without end,

May it be so.