“Divine Intoxication”
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice delivered on May 27, 2007
at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
I
remember Lynn Thomas Strauss, a former minister of this church, once telling the
congregation, “Some folks say that the Unitarian Universalist Church is a lot like a
granola bar. Once you separate the fruits from the flakes all you have left are the
nuts.” I think it is fair to say she did not feel that this statement was a compliment and I
concur with her opinion. And yet, the story I am about to tell you this morning about
myself will do nothing to dispel the stereotype.
When I was a teenage summer camp counselor at Camp Ocoee my friend Steve
Bartoo and I would take over the camp office in much the same way that 60’s student
radicals used to take over the dean’s office. There we had access to a campus-wide
public address system that we utilized to our strategic advantage. We announced over the
loud speakers that echoed throughout the camp, “We have taken control of the office and
unless you meet our demands we will tell a bad joke every two minutes. ” Everyone
knew we meant business. They knew that Steve and I had a copy of an old and battered
book published God-knows-when called 1001 Jokes. You would think based on the law
of averages that a book that contained 1001 jokes would periodically contain a really
good one. You would be wrong. The best one in the batch was this one, “Q: What did
the hat say to the hat rack? A: Stay here I am going on a head. ” Friends, its all down hill
from here. More typical was this one “Q: What is big and yellow and swims the seven
seas? A: Moby Banana” Needless, to say we had the whole camp in the palm of our
hands. We could demand whatever we wanted and people would want to give it to us.
Our voices coming over the loud speakers might say, “We demand a couple of ice cold
Cokes,” and lo they would arrive. We could say, “We demand that someone go to our
cabins and make up our beds” and the deed would be done. The possibilities were
endless. The power. THE POWER.
Of course, we always did these office-takeovers during the clear light of day.
Because any camp counselor will tell you (it is a well established fact) that at a certain
hour of the night something very strange happens to the human psyche. At a certain hour
“Divine Intoxication”
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
after dark when people are growing a little bit tired something disturbing happens; these
jokes can become funny! During the clear light of day reason prevails. Good standards
are upheld. However, once the sun sets and the evening has settled and the kids and
counselors are sitting around the campfire and the music of the cicadas is in the air,
someone will tell a joke of this caliber and for reasons that do not make sense to the
rational mind the night will erupt in wild laughter.
I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon with Monty Python movies at our youth group
lock-ins here at the church. My theory is that Monty Python movies are designed to be
watched at 1 to 2 o’clock in the morning. During the day they are funny enough. At 1 or
2 they become transcendently funny. They open up new humor pathways in the brain.
They rise to the status of a humor epiphany with a kind of revelatory power (although the
next morning it is not clear to anyone what was revealed.) But somehow you feel like
you have traveled to whole new spiritual level of life.
This is because there are times when human beings have an experience of
inebriation or drunkenness that is not connected to the contents of any bottle. There are
moments when we feel giddy, easily amused, filled with an inexplicable joy for living.
We have easy access to our emotions. We feel love on a whole new level without the aid
of chemical additives or addictive substances.
My friend Kirk Neely who is a Baptist minister once summed up everything he
learned in his Baptist Sunday School in a simple rhyme, “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t
chew and don’t date those who do. ” And yet he would tell you from the pulpit that these
strict prohibitions do not rule out the possibility of feeling intoxicated. The apostle Paul
wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, “Do not get drunk with wine…but be filled with the
Spirit.”
In the New Testament in the book of Acts we learn that the apostles had a
spiritual experience on the day of Pentecost that was meaningful to them and all who
shared it with them. However, to the detached observer it appeared like they were
inebriated. And that is the way it is with such experiences. To outside observers it
“Divine Intoxication”
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
appears like lunacy. To those inside the experience it is life itself; a joyful and
transforming experience.
Earlier I shared with you the old joke about the Unitarian Universalist church
being like a granola bar; a collection of fruits, flakes and nuts. This is a statement that
can be insulting. For some the word fruit means someone just a bit different; a little odd.
For others it is a pejorative term for gay and lesbian people, an insult. However, in the
Bible the word fruit has a whole other meaning entirely. For instance, the apostle Paul
wrote, “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” For this reason, when someone throws me the
line about Unitarian Universalists being like granola bar I will often reply, “Well, you
know what the scriptures says, ‘by their fruits you shall know them.’ ” (Think about it.
There are layers of meaning in that reply. )
We live in a cynical age. If you go into your office on Monday morning or even
into your home telling everyone how you feel love, joy and peace, they might ask you the
question, “What have you been smoking?” To feel these kinds of feelings without
chemical additives is unexpected and even countercultural. And yet it is this experience
that is at the heart of spirituality.
The apostles are not the only ones to have ever had such intoxicating experiences.
The poets of many different ages and many different religious traditions have tried to
capture such moments in words. The poet Emily Dickinson wrote,
I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
“Divine Intoxication”
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
Emily Dickinson describes a common experience. The other day I was leaving
this church building with Tom Innes. It was a beautiful day with bright sunshine and a
light cool breeze, leaves rustling and flowers blooming and Tom turned to me and said,
“Kind of makes you feel drunk doesn’t it.” A sentiment Emily Dickinson would have
understood.
The Muslim religion has a very strict prohibition against consuming alcohol and
yet, when the Sufi poet Rumi attempted to describe spiritual experience he said it was
like the sensation of being drunk. “Garden drunk, meadow drunk, rose drunk …Dust
drunk, water drunk, wind drunk, fire drunk.” I would add bad joke drunk; intoxicated by
life itself. It is an experience of divine intoxication.
Of course, there is a social justice component to this experience of divine
intoxication. In the 19th century when women started demanding equality in society and
in the church many people thought they were nuts, flakes and fruits. Women were not
supposed to speak in public and especially not in the church. But the women would
quote back to their critics the story of Pentecost, where the apostles had a spiritual
experience where many people thought they were drunk, and this experience made them
cry out as did the Hebrew prophet Joel, “God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all
people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your
old men will dream dreams. Even on my servents, both men and women, I will pour out
my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy. ” Equality is intoxicating. A deep inward
conviction in social justice is intoxicating.
Others have had these kinds of experiences in Nature. If you grew up in the
1970’s like I did you will remember folk singer John Denver singing about that Colorado
“Divine Intoxication”
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
Rocky Mountain high. He said, “I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky (sounds a little bit like
Pentecost here. ) You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply. Rocky Mountain
high. ” My sister Shannon heard that song, packed her bags and moved to Colorado. I’m
sure that’s not the only reason she moved but it was one of them. I think it does illustrate
how much we crave the experience of divine intoxication. As for myself, when I grew up
I packed my bags and moved to the Tennessee mountains, the land of blue green hills
where I went to summer camp every summer as a child. As an adult I spend much of my
free time hiking in the Smoky Mountains and the Cumberlands, a different altitude from
John Denver but perhaps sharing the same experience
The poet Charles Pierre-Baudelaire once wrote,
You must always be intoxicated.
That sums it all up…
But on what? Wine, poetry, virtue, as you please.
But never be sober.
Of course, poetry and virtue may be safer paths to this experience than wine or
other chemicals. In my first career out of college I served as substance abuse counselor
to teenagers who were in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction. My observation was
many of these young people did not know how to tap into experiences of joy without the
aid of chemicals. They had never experienced that late night laugh around the campfire.
They had never been inebriated on air and dew or the beauty of the mountains. An
important part of the recovery process is rediscovering this innate capacity in all of us for
joy, peace and happiness.
Fortunately, giving up addictive substances does not mean giving up the
experience of intoxication. The other weekend I went to see the rock group Cake on UT
campus, which is a dry campus, at least according to the policy manual. At some point
the lead singer of the band mentioned the fact that it was a dry campus and he said, “but
remember music releases endorphins and they can’t take that away from you. ” He then
went on to say a few uncharitable things about overbearing authority figures but his point
was made. Music itself is intoxicating.
“Divine Intoxication”
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
It may be for this reason that Anand Malik, a member of this church who died this
past year, once converted his garage into a disco where he hosted vegetarian dance
parties. He also had a painting on the wall with the quote, “Without music, life would be
a mistake. ” This may also be why music is such an important part of church life. This
may be why on Sunday morning we sing the hymn written by Beethoven, “Ode to Joy” a
piece of music that was written when Beethoven was losing his hearing; a tragic loss for
anyone especially a musician. We sing this piece of music he wrote when he had every
right to be irritable, cranky and bitter but instead he composed a hymn of joy. In this
hymn we hear a sentiment captured by the poet Wendell Berry who once wrote, “Be
joyful though you have considered all the facts”
There is a story in the New Testament, in the Gospel According to John, about
Jesus performing a miracle at a wedding in Cana. He turned the water into wine. The
biblical literalists will of course, take this story at face value and feel no need to look for
any hidden message in it. No need to probe the story for any allegorical or metaphorical
or mythical interpretation. However, there is a part of me (the liberal/skeptical part of
me) that wonders what really happened at that wedding in ancient times that could have
spurred such a spectacular story. And it may be stretching the boundaries of biblical
interpretation to their absolute limit, perhaps breaking them entirely, when I say there is a
part of me that wonders speculatively whether that wedding so long ago had arrived at
that point in the evening when the sun is down, the stars are out, and the sound of night
creatures is in the air and at some strategic moment the young rabbi, the carpenter from
Nazareth, reached into his robe and pulled out an old, dusty volume of 1001 Jokes and
the audience went wild. For I can tell you from personal experience there are times when
laughter turns the water into wine.
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
2931 Kingston Pike  Knoxville, Tennessee 37919  (865) 523-4176
February 13, 2016
We invite you to continue your religious/spiritual journey
within our congregation
which affirms many paths and covenants to a free search for truth and meaning.