Sermons
May 4, 2008 - "Practicing Kindness "
Many years ago I read an essay by the Unitarian minister Rev. Robert Fulghum. If you don’t remember Rev. Fulghum’s name I bet that many of you remember the title of that essay “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” In that short essay, Fulghum preached a simple and hard lesson. It was his premise that the very same morals, ethics and manners that we teach our youngest children are the morals, ethics and manners that we end up needing to practice our whole lives long. Or, as the other even more simple saying goes “There are three things in life you need to know. Be kind. Be kind. And be kind.”
Here is part of Fulgrum’s essay. “All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.…Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together… Think what a better world it would be if all the whole world had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had a basic policy to always put thing back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are - when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.” (Fulghum)
This is a great essay, a great sermon, and a great reminder about what it really in the end what we are called to do in life. But you know and I know that being kind, doing kindness, does not come naturally and is very hard to do on any consistent basis. And so all our lives we must practice – practice loving ourselves, practice loving those who we care deeply about and those who we hardly know and those who we consider our enemy.
Being kind and practicing kindness is a hallmark of an ethical and religious life. The Dalai Lama tells us “There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; my philosophy is kindness.” Our reading was one translation of the Buddha’s words on loving kindness or “metta.” In that reading the Buddha taught “even as a mother protects with her life, her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings: radiating kindness over the entire world spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded, free from hatred and ill-will.” (Metta Sutta) Cherish all beings? Radiate kindness over the entire world? Outwards, unbounded, free from hatred and ill will? This is a Sunday school lesson for all ages and it is very hard to put into practice.
We find this same kind of teaching in the Jewish Scriptures. In the book of Micah, the prophet distills the word of God to the following “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) The Hebrew word for mercy is “chesed” which translates to the doing acts of loving kindness (such as clothing the naked, nursing the sick, comforting those that mourn, burying the dead.) A commentary on this passage notes that we are not only called to be merciful but to love mercy and to do acts of mercy and loving kindness. Micah’s ideal is not the minimum of religion but the maximum. It is what we are called to strive to be and do. This is what we teach our children and what we continue to teach and reinforce in our selves.
In my first semester of seminary the students were selling T shirts as fundraiser for the student center. Remember I told you a couple of weeks ago that I had been listening to the bible on tape as I commuted from Amherst to Newton. I was glad that I did because when I read the back of the T shirt I recognized that same passage from Micah “What does the Lord require of you?” So then and now, I had to decide, can I really wear a T Shirt with a bible verse on it? Not just any bible verse but a verse that declares that I am required, not invited, but required, to do something. And that something is hard. Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. Day in, day out. Doing it poorly, most of the time. It was like I got the syllabus for life in one verse.
It is hard, very hard, to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly. We are ego bound earthlings, often fearful and self centered. We find it easier to walk on by, to turn our head away or to run the other direction when we are faced with suffering. The well known Gospel story of the Good Samaritan is a parable that speaks the truth. Mostly most of us walk by.
A few weeks ago Dorrie and I were watching the TV program 20/20. One of the stories the program was reporting on was a study in ethical behavior that was done in a large city in the United States. In the study a young, maybe 7 year old child actor stood alone on a busy sidewalk. The child was instructed to stand there looking lost and lonely and to see what would happen. Later the child was instructed to cry when people passed by and finally the child was told to ask for help. The filming crew filmed the child and all the people who either stopped to attend to the child or who walked on by.
And sadly, almost everyone, men, women, all ages, all races, walked on by. Even when the child was pleading “Please help me.” 1,700 people were filmed walking by. When some of these people were stopped and asked they said things like “I just didn’t see him.” Or “I didn’t know what to do.” “I had places to go and I thought that someone else would help?” The most common reaction was the first “I just didn’t see him.” In fact the camera filmed young children walking by and pointing the child out to their parents who kept walking. The dogs on leash were filmed sniffing the crying child but the adults did not see him. And if you do not see a crying child you cannot practice an act of simple kindness.
The adults who did intervene had to work hard at figuring out what to do when they were confronted with the child. We saw them stop and ask the child what the problem was. They called out to others for help or called the police on their cell phones. They stood at a distance and talked with the child perhaps because they were afraid of being accused of hurting the child. It was not easy for them to be kind, to do an act of kindness and mercy on a busy city street.
I tell you this story because it was shocking and it should have been shocking. But even more than shocking it seemed to me to be very real. Watching the film we had the benefit from seeing the big picture, knowing that this was a set up, watching all the people walking by. If I had been walking down the street in my own moment, rushing to where I had to go, without knowing any of this I am not sure what I would have done. I hope that I would have been kind.
Loving kindness takes practice. It takes practice to even be prepared to do what is required of us and that practice can take many forms. There was a bumper sticker a few years ago that said “Practice random acts of kindness.” While I know the bumper sticker did not say “randomly practice” this phrase suggests that random acts of kindness can really instill an ethic of kindness. Now, a few years after seeing this bumper sticker I wonder how much difference random acts really makes. I think about any other skill I want to learn. Would random practicing make me proficient in playing softball? Could I learn to play the piano if I practiced randomly, whenever the spirit moved me?
I really do believe that in the case of loving kindness, practice does not make perfect. The demand to act justly, love kindness and walk humbly is what we are striving for and most of us will never become perfectly kind. Perhaps because this is such a demanding teaching I believe that kindness, loving kindness, deserves all the consistent practice that we can give.
A spiritual practice is a practice that we undertake to deepen our minds, our hearts and our spirits so that we will be able to act in new ways, more of the time. There are many spiritual practices that help us become kinder, more loving, and more courageous people. Let me share one of them with you.
On of the ways that some Buddhist practitioners cultivate the way of kindness, is by saying the loving kindness metta. The word metta has two meanings – gentle and friend. According to the teacher Sharon Salzburg, metta means gentle because it “is likened to a gently rain that falls upon the earth. The rain does not select and choose ”I’ll rain here, and I’ll avoid that place over there.” Rather it simply falls without discrimination.” This meditation gently reaches out to all beings.
The other meaning “friend” reflects the Buddha’s view that a good friend is someone who is constant in our time of happiness and also in our time of adversity or unhappiness. A friend will not forsake us when we are in trouble nor rejoice in our misfortune.” (Salzburg) The meditation practice is something that once you learn it, will be with you in all situations. And so the practice of metta begins with gently and consistently befriending our own selves, and offering ourselves the wish for happiness, peacefulness, and relief from suffering. The metta practice is all about training your heart and your mind and your spirit to look at yourself, other people and other beings and communicate that they can be loved and love in return. Essentially it trains us in how to be kind.
The loving kindness metta begins with offering love and peace to your own self and then widens to the rest of the world. You sit in quietness and say to yourself. May I be happy. May I be peaceful. May I be free from suffering. Try it. May I be happy. May I be peaceful. May I be free from suffering. This practice trains your mind to be more kind to yourself.
Then, you can think about someone who has been an important person for you in your life – a teacher, a parent, a benefactor, someone whose life has had a positive influence on your own life. Say the metta for them. May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be free from suffering. This part of the practice teaches you to be kind, grateful, and gracious to all those who have been caring to you.
And then you turn your focus to someone who you are neutral toward. Maybe the crossing guard or the librarian. Someone you know but have no strong feelings about. This practice helps sensitize you to the stranger, that child standing on the street looking alone. It is a practice that fills you up with love so that when someone asks you for help you will be more likely to see that neutral person and more likely to be kind. So…May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be free from suffering.
Now think about someone who you are in disharmony with; someone who is really getting under your skin, who you may not respect or who you are angry with. This part of the practice helps us envision the possibility of being kind, of offering acts of kindness even to those people who we despise. May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be free from suffering.
And finally, think about the whole world, as much as we can imagine the whole world. And send this message of loving kindness. May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free from suffering.
You can do this practice when you are going to bed at night or waking in the morning. You can do it while you are sitting in your car waiting to fill up for gas or standing in line at the supermarket. The practice is a way of consistently, not randomly, reminding us that the world is filled with beings who are worthy of our love and attention and kindness. And it is the intention of this practice that we will not only feel more kindly to the rest of the world but that we will find within ourselves the strength to do something to alleviate suffering.
Sometimes the hardest person to imagine in this way is you. It can be much easier to reach out to strangers, or reach out to our loved ones than to be kind to ourselves. If this is the case you may find that the practice of cultivating kindness strengthens you when you are feeling alone or undeserving of simple kindness. In our responsive reading Ralph Waldo Emerson said “We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. The whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether.” (Emerson) The loving kindness metta is a practice in cultivating the awareness of this element of love so that when we are called to be kind, we will not turn away.
May I be happy, may I be peaceful, and may I be free from suffering. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be free from suffering. May all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful, and may all beings be free from suffering. I think that Robert Fulghum would be happy to add it to his kindergarten lesson. It all comes down to be kind, be kind, and be kind.
April 20, 2008 - "Pack Light for Passover "
Have you ever walked into a conversation that was going mid-stream and struggled to figure out what it was about? This happened to me recently.
I came upon two acquaintances talking to each other. I stood on the sidelines briefly and finally broke into the story to say “What are you two talking about?” Both of them tried to put the story into a few words so that I could catch up but each of them came at it from different ends. It sounded to me like they were talking about two different stories.
That’s how I feel when I read or hear a story from one of the big collection of stories, the Bible. Depending on where I enter the stories, and where I am coming from influences the way I understand the tale. Certain words or phrases grab my mind and send me wondering “what does that mean?” or I am moved to tears or anger and I realize that the story has touched a raw nerve in my own life.
When I first started seminary I had had little formal Bible study although I heard passages from the Bible every Sunday in church. So I decided to start my own independent study by listening to the Bible on tape as I drove the 2 hours back and forth to school every week. There I would be sitting in my car, driving along the Mass Pike and I was screaming; screaming “You have to be kidding? God said what?”
Since that time I have a lot of sympathy for people I notice who are driving alone in their car and talking up a storm. It is likely that they are not listening to Bible passages but now I know that something is hitting them hard and they are being moved. Scripture can do that. Music and poetry can do that. Life does it all the time.
This week, along with celebrating Earth Day, which comes this year on Tuesday, the Jewish people are celebrating the holy time of Passover by reading and re-living the story told in the book of Exodus. Whether we are Jewish or not we too have the opportunity to honor this time of year by listening to the Passover story with new ears. Our Unitarian Universalist history is deeply rooted in the religious history of Judaism as well as in the sect that later called itself Christianity. Most of our Unitarian Universalist principles, printed on the back of your program come right out of the sentiment expressed by the ancient prophets. So, in some ways the Passover story is our story. As well, the Passover story is the particular story of some of our neighbors. Many of us are coming into the story mid-way and are asking what is it all about? And many of us, at least once, while listening to this story may scream out with some recognition.
At the time of the Passover, the Israelites had been enslaved in Egypt for 430 years. Like many other captive people, they had made their peace in Egypt. While the situation was bad, very bad, they learned to endure the suffering. Just as some people caught in an abusive or constricting relationship suffer for years and are not able to break away, the Israelites adjusted to life in Egypt. The Passover story tells us that God saw that the people were in bondage and had not found the strength, the direction or the help to break free. So God stepped in to give the Israelites a taste of what freedom might be, to remind them that they were children of God, not tools of the Pharaoh.
God sent down a rain of plagues on the land. All the people, Israelite and Egyptian, suffered in these plagues as all the people suffer even today when one person or one group of people is hurt. The story of Passover is a redemptive story of God sending help to a suffering, anguished and distressed world. It is a tale of how we keep hope alive and who or what is there to help us when we are in need. During the Passover Seder, when the people remember and celebrate how their ancestors were lead out of Egypt, and how they are lead out of their own kinds of oppression today, the people recite:
“And God said: “I will go through the land of Egypt on that night…and I will meet out justice against all the gods of Egypt. I the Eternal. And God brought us out of Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power.” (Haggadah)
In the Passover Story God uses a cosmic force and a rain of plagues to soften the hard heart of the Pharaoh. The plagues in the story are blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, blight, boils, hail, locusts and darkness. Each one of these plagues rained down on the land and each time, until the last, the Pharaoh denied the people the freedom. But then, the last plague rained down – the slaying of the first-born.
“And there was a loud cry in Egypt for there was not a home without someone dead.” The Pharaoh’s heart was softened when the pains of the world reached his home. Like so many of us, buffered by our defenses, our fears and our ignorance, the Pharaoh could not respond to the needs of the people until he saw pain and suffering up close.
God does not ask the people to do violence, even against the Pharaoh. God says “I will meet out justice against all the gods of Egypt.” God sent the people home to wait, to spread sacrificial animal blood on their doorways and to wait. God passed over the Israelite’s blood stained houses. That is where the term “Passover” comes from, the passing over, or saving, of the Israelites. God did not ask the people to avenge themselves through violence but to trust that, in the end, justice will triumph and they will go free.
The story of Passover is a story of freedom set in a world of repression and violence not unlike our world today. During the Passover Seder drops of wine are spilled in memory of the 10 plagues that lead to the Exodus and of the plagues in our world that are leading us to another kind of radical change.
The plagues that the Passover story calls us to remember in our day are sometimes subtle and common place. Sometimes the plague is a plague of poverty or loneliness, or violence or ecological disaster. Sometimes it is a fear of rejection, the erosion of community or racism, or sexism or homophobia. I believe that the story of Passover calls us to remember all the plagues. In not forgetting the suffering world we are asked to participate in healing the earth and each other. This week we are given the opportunity to celebrate the Passover today and on Tuesday to pledge ourselves again to open our eyes to the suffering of our planet. As the children sang “We’ve got the whole world in our hands.”
The story of Passover teaches us that sometimes it is by “the grace of God” that we find the strength and the direction to turn our lives and our world around. It is when we are able to participate in this grace that we are able to help ourselves and those in this world that are held in a bondage that we can only imagine.
There is a story of a woman who stood before God, her heart breaking from the pain and the injustice in the world. “Dear God,” she cried “look at all the suffering, the anguish and distress in the world. Why don’t you send help? God responded. “I did send help. I sent you.” [Wolpe]
Just a few days ago I learned about Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan woman who had became the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari Maathai had spent the past three decades, with limited resources, inspiring the planting of 40 million trees across Africa and spreading her message that protecting the environment protects democracy. Maathi said that the spark that set her on her way was her own sudden realization of the awesome danger that the world is in. She said “Passion begins with a burden and a split-second moment when you understand something like never before. That burden is on those who know. Those who don’t know are at peace. Those of us who do know get disturbed and we are forced to take action.” [Laurie Davis]
Those of us who don’t know are at peace, resigned perhaps in our own Egypt. But those of us who know get disturbed and are forced to take action, forced to stand up to Pharaoh and say “Let my people go!” Forced to strike out of a bad situation and plant one and then two and finally 4 million trees; forced to take some small or monumental step to break out of a personal or institutional oppressive situation.
How can we maintain hope in the face of personal and world wide suffering? Who or what can we look toward for our strength and renewal in this work of healing the world? The story of Wangari Maathai kindles my own passion. And the Passover story strengthens me and gives me hope. The Passover story tells us to pack light, don’t weigh your self down with possessions or self importance. We are told to turn our face to what or who inspires us and to open our eyes and our ears to the teachings, the values, and the ultimate truths that guide our feet. We are instructed to gather the children around us and to tell them, not only the truth about our struggles to survive but what or who has pulled us through the hard times.
This week in our conversation circle, a few of us here at First Parish talked to each other about what guides us – what keeps us going and gives us direction in our lives. This conversation was a way of practicing theology, practicing saying out loud not just “This is what I believe” but even more important perhaps “This moves me. This leads me on. This pushes and pulls me out of my own comfort zone and into a new land.”
Our small group was one way that we are at First Parish are practicing our calling to be a community of remembrance and a community with a vision for a world free of bondage. This is why we come to worship and why we gather in circles for conversation and for action. That is why we teach our children about their local ecology and about hunger in our own community. Our passions begin with a burden that should disturb us, should make us scream in the privacy of our car and in the company of strangers. Our passion should be moving us to take action.
One change at a time.
In the Passover story God helps the people. In our time we are the hands of God, the outstretched arm that can wrap around the shoulder of a neighbor or a friend in pain. Passover is our reminder that we are not alone in our love for the world and we are not alone in our work to overcome the plagues of our time.
Amen, and May it be so
Sources
A Passover HaggadahThe Central Conference of American Rabbis
David J. Wolpe “Teaching Your Children About God” from Spiritual Literacy
Laurie David “Next Steps” article in Discovery magazine 2008
April 6, 2008 - "A Generous Heart "
“It isn’t really fair that we divide the grain evenly” said the two brothers, silently, in their hearts. “It isn’t really fair” and so in the night, when they thought that no one would see them, each acted on their concern for the other brother. Each brother brought grain out of his own storehouse to enrich the other, so that true fairness might come about.
The Talmud is a collection of oral wisdom; stories, legends, and other commentary on the written law. It is intended to bring to light the inner wisdom of the Torah, the Jewish Bible. The Talmud teaches and reinforces, by stories and other kinds of illustration, how to live a just and holy, or “whole” life. And so today, in our reading we heard through an ancient story how a people can act with a generous heart to bring about something close to fairness, in an unfair world. Because life is not fair. It is not fair that some of us have more than others, some more benefits and some more hardships. It is not fair and it is not easy to discern what to do when we realize that we may be contributing to the lack of fairness in the world.
In this story from the Talmud I was struck that, because each brother truly loved the other, each brother thought that “it was not fair to divide the grain evenly.” One thought it was not fair because his brother who had a large family would have more mouths to feed and so that family would need more grain. The other brother, the one with the large family, thought that it was not fair because his brother, who lived alone, would, as time went on, have no one to care for him in his old age and so might need to store up on extra grain now. The story flips us back and forth. What is fair? Who is in need? What are the brothers called to do? Why do they try to solve their problem in secret? How did they learn to be so big of heart?
Is that not the way of life? Each of us has to grow our own generous heart by facing not only own real and compelling needs but also by seeing the real and compelling needs of others. This is inner, sometimes secretive or private work. We struggle inside as we ask ourselves what I should do in this or that situation of unfairness. Teaching stories, both from different religious traditions, and the stories from our daily lives, help us grow our hearts so that, when we are faced with such a need in our own lives we react not out of fear but out of hope.
Today we started our service dipping our hands into the common bowl of wisdom and taking out one statement about the theme of generosity. We read out the phrases, taken from wide variety of sources, and heard one voice after another speak sometimes contradictory words of wisdom just as the brothers in the talmudic story thought contradictory thoughts about the fairness of their situation. Perhaps the phrase you selected spoke to you and maybe it did not. Maybe after the service you will want to exchange your phrase with another person because their phrase challenged or supported your own thinking. We need many teachings about generosity because basically life is unfair and we are taught by our culture to be fearful, not hopeful, when faced with injustice and lack of fairness. If we only hear the voices of fear, of clinging, of insecurity, we will act out of fear, of clinging and of insecurity in our lives and we will not be able to grow a deep and generous heart.
Times are tight for many people these days. So tight that many of us are being literally squeezed out of house and home, having to face hard choices with few easy answers. Last week Betty and Tammy and I heard a presentation when the Franklin County Interfaith Council met here at First Parish for the monthly potluck dinner meeting. The focus of the meeting was a talk about hunger in Franklin County. We heard about families not being able to feed their children, not only around the holiday season when many churches, including ours offer generous holiday meals, but every day. We heard about the importance of funding food banks and pantries and soup kitchens every day of the week, every week of the year, because it is true, and it is not fair, that children and adults go to bed hungry.
As the Talmudic story teaches, tight times and hunger (physical, social, spiritual, and every other kind of hunger) has come home to roost in many of our communities and our own families. The natural reaction to tight times is to hunker down, to conserve, to hold on, and to not give away what little we have. The natural reaction to tight times is to be fearful of strangers and to under fund or not fund our social programs and to cut back on our support for our churches. The natural reaction to tight times is to turn away from our brothers and sisters in need and to, fair or not, stock up our own warehouses with grain.
Right now, this month, in tight economic times, we at First Parish are beginning our annual canvas. This is a terrible time to be asking each other to imagine what we need for our church to fulfill is mission in the community and in our personal lives. This is a terrible time to be asking each other for money. How can we ask each other to pledge, to in effect promise, to support First Parish enough that it will not only survive but thrive over the next fiscal year? Our natural reaction is to pull back, pinch back, and hunker down.
And that is why we need to dip into the common bowl of wisdom and fill ourselves with new ways of thinking, new ways of acting. We cannot rely on our natural, constricting, fearful ways of reacting. When you are called on, suddenly, or day by day, to face your own or someone else’s need, if you only have your fear and not your hope, will you be able to act for fairness?
Last week I heard an incredible story on the radio. I was driving to work at the hospice when the program Story Corps came on. Maybe you have heard these stories. All around the country there are recording booths set up so that people might tell and record the stories of their lives and some of these stories are then broadcast on National Public Radio. Sometime the stories are sweet or nostalgic or funny and other times they are shocking. But they are almost always moving. Last week was no exception.
Julio Diaz was a social worker living in New York City. He rode the subway back and forth from home to work each day and every night he got off the subway one stop before home because he loved to eat dinner at a local diner. One evening he got off at this spot and noticed that the subway station was empty. He was the only person to get off at his stop. When he stepped off the train a teenager came out of the shadow brandishing a knife and demanding his money. Julio said he handed off his wallet without question and the teenager started to race off. But then Julio called out to him “Hey come back, you forgot something!” And the teenager stopped in his tracks, looked back and said “what?” And Julio said “Take my coat. You already took my wallet so why don’t you take my coat. You don’t have a jacket, its cold out; you are running around stealing money from people all night so you are going to need a coat. I was just going to have dinner and then go home. I don’t need my coat. Take it.”
And the teenager came close and took Julio’s coat and started again to race off. And then Julio called out to him again “Wait. Come back. Aren’t you hungry? I figure that since you are running around and stealing money that you don’t have any money and maybe you are hungry” The boy stopped again and looked back and Julio said. “Listen, I got off at this subway stop because I was going to go around the corner to my favorite diner to have dinner, like I do every night. Why don’t you come with me, have dinner, fill up your stomach, and then we can both be on our way?” The boy stared at him and then agreed to go and they walked off, down the street together.
When they got to the diner everyone greeted Julio like he was their long lost brother. The cooks, the waitresses, the customers all welcomed him and the teenager and the boy turned to Julio and asked, “Hey why does everybody know you? Are you rich? Are you the owner here? Are you somebody special?” And Julio said “Oh no, I just always have my dinner here. These folks are my friends.”
They sat at the diner, ordered their meals and Julio asked the boy “What’s going on with you? Why are you going around stealing from people? What do you want to do with your life?” And the boy could not answer any of these questions. So they ate in silence. After eating, Julio turned to the boy and said “So, you need to pay for the dinners because I don’t have any money because you took my wallet. Either give me back my wallet and I will pay for the food or you pay for it.” The boy handed Julio his wallet and started to get up to leave.
Julio said “Wait. I figure that you must not have any money because you are stealing wallets so here, take this $20.” The boy reached for the $20 and was about to walk off when Julio said “Hey wait. How about a trade for that $20? Give me the knife and we can call it even.” And the boy passed him over the knife and left the diner.
When Julio got home he told his mother. Of course this is just the kind of a true story that no mother wants to hear about. But she said to her son. “I am not surprised. You were always the kind of a kid who would give somebody the shirt off your back if they asked for it.”
How did he get that way? How did he grow such a generous heart that even as a child he would give his shirt to someone who needed it? How did he now, a social worker in New York City, in a flash, react in such a generous and gracious way to a thug who was stealing his wallet? What kind of teaching had shaped him so that he would assume that the robber needed the money, needed a coat, and maybe needed a friend? In tight times, when even a social worker is struggling financially, how did he choose to not only give away his coat but part with $20? What teachings, what stories, had shaped him so that he could act, not out of fear, but out of love? I want very much to meet this Julio and to ask him.
Times are tight. Even if it sometimes feels like it at canvas time, we are not really being held up at knife point by a stranger demanding that we hand over all the money we have in our pockets. We are more like the two brothers, looking at each other’s needs, and trying to figure out how we can care for our own needs and the needs of the other. Both of these stories, ancient and new, can teach us how to give from a place of generosity even when times are tight. Both of these stories ask, what are our core beliefs about life, about scarcity and abundance, about need and giving? Both of these stories ask what is the value of this church in your life and how will you pledge to keep it going?
First Parish, like every other Unitarian Universalist church operates only on the contributions of the members and friends. The money we have in savings was given by our religious ancestors so that we might benefit down the road. It is up to us to give with a generous heart so that the life of this congregation is rich, in spiritual inspiration, in loving relationships and in service to our community. It is up to us to give from a generous heart. Will we be like Julio, and assume that the need is great and that we can dig deeper into our pocket to fund the church to do its work? Will we be like the two brothers, and acknowledge that life is not really fair, and that it is up to us to take from our own grain storage, to feed the church and in feeding the church feed the community?
We are in the business of growing and nurturing a grateful and generous heart in this unfair and fearful world. Thank you for all you give and all you do to further this holy work.
March 23, 2008 "Stop, Look, Celebrate "
And so we sing, on this Easter Day, an old song that rings a truth we strain to hear. “ Soar we now where Christ has led, living out the words he said, made like him, like him we rise, ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”
Made like him, like him we rise. Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. The Easter story on first reading seems to be a fantastic, even supernatural story, out of touch with our present day rational society. But taken on another level completely the story of Easter is a very human and very current story. We are made like him and like him we rise. Easter is one of many stories across the ages that teach us that we are all born and die into the inescapable reality that our world is laced with suffering and saved by love. Today, on Easter, we are celebrating the story of Jesus and how this story can point us toward a saving reality. Love conquers death.
Last week we celebrated the fact that in New England we were on, and are now over, the precipice of spring. We asked ourselves, are we frozen, locked in and if we are, what helps us break out so that we can be free to celebrate change, even when that change is sudden and radical. And so today, that same question haunts us with another story. Not the story of melting ice flows, but still again, a story of how we can break out of our tombs and live more fully.
Our responsive reading said “In the tomb of the soul, we take refuge from the world and its heaviness…sometimes it is a comfort, sometimes it is an escape, sometimes this tomb-life gives us time to feel the pain of the world and to reach out to heal others…sometimes it numbs us an locks us up with our own concerns.”[Campbell] But, as another writer reminds us “A tomb is no place to stay.” [Gilbert]
Just as we understand the Vernal Equinox to be a lesson from the earth that we can take and transform into a lesson for our human struggles, today we are taking a lesson from the Christian scriptures. We do and do not read the earth story literally. Ice does not literally cover us humans, forcing us to break out of its grip. And yet the changing of the season teaches us about our changing hearts. So too, the scripture stories can be read not literally but still deeply, read for the truths buried in the words. Reading or listening to scripture can move us to another level of understanding of our own lives, our own struggles, our own questions. Today, on Easter morning, I invite you to put aside your skeptical mind and step into the stories about the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. Listen to how his first disciples grappled with the loss of their teacher. Perhaps this story will shed light on your life today.
A tomb is no place to stay. Or as the angels in the Gospel of Luke say “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” It is no surprise, for those who have followed the story of Jesus to see, that even his closest disciples, women and the men, did not get it. They have been constantly surprised, amazed, and often disappointed by their teacher. They expected him to be something that is familiar, something, someone, that they will recognize and almost always they were wrong. Jesus frequently asks them “Who do people say that I am?” So, here, 3 days after he has died on the cross, they are again surprised and confused. In their great love for Jesus, they come looking for him, intending to personally care for his broken body, to embalm him in spices. But instead they found an empty tomb.
The angel tells them the story that Jesus has been telling them with his whole life, his whole ministry, the story that they did not want to hear. “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise?... And they remembered his words….and Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them told this to the apostles, but the words seemed to them to be an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” Again, the disciples, the students of Jesus, did not believe that it was his lot, to live a life of joy and of suffering, and to die, in order to return to them. This is the lot of their lives as well.
Jesus taught many things in his life, and one of the things he taught, that we celebrate today, on Easter Sunday, is that we must stop, look, face the suffering and injustice around us, and do something to alleviate this suffering. It is in giving ourselves, as he gave himself, that we reduce the pain in the world and bring in new life. As the Buddha spent his life teaching about the reality of suffering and the path through this reality, so did Jesus. But this gift is hard for us to grasp and to integrate. And so the stories need to be told and retold – by angels at the tomb and by us.
In some ways, the story of Easter is a memorial service. Maybe it seems that way to me because I am not only your parish minister but I am also a hospice chaplain. I spend much of my week sitting with the dying and their families, trying to make sense of life and death. I am privileged to hear stories of the living and of the dead that bring laughter and tears and that somehow, make it all bearable.
This week I sat with a 54 year old woman and her sister, younger by just a few years. Angela, is dying from lung cancer and liver disease. Her skin is yellow, she is thin but her belly is swollen with tumors. And yet when I ask the sisters about their relationship, their love, because it is so palpable in the room, Angela tells me that her love for her younger sister Joan, is exquisite – it is more than she can explain. The sisters tell me that one day, when they were living in different states, missing each other and knowing that the ending was upon them because Angela was getting sicker and sicker, Angela told her sister “Look out at the night sky. Look up. Do you see that bright star? We are looking at the same star. We are together. We will always be together.” Later Joan told me that Angela had a vision recently in which she was in this same night sky, faced with a Cosmic God and she was invited to sign her heart, her life and her death over to God. And she did, with great joy in her heart. She told Anne this vision because she wanted to share her life and her death with her sister and to comfort her, in the way that she too had been comforted. Perhaps her vision was inspired by such a verse as our opening words from the prophet Isaiah “Sing, O Heavens, and be joyful, O Earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for God hath comforted the people.”
We are invited all are lives, while our loved ones are living and when they have died, to gather, to remember, to tell their stories. By participating in this ritual we take the stories into our being and then we and they live again. I believe that this is one gift that holy scriptures give us and it is the same gift that our holy lives give us – the opportunity to face our joys and suffering, to tell, re-tell, and when inspired, to make a difference in the days that we have left to live. But usually, we are too busy, too distracted, or too ignorant about what is really in front of us.
In the Gospel of Luke we read about one of the resurrection stories. Each Gospel writer tells different stories, just as at a memorial service each grieving person will bring forth a different story, a different version of the dead. Luke follows the story of the disbelieved women with the story of the two disciples walking the 7 miles from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus. I love this story because I can easily imagine being one of these men, walking, talking, grieving. A dusty road and a long way to go.
And then a stranger appears, walking beside them, and, once again, “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” And the Gospel writer tells us “they stood still, looking sad.” They are astonished that this stranger does not know the teacher that they are talking about and they tell him about Jesus, his life and death and how disappointed they were. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” And Jesus brings them back to earlier stories, to the Jewish prophets who had said that the Christ, the anointed one, would have to suffer these things in order to enter into his Glory.
And when they arrived at the village of Emmaus, still not recognizing their teacher, still not understanding the teachings of suffering and alleviating suffering through love, Jesus woke them from their ignorance by enacting their familiar ritual. He “took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight.” Gone again.
This ritual; take, break, bless, share, eat, drink [Robinson] – this was the way that Jesus had taught his students to remember him. He had lived his life fully, had loved them fully. He had alleviated the suffering of the blind and the deaf, the sorrowful and the poor in spirit. He had experienced great joys and great sorrow in his short life and he died but was and is not forgotten. And so this is a way that today on Easter Sunday, we also remember him and his teachings. Take the life you are given, that you are born into. Break into this life, as all our lives are broken by grief, by mistakes, by disappointment, by disillusionment, by challenge to our world view. Bless this life – recognizing it, honoring it, celebrating its Glory. Share, eat, drink – live fully, in relationship with yourself, with your loved ones, with your communities, and with the Spirit of Life and Love that empowers you, saves you, directs you, and helps you to remember what is most important.
Just as the disciples forgot, or never really got, the message of Jesus, we too forget and have trouble believing this message. We have trouble believing that our lives are gifts and we are called to share the joys and the sorrow and in doing so, remember that they and we are holy. “Soar we now where Christ has led, living out the words he said, made like him, like him we rise, ours the cross, the grave, the sky.”
We have the opportunity every day to push away the stone, to step out into the light of life and to celebrate the day. This Easter morning I would have us stop, look, and celebrate this gift of life and all the teachings from every source that inspire us to return to our better selves. These are redeeming, or saving messages. Take. Break. Bless, Share. This we can do this we must do.
Sources
Luke 24
Hymn #268 Jesus Christ Is Risen Today
Responsive Reading #628 Rolling Away The Stone – Sara Moores Campbell
A Tomb is no Place to Stay: An Easter Meditation – Richard Gilbert
Reverend Ron Robinson (email posting “Take, Break, Bless…)
March 16, 2008 - "Spring Breakup "
“The night was gone! The morning came! We stand new born to meet our selves again in earth’s celestial change.” [Zoerheide]
We stand here in Northfield and all around New England, ready for the night of winter to be gone and the morning of spring to come. We stand impatient, waiting to find ourselves new born in earth’s celestial change. Many of us are ready in these late days of winter, over ready, for a change in season and a change in life. We want that mound of snow outside our door to melt. We want to wake up soon to the sound of the spring peepers instead of the sound of the snow plows. We are not there yet, but we are, as a ministerial colleague says “Precariously perched on the precipice of spring.”
“We are precariously perched on the precipice of spring, trying to shake from our spirits the coldness of snow. The heart’s winter is releasing its iron grip upon us. We are poised in anticipation of a warmer time.” [Gilbert]
“Precariously perched on the precipice of spring.” That phrase is fun to roll off your lips, all those “P’s” one after another. But the message of that phrase speaks about a particular kind of change; an experience of risking to balance on an edge. Today, March 16th, we are less than a week away from the Vernal Equinox, which in the Northern Hemisphere is that day when light and dark are equal. The increase in light will, on the Spring Equinox, be balanced at that mid point, and then increase until the Summer Solstice, when that light will begin again, moment by moment to recede.
But today, we are not quite there. We are “precariously perched on the precipice of spring.” Spring is coming. We can feel it beneath our toes on the icy muddy roads. We can smell it in the manure spread fields. We can watch it, racing along in the swollen Connecticut River and in all the brooks and streams that spill off Northfield Mountain. And we can hear it if we would listen, as the ice breaks up, the shoots push forth, the animals chance to wander.
Spring, the spring of New England, and the spring of our lives is a season that awakens and that moves, that shifts and breaks up the old, that suddenly lets loose what has been frozen, on the earth and in our hearts. Whereas summer if we are lucky, is long and lazy, and seemingly endless, and fall seems to come on slowly, dropping in and out of our lives, leaf by leaf, and winter drags on and on so that we are crying for relief by the end of the season, a New England spring is often short, fast, and dramatic. It is about movement, about breaking up and washing away.
In our reading this morning you get a sense about Spring’s dramatic entrance. “Winter washed away last night and ancient fear, deep frozen in the dark of time broke loose before the coming spring. The weight of ages melted under mystic change, and plunged the torrent of its spirit out across the lands.” This face of spring defies the gentle and equally true images of crocuses blossoming, bunnies munching new grass and bicycles coming out of storage.
The poet lifts up the immediacy of Spring “washed away last night.” It calls us to feel strong emotions “ancient fear, deep frozen in the dark of time” and the force of nature “broke loose, the weight of ages melting, plunging the torrent of its spirit across the land.” No wonder, we might feel in these days just before spring that we are “precariously perched on a precipice.”
This poem reminded me of the many years that I lived in the town of Goshen. I lived in a cottage just a short walk from Highland Lake. I loved that lake, winter, spring, summer and fall. In the summer we swam in the crystal clear water. In the fall we hiked around the perimeter and stood in awe of the changing colors and in winter we skied and skated across its surface. But in late winter the lake changed dramatically, from a frozen ice skating paradise to a place of danger – one wrong step could sink you. And if you listened closely as the winter melted away and spring came on you could hear loud cracking beneath the ice, like shots ringing out. It was exciting and dangerous to live so close to the water. And some years, it did really happen, that over night, “winter washed away.” One year the lake was frozen later into the spring but on Easter the melt was complete and the next day we put a canoe into the water.
Dorrie tells me about what she calls “spring break up” in Alaska when she lived in a small fishing village in Southeast. She describes the ice flows calving, breaking up, drifting off to sea and then being pulled back with the great force of the tides and heaving, heaving, up on the shore. When the spring broke up the people did as well because so many had been locked into their homes, kept from their livelihood which was for the most part fishing. When the spring broke up the boats got out and family systems immediately changed. Some people out to sea, some staying back in the village. Emotions ran high, for good and for bad. It was more than the ice that broke up. And it was not always pretty.
Spring is not always pretty and in the beginning, it is often pretty ugly. Trash that had been buried beneath the snow emerges. Mounds of snow, piled up on street corners seem to be more sand and salt than snow. Roads, dirt or asphalt, are a wreck and so are we as we attempt to navigate our way through these last days of winter and the first days of spring. And then, when we least expect it, beauty pushes up and surprises us; sometimes funny beauty. The other day I was walking the dog in my pothole neighborhood, skirting around the puddles, listening to the late winter bird songs when suddenly, who knows why, I looked up and saw a tree filled with balloons; big, colorful, helium balloons. There must have been 30 of them. It was an ecological nightmare yes, but also a beautiful, crazy, spring vision. Somehow someone’s birthday balloons had let loose and the whole bunch flew off, and got caught in the treetop. And I got to see it because I looked up, away from the mess of the street, and was surprised.
The poet says “But suddenly the dawn appeared and called upon the sun of hope to take its place within the human heart. The night was gone! The morning came! We stand new born to meet our selves again in earth’s celestial change.”
As the earth turns and the seasons roll along, we also roll along in our physical and emotional and spiritual selves. Sometimes a change of heart or a life change comes on us in slow, almost imperceptible moments. Sometimes change “breaks loose” and we stand new born to meet our new self. Sometimes the change is interior – we begin to think differently, to imagine a new way of being. Other times, the change is exterior – we are left suddenly through death or divorce or job loss. Or we are jolted out of our complacency when we receive the awesome gift of children in our lives and we are thrust, into a new existence without instructions. Sometimes it seems like there was no warning – no slow melting, hint of increasing light, smell of change in the air. Suddenly we are changed. And we are left with getting to know our new situation, new self.
I recently saw the movie The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. Perhaps you have seen the film or read the book. It is a true story, a memoir by the former editor of Elle Magazine Jean Dominique Bauby. Bauby suffered a massive stroke and was left totally paralyzed with a condition called “locked in syndrome.” This formerly active, well off, thriving father of three children woke from a coma and could not move a muscle other than his eyes. Could not speak, could not move a finger or a toe, only his eyes. He was locked in, frozen, in his own self. In order to save his vision, one eye had to be stitched shut so he was left with just one working eye.
As the film progresses, and it is an incredibly beautiful and hopeful film, Jean Bauby is faced with the end of life as he has known it, yet he is alive. A speech therapist teaches him how to communicate word by word by opening and closing his one eye. The first word that he communicates is “death” “I want to die.”
As the film progresses you see a human being struggle mightily with a sudden, traumatic change and we see him choose life. He chooses to accept this frustrating and limited method of communication and in a laborious, letter by letter, blink by blink process, writes his memoir about his life being “locked in”. At one point in the film he says, by blinking his eye, “All I have is memory and imagination to keep me human.”
We see some of his memory as he calls up visions of his life before the stroke. And he allows himself to imagine and to be transformed in his spirit. One image stays with me. The film maker shows an ice flow melting in a rapid pace over the edge of a cliff. The ice is crashing to the sea, crashing, melting, slamming into the water below. And then, in his imagination, and in the film, the ice flow suddenly reverses and is pulled out of the sea and up the cliff. A miracle. A vision. A willed change of perspective. A transformation of reality.
Jean Dominique Bauby died just a few days after finishing his book. His memory and his imagination did not prolong his life in years but both memory and imagination kept him human until his dying day. His experience is so rare that we might see this film or read this book and think, what does this have to do with me? Such a thing will never happen, and God willing it never will. But there is a lesson here. Many lessons. One of those lessons for me is that each of us has places inside ourselves in which we are, or have been “locked in.”
We may be locked in because of pain or fear or despair. We may be locked in because of a circumstance out of our control. We may be frozen, locked in, because of a good thing gone bad and here we are, stuck in a bad situation – locked in. Bauby’s inspiration – that for him, only memory and imagination would continue to keep him human makes me ask – what is it that keeps us human? What gifts do we possess, as fragile human beings, that help us break out of our locked in, frozen condition?
What pulls us forward in the winter of our lives and keeps us hoping, against hope, that spring will come? What is it that we must nurture in our selves, our children, our churches and our communities so that when faced with the reality of our frozen lives, we will choose to live – to break out and change?
“Locked in Syndrome” is something that each of us is called upon to face at one time or another. We face it personally and we also face it as a country, a local community and as a church. When we look to the history of our congregation we see that First Parish, as a living and breathing community of faith, has been called upon to face this question many times. The question is: are we a living, breathing, life changing church or are we frozen, limited in some ways, locked in? Today, a week before the Vernal Equinox, how might you answer this question?
Spring and all the ways of celebrating this season demand that we face our tendency to stay stuck in the ice, the tomb perhaps, and our equally strong call to break out, rise up, remember who we are and imagine who we might be. The Vernal Equinox is a pagan, earth based moment in time that shows us, in earth time, who we are as human beings living with the call to change.
The moment of “balance” when the day and night are equal is brief. Mostly the light is increasing and decreasing and that movement brings forth the potential for creation and human creativity. In our lives we have just a few moments of true steady balance, when we can look around and say “For this moment, I rest in peace.” Today we are “precariously perched on the precipice of spring.” Listen to the ice breaking up below you. Are you ready to choose life even if you do not know what that really means? What does this call to spring say about you, say to you?
Sources
Vernal Equinox by Robert I Zoerheide
Precariously Perched on the Precipice of Spring – Richard Gilbert
February 2, 2008 - "The Ties that Bind and Set Us Free"
What is the freedom we speak of when we say that ours is a church in the free tradition? Is it the freedom to do what we want, when we want, or to not do anything at all? Is it a church in which there is no cost: financial, emotional or spiritual? Or is a church in which we are cut free from the past and unencumbered by the future?
The Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams disagrees. He says “I call that church free which is not bound to the present, which cowers not before the vaunted spirit of the times. It earns and creates a tradition bringing together past, present, and future in a living tether, in a continuing covenant and identity, bringing forth treasures both new and old. God speaks, God has also spoken.” Adams spoke these words in 1975 and they resonate today as we, members and friends of this historic First Parish look back, look within, and look to the future to grasp what is it about our faith and our church that truly sets us free? And what is it about our faith that also has the potential to enslave us to the tyranny of our own individual pursuits?
Adams spoke passionately about a free faith not only in 1975 but also in the 1930’s and 1940’s. He spoke as a witness to the rise of power of Nazi Germany and he wrote about his dismay at the church’s lack of taking a strong stand against fascism. He wrote that for “faith to make a difference, if it is to enable us to distinguish between ourselves and Nazis, then it must have a definite, particular form….the free church is that community which is committed to determining what is rightly of ultimate concern to persons of free faith…doctrinal tests are not the way to determine the character of the community but if the community possesses no recognizable form and criterion (except that it offers absolute freedom) then it will be utterly undependable…It will degenerate into faith-full and ethical neutrality.”
And it is so easy for our faith, our Unitarian Universalist faith to degenerate into neutrality. The first principle that our congregations affirm is the “inherent worth and dignity of every person.” As a person, who because of my sexual orientation, has been declared unworthy and without dignity by much of society, I value this 1st principle of our faith. Without it I could not, and would not, be standing here, preaching at this pulpit. The 1st principle that our Association of congregations affirm attests that all of us, by the mere fact of our existence, are inherently worthy and dignified.
But sometimes this same principle, united with the 4th “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning” can be read as “you can believe whatever you want and do whatever you want and it is up to you, as an individual person, to make your way through the world.” Sometimes, our faith, focusing as it does so strongly on being one that is non-creedal, is also understood as having no grounding, no form, no communal commitments. Sometimes it seems like we are free to be neutral.
But this is not so. Our faith, if we are true to our history and to our traditions, is a faith that binds us together not only as individuals but as a community. It is that binding together in the spirit of love and justice that helps us to be reflective, honest, ethical, and courageous, which in my book means the opposite of neutral. While we all may make different choices in our lives our faith should be about helping us to bring about justice in the world.
The word “religion” comes from the word “ligament” which means “a connecting or unifying bond.” And so, when we look at our religion, our free church, we are looking back on what connects us, what unifies us, what holds us together and in holding us together, what frees us to be bigger and better than we might be alone? What is it about Unitarian Universalism that helps us bond together in order to be free?
In our Sunday services we recite in unison our Gathering Statement “This is a house of friendship, a haven in times of trouble, and an open room for the sharing of our struggles.” We also recited our church covenant, our declaration of fellowship. These promises of how we shall live together to keep this house of friendship alive and vital come straight from our religious ancestors. And so when we recite “Love is the spirit of this church and service is its law. This is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another” we are connecting ourselves, binding ourselves with each other but also with the founders of this very church.
But these two statements are not only words. They are the basis for how we as Unitarian Universalists come together as a church community, how we choose our lay and professional leadership, and how we make all our communal decisions. They guided First Parish in the more recent process of making our Mission Statement and if continually reflected on, they help us as a congregation today to be faithful and free and brave.
These statements reflect the nature of our churches as being congregational in our governance and also in our theology. We, like our Congregational and Baptist neighbors are religions that are self governing and that place a high value on the autonomy of each congregation. We are a faith that values the process of coming together as a community to discern what is ultimately most important for us, and walking together to honor those priorities. We are not a “top down” religion but we are also not a random gathering of people seeking spiritual truths. In the 1600’s our religious ancestors left Europe to find and to create a faith that was freer than the Church of England or the Roman Catholic traditions. They were determined to create a religion in which each individual and also each church was given the authority to listen to the voice of God, or the Spirit of Love, and to follow that voice, that call, for spiritual direction.
And so, when we gather at First Parish we do so in the belief that it is our responsibility as a group, to reflect on our world. This is a serious and far reaching statement. It means essentially, that we trust that we can, and must, talk with each other, reason with each other, respect each other, and encourage each other to pay attention to how the spirit of love moves us in our lives. This is what our 3rd principle “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations” means.
We do this when we talk to each other after services about how we experienced the sermon; what did we take from it, what did we disagree with, how were we moved? We do this when we gather for our annual meeting and vote on a slate of lay leaders who we entrust to work for our collective benefit. We do this when we work together as a congregation to make decisions about where we will donate our food collection. We do this when we each take responsibility to pay for the running of this church, knowing that a free church does not mean a church that costs nothing. We do this when we pledge as a congregation that we will provide a religious education program for our children and that we, the members, will buddy up with the children and teach them that they are bound to us. And we do this when we gather in large or small groups to reflect on our spiritual questions about life. In churches that are congregational in governance, as our church is, it is the congregation that is entrusted with the authority to determine what is ultimately most important and how we are called to action in this world.
When our religious ancestors began to gather in this country in the 17th century they gathered with several principles in mind. Because I believe that these same principles continue to bind us together today I would like to speak about them this morning. Perhaps you will be surprised to see how alike we are to the founders of our faith and how their search for truth and meaning can inform us today.
The first principle that our colonial founders held was that the heart of their faith must be the spirit of love. However you describe this spirit – love, life, justice, God, the web of existence, our ancestors firmly believed that the spirit of love should reign supreme in their hearts. A king, a government, a Pope, a creed could not supercede this spirit of love. And they believed that it was a goal of their emerging religion to help each member to develop and maintain a connection with this power of love. They were not gathering as a social community but as a religious community, bound together in the desire to come closer to a spirit that would guide their lives.
A second principle that these early church fathers and mothers held was that Free Church is entirely self governing. Not only could an outside authority not take their utmost allegiance but it could also not make decisions about how they, as a church, would govern themselves. This was a radical idea and one of the concepts that started the Protestant Reformation and that became even more radical in the Free Church movement.
A third principle was that loyalty to that spirit of love simultaneously committed the members to look for the best understanding of truth they could attain. [Wesley].They believed that the ability to love means that we must not only be swayed by our emotions but that we must also reason together. Questioning, doubting, struggling to make sense of life’s questions were all encouraged because they believed that love, God, the spirit of life, would help them come to the truth.
A related principle was that they believed they were responsible to each other to “walk together” to learn about the consequences of their behaviors. They believed that they should be in continuous conversation with each other about how they saw each other and how each individual’s behavior affected the next. They did not cast each other out of the church for dissenting, but instead they stayed engaged. And each church also saw their neighboring churches as religious colleagues so that if one church was struggling with a problem they could and did call upon another church for assistance in addressing the issue. While each church was individually governed they were not isolationists.
In colonial times, as is true today, membership in the Free church was open to individuals willing to make a covenant – or a promise, to be together, insofar as they were able, as a beloved community. One did not become a member because they were born into the faith or even raised in the church. Membership meant “signing the book” and voluntarily pledging themselves to fellowship. Even in the colonial times, when our own First Parish was established, when you joined the church you did not sign a creed of beliefs but you did pledge to walk together, to learn about how this spirit of love was directing you to make a difference in the world.
Of course, then as today, the founders of our faith were human. They made promises to each other but I know they also broke them and had to remake them. Just like we do! I am sure that they squabbled as much as we do and that they did not always trust each other. In the days of the founding of our faith one reason that the members did not sign a creed was that they all considered themselves to be Christians so did not in some sense even question some theological premises. The idea that they had of neighboring churches ministering to each other was a good idea but rarely practiced by the 19th century. So when we look to the past we look, knowing that the past formed our faith but was not all glorious, as we are not all glorious.
Today we live in a larger world than our religious ancestors. Our society is a pluralist one and the choices people have for religious homes are greater. Our Unitarian Universalist tradition is a small one – only about 1000 congregations world wide. But still we are who we are, in part, because of who we were when this country and this faith was founded. And a big part of who we are has to do with what hold us up and holds us together. We are part of the Free church tradition and it is our promises to each other, our relationships with each other, and our commitment to working together and walking together as a community that define us.
Less than 10 years ago, First Parish gathered together with Rev. David Farrington and crafted another statement. Keeping in mind the older covenant and gathering statement, a mission statement was made to try to flesh out a vision for this congregation, to help the church members direct their energies and commitments. I remind us about this mission statement to day to show us how consistent it is with the principles of the early churches. Although the language is different from colonial language the ideas are very similar.
“The mission of First Parish of Northfield Unitarian is to embrace the spiritual through imaginative contemplation and reflection; to nurture fellowship, service and charity; and to share, celebrate and affirm diversity and explore common needs among members, friends and the larger community.”
In other words, the heart of our faith is still the spirit of love, the way we walk together and work together to understand what this spirit of love calls us to do and to be as a community. In order to not degenerate into the neutral and dispassionate faith that James Luther Adams saw during World War II and in the decades following that war, our churches must continue to be, in his words “that community which is committed to determining what is rightly of ultimate concern to persons of free faith…”
We cannot be passive. We must work at listening to each other as we work out our beliefs and as we face injustice in our local communities and in the world. Our Unitarian Universalist faith demands that we take our fellowship statements, our covenants and our mission statements and continually ask, how does what we are doing as a church relate to what we profess? Are we really walking together for justice and love or are we creating a cozy corner in our world? What can we not afford to be neutral about and what has a hold on our passions?
We are heirs to a tradition that is demanding. Demanding that we reason in love, that we stick with each other and that we continually assess, who are we, what do we believe, what do we love and how do we act on that love? Today we are celebrating an early Valentines Day with our children. Let us leave them not only with paper hearts and a buddy system but with a community of faith that both binds us together and also sets us free.
Sources
Essays “Faith and Freedom” and “A Faith for the Free” by James Luther Adams
January 20, 2008 - "An Extremist for Love "
We, a gentle, angry, gay and straight, many colored people are singing for our lives because, in the words of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. whose birthday we celebrate today, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What affects one directly affects all indirectly.” And so when we sing for the rights of any one of us we are singing for, standing for, and working for equality of rights for everyone.
But that singing is not easy and does not come without great cost. For Martin Luther King, the cost was his life. He knew that the road that he was traveling on was a road that would put him in opposition to those in power. He knew that taking this road of justice making would mean that he would not see the freedom that he was leading his people toward. We do not know all that was in his heart and his mind in those years as he and so many other brave men and women walked the freedom road. We can only imagine their fear, doubts, and faith as they relentlessly put themselves on the line. We are left with inspirational words, and acts of love, that even today, can inspire us, direct us, and guide our steps.
And we do all need guidance. All of us need guidance to navigate our way through life. Just this week I sat with a gentleman who talked with me about his faith and his struggles in life. Both his father and his wife’s mother had died over the holidays. He and his wife were planning memorial services for both of the elders and this loss had hit him hard. He told me that he was talking with his sister about his Unitarian Universalist church and the strength that his faith gave him and his wife in this time and in other hard times. His sister who knows that he is an atheist asked “What does an atheist need a church for?” And his response was “Even atheists, and maybe atheists more than some other folks, need guidance. I need religious, moral guidance, to get through life.”
Reverend King drew on the Christian and Jewish Scriptures for his guidance. He also drew on his lived experience as a freedom fighter watching other people “carve” a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment”. When I listen to this phrase, “carving a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment” I imagine the dangerous work of miners, digging their way through what appears to be impenetrable rock, risking their lives to get through to the other side.
King knew that much of life is a dark mountain of disappointment. Life offers challenge after challenge and the rewards appear to be few and far between. Our lives, at least at some times, are hard roads to follow. We do not know what to do to make a difference, for ourselves, our neighbors, our nations. Yet we know that we are caught in this network of mutuality, that we are not alone in this mountain of disappointment. And when a light shines ahead, a light like the life and deeds and words of Rev. King, we take hope. We believe for a moment, that there is a way for us also to make even a small but significant difference in alleviating the suffering of others. We believe for a moment, that there is a way for us to break through the barriers between us and that keep some of us trapped in that mountain of disappointment, of despair.
Reverend King wrote his letter from the jail in Birmingham Alabama. He wrote this letter, from which our reading and our responsive reading today were only a small part, on scraps of paper and on the margins of a newspaper. In jail, the epitome of a mountain of disappointment, he carved a tunnel of hope and sent it out to the future.
This letter was written to his fellow clergy from Alabama who had printed a statement basically disavowing them from King and the other non-violent civil rights activists who had been arrested for marching for freedom. They had called these acts unwise, imprudent, rash, illegal, immoral and extremist. And King, who was taught to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper, or life itself, in the other hand, scribbled his response.
In his response he spoke of the reasons that he was part of this struggle for freedom, his understanding of just and unjust laws, his commitment to non-violent direct action and his sorrow that the mainly white middle class faith communities had not stepped forward to aid in this struggle. He talked about the idea that some of us have (for we, for the most part, are that very class of people that King was disappointed in) an idea that there is a time and place for everything and that it is better for the most part to wait for a better time, a more convenient time, a safer time, to stand up against injustice or to risk going out of our way to help someone in need.
King disagreed about this idea of time. In his letter he said “There is a strange rational notion that… there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively….We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people…. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that time is always ripe to do right.”
Time is always ripe to do right. And opportunities to do right, are always with us. As Jesus said “the poor are always with you.” Poor of spirit, poor of body, poor of mind. This is always the time to do what is right to alleviate suffering and injustice in our world. And the ways that we do that are as abundant as are the kinds of suffering of injustice.
The danger of celebrating the birthday of such a remarkable man as Rev. Martin Luther King is that we can be deluded into thinking that making a difference is only for the eloquent, public speaking, crowd gathering heroes and heroines of our time. In fact, this has been a problem. The focus on Reverend King has sometimes overshadowed even the other brave civil rights workers. Just as the Montgomery Bus boycott is remembered as being started by Rosa Parks the work for that strike had been laid for years by other local people who had sat down on busses and lunch counters and who had given their lives for the struggle for civil rights. The danger of celebrating our martyrs is that we might let ourselves believe that it is just they and not we, the ordinary people who should be making a difference in this world.
But Reverend King says otherwise. In our reading today he says that all of us are making a difference, for bad or for good, all the time. He says that even in our silence, we are making a difference for the bad; because we are pulling history into another direction by our refusal to try to do what is right.
While King was in jail the local ministers had written their statement condemning the work of the civil rights activists. They had called King and his supporters “extremists.” In 1963, when this letter was published, the work “extremist” rang with the same condemnation as it does today. Then, and today, we are taught to be fearful of those who are extremely passionate, extremely active, extremely anything. Then, and now, we are encouraged to stay to the middle and to not get overly involved. And so when the local ministers called Dr. King an extremist he was at first taken aback. He had to think, had he gone “too far” to one side or another? Had he gone “too soon” to be prudent? Had he overreached into what should have waited for another time, another place, another person, to step in? Had he and his supporters really been “extreme?”
And he came to the conclusion that the ministers were right. He and all the rest of the non-violent protesters were extreme and that he had been guided his whole life by extremists and that all of us, whether we act or not, are extremists for something. The question is; what kind of extremists will we be? By our action or non-action what will we lend our support to? “Will we be extremists for hate or for love?
In these words Martin Luther King revealed that we are all connected and that it is not just the well known hero and heroines or the villains in life that are responsible for bringing in the good and the bad. We are all called to acts of extreme love and justice. And so, on this celebration of Martin Luther Kings’ birthday I ask you to consider, what kind of an extremist are you? And what kind of extremism lives on in this church? Down the road of history, when people look back and ponder the legacy of First Parish Northfield how will they judge us, how will they answer the question– Who were they? What were they extremely passionate about and dedicated to?
When I think of people that I consider being extremists for love and justice I think first about a couple who live in my neighborhood. Orchard Valley in Amherst reminds me in some ways of the down town of Northfield. The houses are different – no Victorians, mainly ranches and colonials, but the sense of safety and quiet and community are the same. When you walk through my neighborhood you can feel like you are walking back in time. Someone told me about their decision to move to Northfield “to have a place where you can walk between the church and the store and the school and everyone knows everyone.” My neighborhood has some of that appeal. Now, the down side of that appeal is that it can be easy to be complacent, to keep within our town and neighborhood and isolate ourselves. And so when I see in my comfortable neighborhood acts of extreme love I take heart and guidance.
This couple, two white women of modest means, have, over the past many years, adopted 5 children from India. These women are extreme in their love because they brought these children, the oldest now being 22 and the youngest in preschool, one by one, into the family and our neighborhood. Some of the children had heart defects and all were hungry, sick and needy. These women are very extreme. They realized that most of the children were starving for love and fearful of being abandoned. So for years and I mean years, the mothers arranged their work schedules so that one was home all the time. They also did not put those babies down. They did not use strollers but instead carried the youngest, newly arrived children on their hip, for as long as they needed to be held. I remember one of the kids being carried into the toddler years. And yes, the adults were tired. And no, they did not get to get for pleasure walks until the oldest ones could watch the youngest after they were put to bed. I still see the mothers, walking in the dark of the neighborhood. And yes, all these children thrived and are solid, capable, confident youngsters. Extremists for love? Definitely.
Being an extremist for love and for justice means stepping outside your comfort zone and stretching. It means showing and interest and compassionate concern for someone or something that is not easy to love, and not easy to defend. It changes your life. I think about another friend of mine whose son is jail. He has been waiting for trial for the past two years for a violent crime. As you can imagine, his mother is torn inside. She is living most of the time smack in the middle of that dark mountain of disappointment. But she too, as lost and in despair as she is, is for me, an extremist for love because she has not given up on her son. It would be easier, and who could fault her, if she quit driving the many miles to visit him in that inhuman, too public, too crowded waiting room of the jail. It would be easier, and who could fault her, if she turned completely inward and away from connection with this son who she fears will be living the rest of her life at least in prison. And yet she does not. She writes, visits, calls, talks to and about him, even when crying. Extremist for love? Definitely.
These are ordinary people. Too often we think that it is only the extraordinary people who are called to acts of extreme love and justice. But no, it is us, caught in the inescapable network of mutuality, which are called to keep our hearts open and risk being hurt, risk giving our lives over to something bigger than our fearful self. It is us that Martin Luther King calls to when he says “Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
Let us take his letter with us. May it goad us into action if we are fearful. And may it break through the disappointment in our lives to show us that the time is ripe to do right. I know that in your homes and in this congregation there are extreme acts of love and justice being done every day. While we need to guard against the compelling desire to be silent, we can and do, speak out, act out, stand out, sing out for our lives. May we be an inspiration and guidance for each other, our children and our children’s children.
Source:
Letter from the Birmingham Jail by Rev.Martin Luther King Jr.
January 6, 2008 - "Take This Moment "
Here we are, gathered as a community for our first worship service on the first Sunday of the first month of the year 2008. Every year I forget and then remember that New Year’s Day is an artificial holiday. It is a holiday that acknowledges the beginning of a calendar that was created to help us believe that moments and days and weeks and years are discrete segments, marching along, with us in tow. Our calendars, helpful as they are, make us think that we can organize our lives and we have some sense of control of what is going to happen next. But our lived experience tells us that time is not so simple or so linear and not so much in our power.
Time really overlaps, weaving what we call the past, the present, and the future together. And so on the first Sunday of the first month of the year 2008 do you imagine as I do, that these seats are filled not only by us but by our religious ancestors? And when our children race upstairs to the bell tower, they are racing with the children of the past who, just as our kids, grabbed that scratchy rope and pulled to their hearts content. And when we gathered as we did just a few weeks ago for our Christmas Eve service, did you sense the presence of those First Parish elders filling the pews, singing the carols, reading the scriptures? We are not, and have never been, alone in our life in this church.
When I stand at this pulpit and in our lovely sanctuary upstairs I am literally standing in the footsteps of a stream of ministers and lay preachers including some of you, who have graced that platform. I have been told that Theodore Parker, one of the most famous and radical Abolitionist preachers of the 19th century preached from our church before he accepted a post in Boston. Knowing this I am humbled and grateful again for the chance to be your minister in this, the first Sunday of the first month of the year 2008.
And in case I forget the lineage that I now am a part of, and dwell too long on this moment and my own place here, I can always step into that small and musty room off the organ. Have you entered that little library, packed from floor to ceiling with tomes - theology, history, music, literature, and for some odd reason, a wicker bird cage! That bird cage reminds me of the poet Maya Angelou whose memoir was entitled “I Know Why a Cage Bird Sings” and I hope that I can live into her poetry, her passion, her commitment to singing good news in times of struggle.
We not only remember our ancestors but they live in us and in some real way we lived in them because surely they were making this church and this faith strong and sturdy and meaningful for us, their future. That future stood tall and strong and loud when our little group of children stomped their way through “We Wish You a Merry Christmas!” Did you imagine and hope, as I did, that the stomping children demanding figgy pudding will one day be setting up the coffee hour and making the newsletters, and welcoming the visitors who come to visit First Parish 20 years from now? Do you wonder as I do, if what we are doing today that will be an inspiration that these children will call upon when they gather for their New Years service, so many years from now? We wonder if our children will make us proud but I also wonder if we will make them as proud when they look back.
And so today, as we mark the beginning of a New Year together we do so, knowing that this is a unique and present and totally new moment in time. It is also a connection, a warp and a weave with those who came before us, sit with us today, and will come after.
Our responsive reading names this reality – “The first day of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without our calendars to name a certain day as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new. So it is: everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound. Yet also we stand at a threshold, the New Year, something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands. What shall we do with this great gift of Time this year?”
What shall we do with this gift of time? Or, as the poet Mary Oliver says “What shall you do with your one wild and precious life?” Many cultures celebrate the New Year with a period of reflection; looking back, looking in and looking forward. We began this as a community during our winter solstice celebration when we acknowledged what had been the hard and joyful things of our year past and we pondered in our hearts where we hoped this year would take us. New Year’s Day and the weeks that follow can be such a time of reflection and introspection.
This kind of reflection takes time and quiet. And so today, as the reading of Robert Weston reminds us “we need to be still.” We need to have time to be still, to go to the center of our being, to sit alone and together and to reflect on those age old question. Who are we? Where are we going? How are we treating each other? What are we doing with this gift of time?
This reflection is both personal and communal work. Two of our Unitarian Universalist principles speak directly to this spiritual practice of reflection and re-assessment. As congregations we are called to affirm and promote “acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations” and “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” These two principles call on us to be still so that we might know both the roots and the wings that hold us up and help us to fly.
In our Committee on Ministry meeting this month our group talked about the reluctance that most people in most churches have in talking with each other about their spiritual beliefs and questions. Even though we know that we do not grow spiritually in isolation it seems almost rude to ask each other pointed questions about the meaning of our lives. Questions like “What is the meaning of my life?” “Is there a God or a Spirit of Life that guides me?” “Is there evil and if so, it evil an entity that is outside us or part of humanity?” “What am I called to do and to be?” These are existential and spiritual questions that human beings in every time have pondered.
In our meeting we thought about ways that we could make a time and place to these questions. We talked about ways that we could listen deeply in a curious, non-judgmental manner. And so we are looking into ways of having some listening circles or discussion groups about questions like these. We hope that you will join us for one of those discussions later in the winter or spring. This would be one of many ways to live out our principle of encouraging the search for truth and meaning in our congregations.
For today, on this the first Sunday of the New Year, I would propose not a discussion group but a few moments of quiet: a time to be still so that we can listen first to your own thoughts and dreams. Taking time for quiet reflection is almost impossible for many of us. For instance, as I was sitting at home writing this sermon about taking time to be quiet and thoughtful I was alone in the house except for my dog Teddy– a 10 month old poodle. No people, no outside commitments. Sounds good right? But the phone rang three times, the dog was restless and paced back and forth and then threw himself at my feet and starting chewing his bone louder than I have ever experienced. Then, an hour later, just as he settled down and my thoughts did too, the family came home and my quiet moment was gone.
Am I wrong to assume that you too struggle with finding the time to be still? It is January; the hustle and bustle of the holiday season is over. So today, can we take a moment to rest, to be still, to breathe deeply, and to ponder some of these spiritual questions?
I am going to walk you through a short guided meditation to help us relax and also focus. If you do not want to participate in this meditation feel free to just sit quietly with us and dream your own dreams, think your own thoughts. This is a gift from me that you are under no obligation to accept! You might really need to take a short nap and that is okay too.
I invite you to be still, to close your eyes if you like and to put aside all that you have carried into this space. Drop your worries and your cares on the floor beside you. Believe me, it will all be there if you need it later. Give yourself permission to relax in this warm room. Listen to the sounds around you, the sounds of the children and the sounds of your feet shuffling, the sounds of your heart beating and your blood pulsing. Listen, acknowledge the sounds and let them go.
Pay attention to something that is constant; your breathing. Notice as you breathe, in and out, shallow and deep, fast or slow. Notice your breathing and if your mind drifts to worries or other thoughts bring your mind back to your breathing. If you feel tension in your body – breathe into that sore place. From the top of your head, through the muscles in your face and your neck, your shoulders and your back, your upper and your lower body, your legs, your knees, your feet and your toes, breathe and let go of any tension.
And when you are feeling quieted and relaxed find a place inside yourself to rest. You might imagine a quiet and soothing place that you have known in your life – a meadow, a riverside, a mountain top, a place where you remember feeling safe and comfortable. Go to this quiet and comfortable space in your mind and notice your breathing.
When you are settled in this quiet place in your mind listen to this question and listen to what answers you might hear. This listening might bring forth words or sounds or feelings or images – accept what you find meaningful and let the rest flow by you.
Today, in this precious moment – what are you called to do and to be? Are you living your life so that you can honor, or prioritize that calling? And if you have not been true to yourself what small change might you make so that you can be more in harmony with what is most important to you? Breathe into these questions and sit with them for as long as you need to……………
And when you are ready, ask these same questions about your church. Today, in this precious moment – what do you feel that First Parish is called to do and to be in the world? Are you living your life as a church member so that you can help the church honor, or prioritize that calling? And if you have not been able to help the church be true to itself what small change might you make so that First Parish can be more in harmony with what you understand to be most important? Breathe into these questions and sit with them for as long as you need to.
And now, return to your breathe. Notice if it is deep or shallow, slow or quick. Return, when you are ready, to your body. Feel your feet on the floor and listen to the sounds around you. Come back to this moment, this day, this place.
Here we are, gathered together in worship on the 6th day of January, in the year 2008. It is a new year and a new day. Take what you have experienced and ponder it in your heart. Maybe you will choose to share some of your insights with another person and maybe you just got a good short nap, which also is a pretty nice way to start a New Year. Either way, I wish all of us a Happy New Year. May it be a year of deepening relationships, and deepening insights that lead us toward what we are called to be and to do. This is a wild and wonderful life. Take it seriously and joyfully. While much of life is out of our control it is still, in many ways in your hands. Live it well.
December 2, 2007 - "Light One Candle"
“Oh come Oh come Emmanuel, and with your captive children dwell. Give comfort to all exiles here, and to the aching heart bid cheer…Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel, shall come within as Love, and Truth, and Light, and Hope to dwell.”
And so we sing in the season of Advent. Our hymn reminds us, that this season is a season of longing “Oh Come!” of aching “Give comfort” and of anticipation “Rejoice Rejoice.” Advent, is the Christian season of waiting for the birth of God within, Emmanuel. It is a season that can speak to all of us. We are all human beings, and we are all captives in this world of trouble and of pain. Advent, which is celebrated today and for the next 4 weeks until Christmas, is a season worth remembering, and worth salvaging. It is a tradition that helps us kindle and keep hope alive in the dark days of winter and in the dark days of our lives.
There are celebrations for the coming of the light across the world, the ages, and in many religious traditions. Celebrations of light began millennium ago, when our ancestors lived in fear and dread as the hours of sunlight shrank away and the long nights of winter prevailed. How were they to survive? Was this increasing darkness going to continue to the point that the night overtook them and the cold stole their lives away? No wonder they prayed and beseeched, huddled and cast about for some way of surviving those days. And no wonder, when the sunlight did increase, in miniscule amounts at first, they celebrated with song and dance and prayer and feasting, that miracle of light. And no wonder, when they discovered how to bring light into the darkness through fire, they lit their world on fire.
Our reading today speaks to this history.
“The sun, an errant lover
Has wandered off. Only if wooed by me
Will it return. The ancient incantations
I now recite. I tell the ancient stories
Of hope made manifest; deftly prepare
The feast;
Pack love and tinsel into every gift.
Most magical of all, I light a candle –
My act of faith, to guide the sun’s return”.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent and Tuesday at sundown, is the beginning of the 8 day celebration of Hanukah. These two celebrations are very different but both of these traditions also have a lot in common. They are celebrated for days, and for Advent, weeks at a time. Both testify that it takes more than a day to remember and to honor history. Both include lighting candles and reciting prayers. Both of these holy traditions spark and keep alive, hope. And finally, the advent wreath and the Hanukah menorah bring light into this world.
I am grateful for these, and for every other winter religious tradition that I have come to know. Truthfully, there are many parts of this holiday season that are hard for me. I don’t go gently into the night, and I need all the reminders of hope that I can find. Many people tell me that they too struggle with sadness, disappointment, or just feeling all mixed up in this holiday season. And many people are searching for signs of hope when we look around us and see that still the world is full of exiles needing comfort and full of hearts that are aching. How are we able to keep hope in these times? Can the season of Advent give us any direction?
When I was growing up my family celebrated Advent. This was the only time in my household that we lit candles at home. We made a wreath of evergreens and set it on the family table and each night, for those four weeks of Advent, we lit first one candle, and then two, three, and finally four candles to mark our time of waiting. I remember this ritual because it was the only time as a child that I was allowed to hold a match and I was afraid. I wanted to light the candles but I was afraid that I would be burned. And so the first time I lit the candle I did it by holding my father’s hand as he lit the match. And then, as time went on, he held my hand as I lit the match, and finally, I could do it alone.
The first week of Advent is celebrated today with a candle for hope. The second week the candle is for peace. The third is for joy and the final candle is for love. Hope, peace, joy, love. Advent is about waiting, anticipating a time when hope, peace, joy and love are alive and active in the world. It is a good mantra to meditate on – hope, peace, joy, love. And the first of these is hope.
The kind of hope that we need now is not an optimistic attitude that, in the end, all things will work out. That kind of hope is too thin, too easy to shatter when things don’t work out quickly enough or in the ways that we might imagine.
The kind of hope that we need now is not magical thinking and it is not dreaming, unless by dreaming you mean the dreams that feed action. Magical thinking and idle dreaming do not strengthen or truly inspire us to risk going on. Magical thinking and idle dreaming do not lead to hope, peace, joy or love.
The kind of hope that we need is a hope that is both a gift and a cultivated worldview. It is a gift because it is born from experience, sometimes meager experience, but experience. And it is cultivated through our communities, traditions, and practices.
When I am trying to understand what keeps me and other people going on in the hard times I tend to first look back. I look at the experiences I had as a child and in my years growing up. Who was there for me, inspiring me, showing me that the world was beautiful and a good life was possible? What experiences did I have that showed me that it is possible, and necessary to hope while times were tough? Holding my father’s hand while saying the prayers for hope in the first Sunday of Advent seeded in me, a hopeful heart. A small thing, lighting one candle, but repeated many times it took hold.
I once read “hope is rarely irrational, even when we face overwhelming difficulty….hope itself creates the ground for hope.” [Millspaugh] The more we hope and witness hopeful acts, the more hope has a chance to grow in us. Telling stories of hope can be one way of bringing hope into our lives. During the season of Advent we retell the story of a people who over the generations had hoped for relief from their suffering. “Oh come oh come Emmanuel and with your captive children dwell. Give comfort to all exiles here, and to the aching heart bid cheer.” The celebration of Advent tells us about the coming of a Messiah in the form of a human being, who was born and lived and suffered as we do and whose teachings continue today to be a ground of hope.
This story is not a sweet and fanciful story. It starts with a teenage pregnancy, a delivery in poverty conditions and includes the massacre of infants in an attempt to kill that child. The story continues with that child now as a man, being called to stand up for the hungry, the oppressed, and the unwanted people in the world. The story leads to his death as a criminal. Yet this story of the coming of Emmanuel is a story of hope. It is in the retelling of that storythat hope, peace, joy and love was seeded in the world. Because this spirit took hold in a people, the story of this infant moves from pure tragedy to renewal.
Each of us has within ourselves stories and traditions that feed our ground of hope. Each of those stories and traditions inspire us to reach forward into the darkness to make a difference in our own and other’s lives. A few weeks ago we talked about one such story of hope when we remembered the history of our UU Service Committee. We reminded ourselves that our own flaming chalice symbol came from acts of bravery as Unitarians and other relief workers risked their lives to bring to hope and freedom the refugees of Czechoslovakia. This is one of many stories of hope in the Unitarian Universalist tradition.
I read another story recently about the power of lighting one candle at a time. This one is from the struggle for freedom from apartheid in South Africa. The story goes that “in the face of injustice, people of faith began to pray together, and as a sign of their hope that one day the evil of apartheid would be overcome, they lit candles and placed them in their windows so that their neighbors, the government, and the whole world would see their belief. And the government did see and they passed a law making it illegal, a politically subversive act, to light a candle and put it in your window…The irony of this wasn’t missed by the children. At the height of the struggle against apartheid, the children of Soweto had a joke: “Our government” they said, “Is afraid of lit candles!”
Hope creates the ground for hope and keeps that hope alive. In the dark days of winter and the cold and dark days of my life, I need to nurture that shaky flame of hope. I know that many of you are also searching for ways to nurture that flame.
In our churches we do this through the sharing of our memories, the cultivation of our traditions, the practice of our spiritualities and the daring to vision new ways of being. We do this for ourselves individually and also as a community. There is much hope here at First Parish and it is our job to keep it alive.
How do we share our hope filled memories? Start by telling me and each other and especially telling your children about what has happened here in this church over the years. Learn and tell the story about how your church ancestors survived the fire that burnt down the church building on Christmas Eve in 1870 and who within 14 months gathered the money and the volunteers to rebuild the church. This story reminds us that tragedy – and the burning down of this church was a tragedy – can also lead to new life. How did these ancestors go on and rebuild, when they were so devastated? How does their hope and faith help us today?
Learn and tell about the story about Charles Matoon, who was honored in 1909 for his volunteer work for 40 years of bringing fresh flower arrangements to the sanctuary every Sunday and wreathes or flowers to every family in town in which he learned a death occurred. How did he keep this loving and caring ministry going? How can this story help us understand how to care lovingly for this place and this people? Where do we see this kind of dedication when we look to ourselves and the work of this church today? I see dedication everywhere at First Parish and I hope that you do also.
How do we keep hope alive through our traditions? Celebrate and participate in the joyful traditions that give life to this church – the Christmas Fair, the Christmas Eve and the Solstice Celebration, the Thanksgiving Dinner, the ecumenical service and the monthly breakfasts. Celebrate and participate in our Sunday worship services where we recite and renew our commitment to this community through our fellowship statement. These actions and these words have life only if they are cultivated. If they are done as habit and dead recitation they will not bring hope to life and our children will see them as empty. Don’t allow this to happen.
How do we keep hope alive through our spiritual practices? Your practices may be as diverse as lighting a candle in the window, spoken prayer or meditation, community service, writing heart- felt letters to the editor, or walking on the holy ground of this frozen earth. These are all ways that you go deeply within yourself, touching the source of your life and your hope. Do what you can to keep these practices alive and teach them to your children. Talk to each other about the meaning of these practices and how they are a help to you when you are so full of sadness at life’s trials that you wonder how you can go on, but you do. These practices of hope are personal to each of us but they are also gifts to our community if we would only be willing to talk about them.
And finally, how do we, as a church, keep hope alive by envisioning the future? I said earlier that hope is not magical thinking and it is not dreaming but it is envisioning a future that you would want for your children. It is vital that we do not just go through the motions of church – doing what was done without reflection and consideration of the future. For hope to stay alive at First Parish all of us must stop and imagine what it is that we want this place to be. Who do we envision sitting in these pews? What do we envision our neighbors saying about our church? If we do not do this work of reflection and envisioning, the candle of hope will burn out. And there will be no starter candle for the candles of peace and joy and love.
Advent can be a quiet time in a busy and often stressful holiday season. It can be a time to sit and look at ourselves and our world squarely in the eye so that we will be ready when we are called to make choices in our lives. I invite all of you to take time this month. If it brings you hope, light a candle. Remember who you are and envision who you want to be. Participate in all our celebrations and take hope and faith that, as our responsive reading suggests, “there is that in me which reaches up toward light, and laughter, bells and carolers.” The dark of winter in our lives is a hard reality that each of us comes to in our own time. But darkness always turns a corner and “that which is in us” of God, of Spirit, of Hope and Peace and Joy and Love abides.
Sources
1. meditation by Eileen Karpeles
2. Hanukkah and the Thing With Feathers by Rev. John Millspaugh
November 18, 2007 - "Guests at Your Table"
“What is the knocking, what is the knocking at the door in the night? It is somebody wants to do us harm. No, no it is the 3 strange angels – admit them, admit them- admit them.”
D. H. Lawrence, better known perhaps for his novels than his poetry, wrote this line in a poem he titled Song of a Man Who Has Come Through. In this poem and in our service today, we hear the echoes of the Oh so human dilemma. How can we overcome, or “come through” our fear of the stranger, the knocking at our door. We are a people who have been trained to assume that somebody wants to do us harm. How can we risk opening the door to admit, to let into our minds and our hearts our churches and our homes, another being? How can we admit guests to our table? And how can we risk being the guest ourselves?
Thanksgiving is a United States and Canadian holiday. It is the one day that we are invited as a nation to pause, to gather, celebrate all that we have been given, and give thanks for those whose lives have touched our own. Over the years we have re-learned the history of the first Thanksgiving that many of us were taught as children. We have re-learned that the story of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, gathering to eat together in the early settlement of Plymouth, was not as pure and joyful and egalitarian as we have been taught. We have re-learned that this gathering and other such gatherings happened in the context of starvation, exploitation and oppression. And yet it is also likely that there were such moments in which all parties paused and gave thanks and risked sitting down together, treating each other as guests in their world. I believe that this is true because this is what continues to happen today. We gather with loved ones and strangers even when we might be wary of each other.
I grew up in a large family, in a town that had many borders that most people did not cross. The borders were family ones, religious ones, political ones, and ethnic and racial ones. I imagine that you know something about those borders. One way that I experienced living in a “bordered town” was that my family celebrated our Thanksgiving and other holidays alone. Alone we were already a brood of 8 children, a grandmother, aunts and uncles and cousins. Alone we were already a group of people who loved each other but were also strangers, because who knows better than family, that there is much untold between family members. As I look back on those days in Chicopee I know that it was just too much to envision the idea of welcoming in a complete stranger into our celebrations. We were a closed unit and as the years have gone on I have struggled myself with how to open my heart to welcoming guests to my own table.
Luckily for me I have married a woman who cannot imagine having a Thanksgiving or any other holiday meal without inviting in someone, or some ones, who might otherwise be alone on those days. Dorrie tells me that this understanding of hospitality in her own heart began in her own family upbringing. She remembers two women who came to most every holiday gathering in her family even before Dorrie and her twin sister were born. Elma and Irma were both mothers who had lost a child at an early age. They were both divorced, perhaps because their relationships could not survive the grief that the loss of a child carries. Both Elma and Irma, independently from each other began to reach out to the busy household of Dorries’ family and they were both welcomed in