Sonder

Scripture Text, for this Sermon

There’s a word I’ve been thinking about a lot in the last few weeks, since I got back from Israel actuallly. Words and language are an interesting thing because they are always changing and evolving. This word that i’ve been thinking about is a relatively new word in the english language, it began appearing online in 2013, and still hasn’t made it into common usage, which is a shame, because it’s a beautiful word with an even more beautiful meaning.

This word is: Sonder.

It is the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

This thought is both humbling and inspiring to me. This word Sonder, how did we get so far along in our existence without a word for this concept? It’s possible other languages have a word for this concept, and the concept itself isn’t new; just the word for it: Sonder.

The scripture passages we read this morning are just two examples, of many, in the bible about the concept of Sonder. In the Christian Scriptures Jesus is constantly asking us to recognize, not just the complexity and vivid lives of people we know, but to also recognize this in ‘the stranger’ the ‘other’. When we do so, we become closer to each other and closer to God. We see their humanity and their divinity.

In the first story, a hemorrhaging woman touches Jesus’ robe. This is a very controversial story, because the woman is unclean. She shouldn’t even be out of her house with the medical condition she has. At the time a woman, after her monthlies, would attend a Mikvah - a cleansing bath house - to be made clean again. But she hasn’t stopped bleeding, why, we don’t know, but to be out of her house in that condition and to touch a man broke a number of cleanliness laws. Jesus, as a result of her touch is now also unclean, and would, according to the laws of the time be required to complete his own ritual purifications.

He ignores all of that. He sees in this woman - this stranger - both her humanity and her divinity and she is healed. He saw her. He saw her for who she was; a woman, probably ignored by friends and family, who carried shame and stigma because of her illness. He saw her, recognized her and acknowledged her.

Jesus calls Matthew to follow him. He is a tax collector. A tax collector was a Jewish person employed by the roman government - a roman toadie, a pawn. Someone everyone looked down on, probably so they could feel better about themselves and here is Jesus, saying ‘hey buddy, come sit at the table with me.’

He sees something in Matthew that the others don’t see. His humanity? His divinity?

Whatever it is, Jesus makes a practice of Sonder - takes the time to really look at others and see their complexity, see their vivid lives. See them.  

In Barbara Brown Taylor’s book,“An Altar in the World” she calls this the ‘Spiritual Practice of Encountering Others’. She begins the chapter by talking about being an introvert and how, often when she’s out in the world, she just wants to get her shopping down, doesn’t want to make eye contact. Which is the case for many of us. I’m sure I’m not the only one who rejoiced at the invention of self checkouts!

But by not engaging in the practice of Encountering Others, this practice of Sonder, we are not engaging in a huge part of what our faith calls us to do: create union, connection, community.

She talks about the contrast to this practice; the call of mystics to sequester themselves from society, monks and nuns and hermits who forsake human interaction for the purpose of getting closer to God.

Christian Mystical tradition calls this ‘Divine Union’ and it is sought after by many. People go on pilgrimages, journey to the tops of mountains, spend time in the desert, meditate and seek gurus, and go to other extremes to achieve this union. This is not a bad thing - not at all and it can be very useful. Yet, she goes on to suggest that while most world religions have these extreme measures as one aspect of their call, the more important and often the hardest spiritual practice is to love your neighbour as yourself.

Later on in Matthew’s gospel, in Chapter 25, Jesus says, Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you... for a I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was hungry and you gave me food, I was a stranger and you welcomed me...‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it for one of the least...you did it for me.’ Which is an invitation to a spiritual practice even deeper and harder than loving one’s neighbour, it’s loving the stranger.

Barbara writes that the commandment to love your neighbour as yourself is written in the scriptures once and there are no less that 36 places in scripture where the commandment is to love the stranger.

It’s easy for us to see ourselves in others, when those others are members of our community, when we see the things we have in common: our church, groups we attend at Community Centres, other gatherings of like-minded people. With people like that we can see ourselves, we can see their humanity and we can see their divinity, because they’re just like us.

But what about those who we pass by everyday, those we have no common connection with other than sharing the same space and single moment in time? The driver who cut us off, the pedestrian crossing the street who we stop for, the person bagging our groceries, taking our order at a restaurant?

An altar in the world invites its reader to the spiritual practice of encountering Others. She capitalizes Other - because she wants the focus of this practice to be with people who are different enough from ourselves, that we categorize them as ‘other.’

She explains the invitation like this: The next time you go to the grocery store, try engaging the cashier. (for the case of this story the cashier is a woman) You don’t have to invite her home from lunch or anything, but take a look at her face when she’s trying to find ‘arugula’ on the laminated list of produce.

Here is someone who exists even when she is not ringing up your groceries. This person is someone’s child, maybe someone’s parent.  She has a home she returns to when she hangs up her apron here, a kitchen that smells of last night’s supper, a bed where she occasionally lies awake at night wrestling with her own demons and angels. Do not go too far with this or you risk turning her into a character in your own novel, which is a large part of her problem already. [She is the protagonist in her own story, and you are acknowledging this]

It is enough for you to acknowledge her when she hands you your change. “You saved 11.06 shopping at [Safeway] today,” she says, looking at you. All that is required of you is to look back. Just meet her eyes for a moment and say thank you. Sometimes that is all another person needs, [is] to know that she has been seen - not as a cashier, but as a person.

For me, an introvert, and for many people this is a hard, hard task - I just want to get my groceries and not make eye contact with anyone I know, let alone a stranger, a lot of the time.

And I’ll admit that I don’t engage in this practice every time I go to the store, but this ‘seeing the humanity and divinity in the stranger’ this practice of Sonder - recognizing the complexity of someone else’s life being as complex as our own, is something we’re called to do over and over in the scriptures.

When I was in Israel, many of the Holy Places we visited were crowded and full of people. All of us were there so we could be in the same places as Jesus, when he was close to God, and maybe we could feel close to God too. But with all the crowds and buses, all the people jostling about, finding that quiet corner to commune with God was near impossible.

It was infuriating - can’t you see I’M trying to have moment here?! That’s where my thoughts first went. But then I remembered this book, and the practice of encountering others. Each person in the crowd was there so that they could have their moment too. And I was just as much in their way, as they were in mine.

So what’s a girl to do?

Barbara closes the chapter on the Spiritual Practice of Encountering Others, by saying this: What we have most in common is humanity. I learned this from my religion, which also teaches me that encountering another human being is as close to God as I may ever get - in the ‘eye to eye’ thing, the person to person thing - which is where God’s Beloved has promised to show up. Paradoxically, the point is not to see him. The point is to see the person standing right in front of me, who has no substitute, who can never be replaced, whose heart holds things for which there is no language, whose life is an unsolved mystery.

Which is what I tried to do. I smiled at faces in the crowd, I waved and grinned when I inadvertently or purposefully photo-bombed their photos. And for brief moments in those Holy Places, two strangers were connected. For a moment I was an extra in their life’s movie and they were an extra in mine. And though this connection we were both a little closer to God.

The word Sonder, it’s claimed first appeared on a website called the ‘Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows’. When I read that I wondered, why is this concept ‘a sorrow’. But as I sat in my office earlier this week I saw people walking past my window; mothers and children, a man smoking a cigarette, couples chatting, people talking on their phones, a woman rushing, another walking slowly carrying a heavy bag -and I realized I would never know their ambitions, their worries, their joys and that is sorrowful.

And beautiful. Utterly and amazingly beautiful because for a moment, because I saw them, because I stepped out of my own internal world and saw THEM, I saw their humanity and mine. I saw their divinity and mine - and as Barbara said that might be the closest I ever get to seeing God.

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Sonder Prayer,

The spirit is me, greets the spirit in you. God is in Us, and we are in God. Today we prayer that when we see the face of a stranger we see the face of God. When we greet the stranger in fellowship, we are in fellowship with God.

When we recognize the humanity and the divinity of the person across from us, we are in the presence of the holy and we become capable of seeing the humanity and divinity within ourselves.

We prayer that when we are asked to Love our neighbour as our self - we are able to do so, because we love ourselves with unbound compassion. We prayer that when we are asked to Love the stranger as our self we are able to do so because we see in them; God and ourselves.

We prayer that we can become capable of breaking down the boundaries in our minds and hearts that create ‘us’ and ‘them’ and ‘us’ and ‘other’. That we can see all people, with all their diversity, all their ambitions, hopes, worries, dreams and sorrows as members of our own tribe - and hold them in an embrace of love and tenderness.

Mechtilde of Magdeburg, a beguine from the 13th century, prayed: The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw, and knew I saw, all things in God and God in all things.

May we seek to find ways to see God in all the places and people where God does not seem to be: the person who cut us off in traffic, the person who talks in the movies, the arrogant, the entitled, the close minded, the prejudiced, the selfish, the dictators, the uncaring, the war lords. We pray for the strength to see them. To. See. Them. and know them for human beings with lives as vivid and complex as our own.

May this be our spiritual practice - find the humanity and the divinity in the impossible people, the impossible situations. To find the humanity and the divinity in the people who break our hearts, and break our spirit. From this are hearts can be made whole, our spirits healed. And we are in Union with God.

We prayer for the people displaced by fire, we prayer for the people risking their lives to battle the fires. We prayer for people displaced by war and conflict. We prayer for those whose rights as human beings are being ignored. We prayer for people who are desperate to be heard. We prayer for the strength to take action. We prayer for the wisdom to listen.

We prayer for family, for friends, for loved ones, for members of this community and beyond in need of caring, healing, support and love. We make space here to say their names out loud or in the silence of our loving hearts.

We pray for the stranger. We prayer for ‘the other’. In the encountering of another human being may we see that we might just be as close to God as we may ever get. May we see God and God’s Beloved in this encounter. And may we not see them. We pray to see the person standing right in front of us, for whom there is no substitute, who can never be replaced, whose heart holds things for which there is no language, whose life is an unsolved mystery.

The Spirit in me, greets the spirit in you,

Amen

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