The Star and the Journey
The Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson-Doyle
December 19, 2010


Readings From Black Boy by Richard Wright
You Be Glad At That Star by Clark Dewey Wells

Message The Star and the Journey

Note: The sermon is an oral event. This manuscript may not reflect the exact spoken words. If you want to hear what was actually said, you can listen to sermon visit our website at www.uurockford.org. © Matthew Johnson-Doyle, 2010.

Behold the star.
Maybe it’s the star of Bethlehem.
Could be.

What’s important is this: behold the star.
Or, as Clark Dewey Wells’ 3 ½ year old put it,
You Be Glad At that Star!

Isn’t that a great little story?
I remember hearing it years ago, at a Christmas Eve service,
in my home church back in Washington State.
You Be Glad At that Star!

The story stuck with me.
I like the idea that we might be shaken out of our dole-drums
and into awareness of wonder.
And I like stars.

In fact, before I starting planning for ministry,
I wanted to be an astrophysicist and study the stars.
It’s true.

My grandfather had been a train engineer,
and my father was an aerospace engineer,
and I didn’t want to be an engineer,
but I sort of saw astrophysics as continuing that family tradition.

I was fascinated by all that the universe had to offer,
the great story of its birth and growth,
the mind-bending ideas like black holes and relativity.

What changed my mind?
What moved from astrophysics to ministry?
Well, part of it was the back in my head knowledge that
my math skills were just not quite up to snuff.
I was pretty good at it,
but not the best in my class.

But what really happened
was that a star appeared on the horizon,
and so I followed it.

Not really, of course.
This is a metaphor, just like the old story of the magi.
What happened was that I loved church,
and I preached a little homily at a church family camp,
and someone said, that was great,
have you thought about being a minister?

And that was the star.
And I followed it,
and through that seeking, I became who I am.

Not all of the decisions of my life have been so clear cut:
indeed, other than the decision to marry my wife,
none of my life’s major decisions have been so obvious.
Life doesn’t always show you a star that you can follow;
sometimes there is no 3 year old to say,
you be glad at that star.
Often, we just muddle through.

But here is what I want to say today:
sometimes – just sometimes –
there is a star on the horizon, and it calls to you,
and it’s clear, in your heart,
that you are supposed to go.

And when that happens –
when the star twinkles there and every bone in your body says
going that way will help me become,
it is what I am supposed to do,
when that rare event happens –
Go.

Go.
Get on your camel, get on your elephant, get on your peacock,
and go!

Seriously, when life says, with bright lights and everything,
to make the journey,
then it’s time to pack your bags.
Don’t wait.
Go.

I’ve only just started reading
the new history of the Great Migration,
by Isabel Wilkerson.
It is entitled “The Warmth of Other Suns,”
that line by Richard Wright that was in our first reading today.
I’ve only just started reading the book,
and it’s a big book,
but one thing that Wilkerson says early on struck me:
“What binds these stories together,” she wrote,
“was the back-against-the-wall, reluctant yet hopeful search for something better,
any place but where they were.
They did what human beings looking for freedom, throughout history,
have often done.
They left.”

Rise up, shepherd, and follow.
Rise up, shepherd, and follow.

They did what, throughout history, human beings looking for freedom have often done:
they left.

That’s what Richard Wright did,
to see if the south in him
would grow differently, better, fuller,
under the warmth of other suns.
He followed the star to a new life,
not leaving himself behind,
but leaving the oppressive circumstances
of Jim Crow behind.

And he followed others, who had followed that same star,
who had heard the song:
rise up, shepherd, and follow –
and had fled slavery, crossed the river –
and followed the star –
the north star, pointing the way to freedom.
And on their journey,
some of them stayed just down the road,
right in our neighborhood here in Northern Illinois,
as Jon told us about this morning.

There’s a star in the East on Christmas morn,
and so, we sing, rise up shepherd and follow –
and this song is a clue,
that Christmas is about freedom,
that it’s about a new beginning,
that it’s about going where your heart pulls you.
Christmas is about reversal,
it’s about up-side-down.

The animals think they are going to see a king,
but they wind up in a stable,
and that isn’t what they expected.
And folks thought that the baby born there
would lead them to political freedom,
and overturn Roman rule,
but instead he offered spiritual freedom,
the sense that God loved you,
and that if you loved one another,
then all the old rules and do-this-do-that didn’t matter,
that even Roman Rule didn’t matter,
because freedom and love and dignity lived in your heart,
and no oppressor could take that away,
not even if they nailed you to two timbers of wood in the hot sun,
and left you to die.
Your dignity, your sacred soul,
no one could take that from you,
only you could give it up, sell it out for the sake of power or prestige or comfort.

Christmas is about freedom;
the star is about freedom.
Christmas is a good day to set out from slavery into the north –
oh, it’ll be cold up there,
but if you leave Christmas eve
you’ll get a head start before they realize you’re gone.
And it’s Christmas,
and who’s going to say,
oh, I don’t have any room for another freedom seeker today,
no room in this inn –
on Christmas!
No, someone’s going to let you in,
because that’s what we do.

Christmas is about freedom,
it’s about seeing the star,
knowing you have to go,
and going.

And sometimes, like the underground railroad,
or the great migration,
or the magi trekking across the desert,
the journey to follow the star,
whatever that might,
sometimes that journey is a geographic one,
a physical change of place.

Sometimes, like a clear career path,
it is a life-journey, about a change in priorities and objectives.
Sometimes following the star is about love:
about falling in love, about honoring the love you have for another.

And sometimes, following the star is about a change of heart,
about changing your values,
about aligning your life with what you actually believe,
instead of just going on as it was.

People still follow the star to freedom.
People – men, women, and children – held in slavery around the world
who flee across borders and into new worlds.
Folks living in war zones,
doing what humans do, and leaving.

Folks whose countries are turning into deserts, or swamps,
or just disappearing under the sea,
because we have been unable to end our addition on burning carbon,
these folks doing the only thing they can do: leaving.

People still follow the star to freedom.
You fix the star in your vision –
I will live with simplicity, and then you follow it,
and let go of stuff and materialistic grasping.
Or, you say, the star of my life will be service to others,
and you reorient your time, your days and hours,
to do that.

Is there a more profound act of freedom?
Then to follow your star?
To say, this is the journey that matters to me,
and I don’t know exactly where we will end up,
but I will go where my heart calls me,
and I will seek to become,
to become myself, to become alive to the world,
to become an instrument of justice and mercy.

This is freedom –
to follow the truth in love,
to rise up and go where you must go.

Freedom is not, as we sometimes seem to think,
the ability to do whatever you want.
Freedom is the courage, the act of assertion,
when you do what you must.
We are free when we place ourselves in bondage
to something we choose, to a value, a life, a promise
we accept with grace and strength,
instead of living in bondage to someone else’s choice,
or living as if life doesn’t matter at all.

It’s the same as I often say about our faith as Unitarian Universalists:
this is not the place you are free to believe whatever you want,
it is the place you are free to believe what you must,
to follow your conscience,
wherever it might lead,
even if it leads to a humble stable on a winter night.

So, you be glad at that star.
You be glad at it!
Lift your eyes and see.

Oh, I know, it might change your life.
I know.
If it hadn’t been for the star of ministry,
well, I doubt I would have wound up in astrophysics.
Sure, I got a 4 on my AP Calculus test,
but that was the last math class I too;
I had hit the limit of my interest.
I don’t know –
like most of my friends from the college debate team,
I might have gone to law school.
Who knows, I might have been happy doing that.
But it would have been different life –
it would have been fine,
but I don’t know that it would have constituted a star on the horizon,
a strong sense of purpose, a calling.

You be glad at that star!
Behold the star,
it shines for you –
it calls you forward,
it says, this could be the direction
in which you seek to become,
these could be the warmth of other suns
in which you might grown tall and strong.

You be glad at that star.
You be glad at the possibility that sings in your heart.
You be glad at the calling that you take up in freedom.

It might not be easy.
Others might resent you,
and your clarity about who you are and where you are going.
But this is the life of freedom,
the life of yes,
the life of hope –
the life of the journey.

Sometimes, a star shines into our lives,
and we know we are supposed to go.
When that happens, go.
When that happens, rejoice.
When that happens, be glad.

Now, that star doesn’t shine all the time.
In fact, most of the time, no such luck.
We don’t have that kind of guide to show us where to find the babe,
or where to start a new life,
or what values are most important,
or what our future holds.

Most of the time,
we see lots of little stars, and we don’t know.
But that’s OK.
That’s life,
and that’s the subject of most of my sermons.
There are all kinds of things we can do in these times,
when the star doesn’t shine clearly –
discernment, and conversation, and patience, and all the rest.

But sometimes the star shines.
And so, like Clarke Wells says,
we can at least clean the dust off our lens.
We can be prepared.
Keep our camel, our elephant, our peacock well fed and ready.
Keep our eyes on the sky,
especially if we don’t have a small child to chide us into awareness.
Stay open to the heart messages that we might receive over the transom.
Imagine.
Dream.
Believe in yourself.

If the star has already shined a few times in your life,
then give thanks.
Ask yourself, am I still journeying toward that destination?
If not, get back on track,
keep moving.
And give thanks.

And if the star has not yet illuminated your path,
make sure to look around,
stay open,
and be prepared;
for it will come,
and when it does –
follow it;
follow it to the ends of the earth,
to the great palace
or the humble stable,
to the north for freedom,
to the inner self for truth,
wherever it might lead –
go,
go to that land for which,
in your act of freedom,
you will be bound.