The Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan

January 28, 2024

“Embracing the Unknown“

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown”. And he replied: 
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way”. 
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day….

These are the opening lines of a poem that became very popular in the early days of World War II, a period of global uncertainty and tension if ever there was one. Although the poem is entitled “God Knows,” it is more popularly known as “The Gate of the Year.”

For most of us, January serves as the gate of the year. In December we are so busy with Christmas planning and all the activities that make up the celebration of the season that it is hard to look ahead much beyond New Year’s Eve. By contrast, January’s pace usually gives us a moment to pause and reflect, as well as to peer a bit into the future and think about what it might hold, for us and for the world. Like many gates, it swings both backward and forward, allowing us both retrospection and the possibility of intention setting while we mark important dates on our clean, new calendars.

What I love about the poem we call “The Gate of the Year” is that it reminds us that the future is in fact utterly unknowable, but that does not have to make it something we fear. The speaker, facing into the unknown future, sees only darkness, and so asks for a light to help navigate the way ahead. Instead, the speaker is given this advice:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

Put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be better than light and safer than a known way.

We too live in a time of uncertainty and tension, both in the political sphere and also within the church. There is a wonderful book that has been making the rounds for a few years now, and the title says it all: How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going. The writer, Susan Beaumont, is part of a growing number of leadership experts who say that we live in such a liminal, rapidly changing, and challenging time that the worst thing a leader can do is create a false sense of certainty. Certainty in a leader can be very reassuring, it can ease anxiety and make for exciting speeches and rallies. It can also lead people right off a cliff.

To be clear, the alternative to certainty is not chaos or apathy, or at least it doesn’t have to be. The alternative to certainty is faith. It is stepping out with your hand in the hand of God, knowing how much you don’t know, but trusting that God’s presence is better than a light and safer than a known way. Susan Beaumont’s point is that we can find healthy and creative ways to cultivate our faith and strengthen our communities even in times of radical uncertainty. She points to three shifts in our leadership stance that help during these times: from knowing to unknowing, from advocating to attending, and from striving to surrender.

I don’t want to go too far down this rabbit hole of talking about a book that most of you will likely not have read yet, so I’ll just focus for now on one of the shifts it outlines: from knowing to unknowing. In my 14 years as a parish priest, I have learned a lot from people who are able to inhabit a stance of unknowing. Often it is a sign of spiritual maturity, and even wisdom. It is deeply faithful, as it acknowledges the reality of human limitations, not just in general but as they apply to each of us. It seems plausible that one of the reasons Jesus taught in parables was shift us into this unknowing stance, out of our certainties about right and wrong. Only someone who is comfortable with unknowing is willing to forego the comfort of a known and well-lighted path and instead simply take God’s hand and step out into whatever the future holds.

I think this might help us understand what Paul is saying in his letter to the church in Corinth when he asserts that, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.”

Paul was not being anti-intellectual. He was a learned and knowledgeable person. But he was concerned that those who relied too much on their knowing would do things or say things that might lead others astray. Knowledge, especially when it calcifies into certainty, can be as much of a crutch as wealth can be; it can create the illusion that we have no need for other people’s perspectives and gifts, or even for God. Love, on the other hand, acknowledges our dependance on God and one another. In the final analysis, no human knowledge holds a candle to the gift of being known by God.

Shifting our stance from knowing to unknowing is not easy work and it is not ever fully accomplished. As Beaumont says, “Unknowing requires personal spiritual centeredness and confidence that God will lead if given the opportunity to do so. It requires the capacity to challenge long-established assumptions. It takes conviction that collective wisdom will emerge if given an opening to breathe. It requires courage to fail the expectations that others hold of you as one who fixes their problems.”

Whatever else this Year of our Lord 2024 may hold, we know it will hold many opportunities to live into this stance of unknowing. We have in front of us a beautifully concrete illustration of the uncertainties that face us, in the form of the scaffolding around the altar. Scaffolding looks certain and solid. It takes up space and requires us to move around it, changing the way we do things. Now, though, this scaffolding can also serve to remind us how much we don’t know, and to learn to be okay with that.

It was installed so that experts, people with a particular kind of knowledge and skill, can investigate and learn what needs to be done. They are taking down one segment of window, one piece of the big picture, and discovering—by doing—what it will take to restore it to wholeness. They will also explore and attend to the reality of the rest of the segments, getting a sense of what needs cleaning, what needs repair, and what might be just fine as is.

This work will take time, and it will happen largely out of sight. We don’t know what will be discovered. We don’t know what work will be recommended to us, or how urgent it will be, or how much it will cost. We will know some day, but right now we don’t. We can fret about this and try to come up with various scenarios and what-ifs. Or, we can be patient. We can sit with our uncertainty. We can cultivate a stance of unknowing, so that, when we have more information, we will be open to discerning next steps, not wedded to one particular outcome. Our collective wisdom, given some space to breathe, will undoubtedly find a creative and faithful way forward.

Our annual meeting reports remind us how much we have to be thankful for in this parish and this community. We faced some challenges we expected, as well as many we did not. We mourned during funerals, some delayed since COVID, and we celebrated at baptisms, a visitation from our Bishop, an ordination, and even just some ordinary Sundays that felt extraordinary in their own ways. We will face the future together, with faith, knowing that only love can build us up to be the church God calls us to be. Amen.