“Trading in Love for a Jones”
Rev. Greg Ward
Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North
December 4th, 2005

Meditation – David Wilcox
I love to talk about what brings me joy, I also love to talk about what keeps me from joy.  This is a story about addiction.  It’s disguised in a vehicle metaphor, but it’s really a story that describes that strange sort of confidence of thinking that you’re in control.  It’s a story that takes place… well, nearby… you can imagine her across the street, underneath the florescent lights of the late night self service gas station, swinging a leg over that thing, tucking her ponytail into her helmet.  And it concerns you.  You say, ‘why do you have to go that fast?  I mean, how fast does that thing go…?’ and she says, “oh, it’ll go!”  And you say, I… I … I just think that’s just such a bad idea.”  And she says, “well, have you tried it.” And you say, “No…I mean, I don’t need to try it to know… ”  And she says, “well, have you ridden?”  And you say, “well, I rode motocross in high school, but I’ve never ridden a bike like that.”  And she says, “Well, you know, why don’t you just take it for a ride?”  And you’re thinking, “well, it would be interesting… I mean, it’s just such a fascinating design… I mean, it’s such a powerful bike…  It would be interesting… I mean, I wouldn’t really go fast…”  But then… then, there’s the voice.   Well, it’s not really a voice.  Maybe it’s coming from the bike itself or from my own twisted ego, but it’s something like,

“You’re in control.”
“What?”
“You’re in control.  You’re good.”
“Oh… I’m good!?!”
“Yes… Why don’t you go a little faster.”
“Hey, I think I’ll go faster.”
“Good idea.”

It’s strange how that voice can come on you and, you know, you run through, like, those first three gears just for fun, you  know, just to see how it accelerates.  And you look down at the speedometer and you… you’re going that fast?  And you have three more gears?  You’re going 115 already.  And there’s that voice in the back of your head saying “I thought you weren’t going to go fast?!?” 

Don’t worry… that voice just blows off the back at about 130.  It can’t hold on.  No, at 130 your mind is completely clear there’s no room for any other thought.  But that’s alright.  Because you know, speed doesn’t kill.  Impact does.

Sermon:
This is a sermon about joy.  Since it’s the thing that most of us have talked about as a worthy goal in life – something we live for, that we’d like more of; something we never seem to have enough of.  I want to talk a little about what brings us joy and maybe a bit about what keeps us from joy.  But mostly I want to talk about the search for joy.  The long hard search for something so mysterious and elusive.  Yet also undeniable.  And the sad irony that it is just this very search that leads us into some of the most joyless places we’ve ever known.  

But before I get too far in, let me say a word or two to our new members this morning.  I realize that you have found us – from what I understand talking to you – after a rather long and trying search.  That you came to this community in your hopes of finding a place that would meet your spiritual needs.   A place you hoped would have something that has been eluding you.  Something your soul has been seeking.  Something like Joy. 

And please ignore that comment I just made about how it’s just that kind of search that leads you into the most joyless places you’ve ever known.  When I said that I was guessing that you had been to other places before you came here.  Those places you probably stumbled into when you weren’t paying that close attention to where you were going.  The places that you had to climb out of to get here. 

And I would ask you to forget all about that – those joyless places – the places that left you hungry and bereft.  I would ask you to forget about those places where your yearning never ceased and where the people you met felt always a little empty.  And unsatisfied.  I would ask you to forget about all that - EXCEPT - those are exactly the people – and exactly the places – I want to talk about.

Can you remember such a place.  Most of us, at least can imagine one.  Even make a composite from several of the places we’ve been.  And we can remember – at least imagine - one or two of the characters that made such a place what it was.  One of the characters that comes to mind when I think of such a place is a man by the name of Johnson.  Navin Johnson.

Imagine his frustration.  His sense of dissatisfaction which had, some time ago, turned to contempt.  Imagine himself mumbling his resolve to shake the dust of the place from his feet and be on his way.  Imagine him making his way to the door.  And as he did, looking around him and calling out:

 “Well I'm gonna to go then! And I don't need any of this! And you shouldn’t try to stop me.  Because I don't need you. I don't need anything at all!  Nothing… except this, uh, ashtray.  But that's it!  That’s the only thing I need.  Just this ashtray… And this paddle game.  The ashtray and the paddle game, and that's all I need… And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game and the remote control, and that's...  And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball.  And this lamp. Okay, the ashtray, this paddle game, the remote control and the lamp and that's all I need. Not one other thing.  Not one!  And this! That’s all!  The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, these matches and the chair…”

And it goes on like this.  Until his arms are full.  Or he gets tired of grabbing.  This is Navin Johnson, who, feeling scorned, was last seen walking off into the horizon.  Still feeling the yearning inside his soul.  Still feeling unsatisfied.  Making his way to the next unsatisfying place.   And because he’s not at all sure what he really wants, he trades it all for a red and white thermos.

Of course, this is NOT our instructional video for UU 101.  It’s actually a scene portrayed by Steve Martin in ‘The Jerk.’  But it has more to do with the people who are in churches, leaving churches and looking for new churches than we’d like to admit. 

Now again, to our new members, who’ve just been in the process for new churches.  I’m not calling you jerks.  I am saying, however, that expectations for churches are high.  Often a little too high, which is why they are not often met.  Many of us, when we set out, did so believing that churches – at least GOOD churches – are filled completely with joyful people.  People who have it all figured out.  People who have found their bliss.  In fact, so much so that bliss is just oozing out of them.  So much so that the church they belong to is just awash in it.  And GOOD churches, we know, must hire extra janitors to mop up all the extra bliss.  Stock up on ‘bliss remover’ because, after a while, it begins to stain the furniture.

But most people, after having visited a few churches, begin to accept the more realistic view of churches.  The one that is often cited by many Christian pastors.  That churches are not ever-flowing founts of joy and bliss with people who are perfectly happy.  “Churches,” they often say, “are not waiting rooms for saints.  They are ICU’s for sinners.”  They do not showcase perfection, but try to show the imperfect a better way.

Now, UU churches don’t tend to use that particular parlance.  We don’t speak of ‘sinners’ or even saints.  It doesn’t go over well.  It has the connotation of human depravity which we disagree with most.  UUs believe in the inherent worth of all people.

But it’s an important distinction to note that this doesn’t mean we believe in the perfection of people.  For we know it is just that delusional perception of ourselves as perfect along with the insistence that others be so as well that we reveal our most imperfect selves.  And that is when we are at our most inhuman.

We understand, instead, what theologian Earnest Kurtz says when he talks about the drive to seek out places that offer human spiritual development.

The core paradox that underlies [the spiritual quest] is the [need to recognize and reconcile] the haunting sense of incompleteness, of being somehow unfinished, that comes from the reality of being [part of a creation that is still unfolding].  For to be human is to be incomplete and yet yearn for completion; it is to be uncertain, yet long for certainty; to be imperfect, yet long for perfection; to be broken and yet crave wholeness.  All these yearnings remain necessarily unsatisfied, for perfection, completion, certainty and wholeness are impossible precisely because we are imperfectly human – or better, because we are perfectly human, which is to say humanly imperfect.

This makes sense.  But still, we’d like to believe that the people seeking churches, the people joining them – the people already IN them – are not there acting out their imperfection – acting out their feelings of yearning or incompleteness by grabbing ashtrays or chairs.  We’d like to think they come seeking something more noble.  Something more relevant to spiritual fulfillment.  They should, we have been led to believe, at least come to churches looking to grab hold of God or at least something God-like.

And I believe they do.  Everyone, I think, who searches for a religious community, who goes, looking for a church – even everyone who comes to this church - comes in search of God.  But the problem they soon discover is ‘what is God?’  What is it that I’m looking for?  I mean, really.  God is not something I can touch or taste or hold in my hand and be sure of.  God is not something that comes with a certified seal of authenticity. 

A lot of places in the world, especially churches, will glance past this question, deflect it, assume God is something obvious.  But it’s not.  Certainly not to anyone in a thoughtful search.  People, instead, come to churches feeling a need.  Holding a question.  An emptiness.  A feeling of being incomplete.  And they try to fill it with God – but not a plastic sense of God.  Not one that is built from platitudes and assumptions.  And when that is what they are handed it feels dissatisfying.  For the off-the-shelf, generic out-of-the-box God cannot fill the space they held for it, cannot quiet the call they heard for it, cannot quench the thirst they felt for it.  And they feel disillusioned.   But that hardly ever means that the yearning stops – even if their faith in God does.  No matter what we turn to theologically, when we can’t fill that yearning with a suitable God, it just means that we are left to contend with a God-sized hole in our lives that can’t be filled and won’t go away. 

A few months ago, Kim Reid preached a little bit about this when she referenced the book by Andrew Newburg, “Why God Won’t Go Away.”  Newburg is a neuroscientist who used brain scan technology to map neural activity in Tibetan Monks in meditation and Franciscan Nuns in prayer.  The monks described their experiences in meditation as a transcending the limits of self.  The nuns described it more of a ‘meeting with God.’  But in both subjects it translated as a physiological decrease of activity in the parietal lobes of the brain.  This is the neural center that allows us to form distinctions of separateness between self and other.  In psychological terms it is the reduction or elimination of ego.  In religious terms it is a joining in – becoming part and parcel of all that is.

The study showed that these are both sensations that practitioners or meditation and prayer associated with englightenment or God.  Now some hard-core rationalists might deduce from this that it’s all just wiring.  Hard core religionists will argue that it’s wiring designed to experience the a priori existence of God.  But in either case, it demonstrates that we are – everyone of us – hardwired to pursue, or at least contend with, the unmet need – the unfilled space – that is part of being human.

Most of us never take up a spiritual discipline intense enough to experience the physiological sensations strong enough to satisfy this hard-wired yearning.  Strong enough to answer all the doubts and insecurities and fears that go with it.  Strong enough to feel free of them.  And complete.  And whole. 

And since we don’t we struggle with what to put in this God-sized hole.  

Archetypal psychologist James Hillman posed the basic question, “What does our soul want?”  He suggested that our soul seeks the kind of wholeness I just described that eludes us.  And in the absence of this, we are left seeking cheap substitutes.

So, back to the picture I brought to mind earlier.  Navin Johnson who walks around dissatisfied, lunging out for what is laying around him.  Looking for substitutes that will be satisfying.  But they never are – at least for long.  The process only serves to aggravate his discontent.  But there is one thing that Mr. Johnson is almost certain to find on this kind of search and that is Mr. Jones. 

Mr. Jones is in the business of offering substitutes.  Things designed to fill that hole we carry around.  Designed to be the answer to our internal aching.  Some of his specialties are familiar to us: sex, food, alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, drugs.  These things promise us joy.  They tempt us. 

”Well have you ever tried it?”
“Well, no.  But I don’t need to try…”
“Why don’t you just take it for a ride?”

And most of them actually feel pretty satisfying.  At first.  But then we realize we need more of them and more often to remain satisfied.  And that craving is as bad as the original emptiness. 

Bill Wilson, founder of AA described it this way:

By the time I was twenty one, fear governed my life.  By the time I was thirty, I had found that alcohol dissolved that fear – for a little while.  In the end, I had two problems instead of one – fear and alcohol. 

That’s a Jones. 
Some of us may not be familiar with the term, Jones.  But ask any addict and they’ll tell you.  A ‘Jones’ is another way to say ‘addiction.’ 

It’s sometimes helpful to talk about a Jones in terms of the guy who moves in next door.  At a time when you needed a friend.  And he seemed to understand your problems and he was always there for you – unlike all the other so-called friends who had let you down.  And when your problems get more unmanageable, he volunteers to move in with you, just to help you get by.  He’s the one who whispers in your ear, “You’re in control.”  The other people in your life – your spouse or children for example – don’t hear it.  Or believe it.  Little problems go unaddressed.  And then someone points out that Jones sold his house.  He didn’t need it.  Because he’s living with you now.  You seem to remember your family and friends protesting at the time.  But you defended him.  And yourself.  You’ve gotten good at defending.  At coming up with excuses.  Insisting that “you’re in control.  You’re good.”  But you’re not in control.  And you’re not good.  Because you’re not free.  Precisely because you can’t ask Jones to leave.  Even though by now, even you’ve discovered he is living with you at the expense of all the things you once said you were living for.  All the things that once “really mattered’ now go to your Jones.  Your money.  Your time.  Your attention.  More and more.  Faster and faster.  But it’s okay, you think.  “Speed doesn’t kill.  Impact does.” 

Impact comes when reality catches up.  When the things we love – the things that love us - call us to account.  Those other voices that got pushed to the background.  The ones we thought we could outsmart, begin to speak up.  Hopefully before we hit bottom.  But usually not.

“Thank God!” we may think to ourselves – or thank whatever it is that fills that empty place in us – that we don’t have those kinds of problems.  That we haven’t ever settled for substitutes to give us satisfaction – and joy.  Thank God, that, in this church, no one has ever let anything derail them from what really matters – that no one spends our time, attention and money on things that dull the pain of emptiness.  Thank God we’re smarter than that.  Thank God we’re in control.  Thank God we’re more perfect than other people.  Than other churches.  Thank God we don’t believe any of what I just said.

It’s true most of us probably don’t suffer from major addictions in our lives.  But it’s also true that we live in a society that not only permits, but encourages a lot of minor ones.  Things done for comfort.  Things built into our routines because they feel natural.  But things that end up taking more time or attention or money than we can justify by our values.  

Things like being a workaholic.  A shopaholic (for me it’s electronics, for others it might be clothes or cars or?).  I notice that others are addicted to coffee – especially the expensive fancy kinds.  What about TV?  Cell phones?  Or the worst, email?   

Some other things we don’t usually think of in this way are addiction to power.  Or money.   Or control.  Even being addicted to the need to be right.

Any of these things, within limits, are great.  Necessary.  They enhance our lives.  Add to our relationships.  But when we form a dependency on them to fill the empty places within us – when they supercede relationships as what’s most important - when they become substitutes for what really matters – when we try to make Gods of them – that’s when we get into trouble.  And that’s when the real question becomes most important – what in our lives are we worshipping?   What are we trying to make Godly?

In the meditation, David Wilcox talked about a girl who used the thrill of riding fast to find joy.  In the song he wrote to go with the story, he has these lines:

Tell the truth, explain to me
How you got this need for speed
She laughed and said it might just be
The next best thing to love

When hope is gone, she confessed
Is when you lay your dreams to rest
You can get what’s second best,
But it’s hard to get enough. 

The song ends when she is going as fast as she can and a truck pulls out in front of her.  Speed doesn’t kill.  Impact does. 

Now it may be relieving to know that most of us only struggle with the more minor – more socially acceptable – addictions.  But the bad news is that with the minor ones we are less apt to hit bottom.  We are more apt to stay in control. 

Speed doesn’t kill.  We can all run faster and faster – like Navin Johnson, grabbing things we hope will satisfy.  And when they don’t we can run faster still.  But sooner or later we will meet something that has the power to stop us. 

That power to stop us can be one of two things.  It can be our ultimate tragedy, it can be our ultimate blessing.  If we never get to the understanding that we live for people, for relationships for care, for justice, for love – than it is a tragedy.  But, when that power to stop us is a community that is willing to take a risk, see past defenses, stand up and reminds us that we are loved.  That we are welcome.  That we are not only acceptable but accepted, that will be our blessing.  Because that is the only thing that can call us from the grip of addiction.  A blessing that helps us surrender.

A lot of people end up believing that the only way to fight addiction is to control it.  But anyone who has gotten through addiction knows that the problems from addiction are all about our need to control.  Our need to control our insecurities, to control our fears, our inability to get what we want or face the world without out.  Addiction is all about trying to control our pain. 

And so the only way to find recovery is to surrender.  Not surrender to the substitutes.  But surrender to the fear, the emptiness and the struggle that exists within our own emptiness we try so hard to fill.  There is a spiritual theory that says we try so hard to be whole, to be complete, to be perfect so that we will merit God’s love – even God’s love in the form of human love.  So that we will merit joy in our lives.  We feel that if God – or others – were to really know that we are broken, incomplete or cracked – they wouldn’t have anything to do with us.  But it is precisely in those cracks – that brokenness, that incompleteness, that emptiness – that God intends to fit.  And it is the only way we will fit together with others. 

Jewish theologian Martin Buber said that if God exists anywhere, She exists in the brokenness.  The fractured, fragmented places that we are brave enough to leave open to the world.  When we cover them up, or fill them with substitutes we mask the one place – perhaps the only place – that allows God to understand us.  And the only place that allows us to understand one another.  It is in the space between I-Thou that we carry the emptiness we feel.  If we have the courage to keep that God-sized hole open to others, perhaps we will find a way to fit together where we don’t feel so alone, so incomplete. 

To our new members, I thank you for joining us.  I hope, here, you find a reason to let go of substitutes.  I hope here find the love you went in search of and it brings you joy.  I hope, here, we can all celebrate the inherently worthy parts which make room for the emptiness we all know and all struggle with.  But that gives us room to hold one another in our hearts so that we have company on our way.

To the Glory of Life.

Copyright Wardswords, 2005