I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For...

         So tonight, we are so excited to have my dear friends from Traverse City – the Nexus band – here with us. I’ve been working and playing with these folks on and off for 6-7 years I think!

        On these Tuesday night riverside gatherings, we’ve been considering some fun and provocative “What If” questions, rethinking matters of faith and of spiritual community together. To get us into tonight’s question, I want to begin with a couple stories…

         A middle-aged woman walked into her counselor’s office and said, “I should be happy with my life. I have a fine marriage, two wonderful kids, a good career. Yet I keep feeling that something is missing… Deep down I am restless. I want something more…” (Gerald May, “Entering the Emptiness,” Simpler Living, Compassionate Life, McKibben & Schut, p. 46)

A young boy opens the last of his Christmas gifts. There had been a huge pile of them just an hour ago, but all that remains is wrapping paper, empty boxes, and ribbons. The boy had received a lot of great gifts, everything he asked for. But there was an emptiness inside him that he couldn’t quite figure out.

There is a chronic restlessness in all of us, a longing, a hunger that we can’t even name, something that’s always just beyond our reach. Buddhists call this Dukka – the truth that there is a kind of suffering that is universal to all of us. Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones realized long ago that we “can’t get no satisfaction.” The Eagles told us, back in the early 70’s, that even though “some fine things have been laid upon our table,” we “only want the ones that we can’t get.” (Can anybody name THAT tune…?)

         So what if…what if there really is this “Dukka,” this innate and inescapable suffering, longing, wanting, discontent, this kind of insatiable hunger is simply a part of being human?

So here’s my what if question for tonight…What if... we’re not necessarily supposed to be “happy” or “content”? What if that chronic restlessness that we ALL feel, though very few of us are willing to admit it, is actually supposed to be there? What if that deep, inner longing, that part of us that just can’t get no satisfaction, is actually supposed to be there? What if…?

Nexus – plays “I Still Haven’t Found…

So let’s break this song down…The first verse focuses on the physical realm. The singer has climbed “the highest mountain,” run “through the fields,” and “scaled city walls,” but, “still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.” In the second verse, the singer turns to the sexual, kissing “honey lips,” experiencing “healing finger tips,” and “burning with desire,” but still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. It’s the third verse that, for my money, really makes this song worth listening to. Here Bono moves to the spiritual realm, speaking with “eternal angels,” holding “hands with the Devil.” He even goes on to make explicit reference to his Christian faith; Jesus breaking “the bonds” and loosing “the chains,” even carrying “the cross.” Bono emphasizes the fervency of his Christian faith, crying, “You know I believe it!”

So when I first heard this song, I was sure that after that 3^rd verse, this one about Jesus, they were going to sing a different chorus. You know, something like, “And I finally have found what I’m looking for.” But no! No! NO! In unprecedented fashion, Bono confesses – openly admits - that even with Christian faith, even with the assurance of Christ’s redeeming work, he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.

I don’t know about you, but that has been my experience following Jesus. Being his disciple has done a lot of great things for me, made my life meaningful and purposeful. But I’m still restless. I’m still searching. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…Have you? HAVE you?

 What if human fulfillment in this life – happiness, contentment, whatever you want to call it - with or without Christian faith - is a myth. What if having a hungry heart, an insatiable longing is a part of what makes us human? What if not being able to find what we’re looking for is a part of what unites us – ALL of us, regardless of our faith, religion, or lack therof?

As sociologist Gerald May writes,

“We make several great mistakes if we think life should or even

can be resolved to a point of complete serenity and fulfillment.

To believe this is to commit ourselves to a fantasy that does

not exist and that, if it were true, would kill our love and end

in stagnation, boredom, and death…Most importantly, the

myth of fulfillment makes us miss the most beautiful aspect of

our human souls: our emptiness, our incompleteness, our radical

yearning for love.” May concludes, “We were never meant to be completely fulfilled; we were meant to taste it, to long for it, to grow

toward it…But to miss our emptiness is, finally, to miss both our essential humanity and our hope.” (Gerald May, “Entering the Emptiness,” Simpler Living Compassionate Life, McKibben & Schut, p. 47)

        

So, what if God made us in such a way, connected us in such a way that until every human being has eaten, we’re all going to be hungry…?

What if God made us in such a way that until everybody has enough – a roof, a shelter, a home, we’re all going to be a little unsatisfied with where we live?

What if we are all so connected – not just those of us here tonight or people we know - but ALL of us – the ENTIRE HUMAN FAMILY – what if we are ALL intricately connected in some powerful, eternal, unfathomable way? If that were true, what sense would it make for any of us to be “happy” or “content” until ALL of us could be?

So how many of you here are parents…? Let me ask you parents this: if one of your children is sick, can you feel good?... If one of your children is sad, can you feel happy? If one of your kids has had his/her heart broken, can you feel content or satisfied?

We religious folk – and especially us Christians – are always talking about and singing about God being our Father, the earth being our mother. If that’s the case, then aren’t all people, all living things, all creatures our brothers and sisters?

Maybe this is what the Apostle Paul was trying to say in I Corinthians 12, when he compared the human family to a human body and wrote that, “when one part suffers all parts suffer with it.” (I Corinthians 12:26)

What if…what if happiness, fulfillment, and contentment escape us and will continue to escape us until all God’s children are taken care of. What if?

If we really are all brothers and sisters, if the ties that bind the entire creation together really are God-ordained, why should any of us expect to be happy when nearly two thirds of the world lives in extreme poverty? Should any of us expect to be fulfilled and content when American children under the age of 13 have more spending money – at $230 per year – than the 300 million poorest people in the world earn in a year? (Alan Durning, “How much is enough?”)

Frederich Buechner, who spoke at my graduation from Princeton Seminary, put it this way, “There can never really be peace and joy for any until there is peace and joy for all.” (Buechner, A Room Called Remember) So what if THAT is true? What if Buechner is right? What if your ultimate fulfillment and mine are not meant to arrive until God’s will is actually being done on earth as it is in heaven? What if we still haven’t found what we’re looking for because God still hasn’t found what She’s looking for? What if…?

(Here Nexus played “Walk On” by U2)

Our Buddhist brothers and sisters have this incredibly cool practice called Tonglen. I’d like for us to close our evening with it. It’s a particular kind of breathing and meditation exercise that helps us get at the unity that is at the core of the human family.

We begin by picturing a person or a group of people we know to be suffering – it might be people who have cancer undergoing chemotherapy… it might be people who have lost a loved one or people in the horrors of war and bloodshed.

Once we have pictured and centered our thoughts on this suffering individual or group, we breathe in deeply, seeking to breathe into ourselves some of their suffering and pain, seeking to reduce – if only in a miniscule way – their suffering and pain.

And then, on our out breaths, we seek to give them some of our strength, some of our nourishment or health or peace.

You can also practice Tonglen when you, yourself, are sick or scared or going through a loss. In your in breath, you take in the collective pain and suffering and sorrow of the many others who are going through what you are. And in your out breaths, you send out all the hope you can muster for all of them.

So I invite you to close your eyes with me for a few minutes, breath in and out and begin to picture an individual or group who is suffering…

Breathe in deeply and take into yourself a portion of that pain, that sadness, that suffering that is hurting your brother, your sister…

Breathe out in hope…in love…in longing for that person or group’s wellness, peace, restoration….Keep breathing