“COMMITMENTS AND CALLINGS”
A sermon delivered to
West Seattle Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
Rev. Peg Boyle Morgan
August 29, 2004
READINGS—In Unitarian Universalism, we consider scripture to be any writing that teaches us wisdom of how to live our lives. This morning we hear from Mary Oliver, contemporary poet, as well as from Micah, prophet in Hebrew Scriptures.
“Wild Geese”
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
Are moving across the landscapes,
Over the prairies and the deep trees,
The mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
Are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
Over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.And from Micah 6:7-8,
Does God desire thousands of rams, rivers of oil in the ten thousands? Should I give my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my womb for the sins of my soul? He has told you, Human, what is good, and what Adonai [the lord] requires of you: nothing but doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with your God.
SERMON
What is expected of us in this time in history? To what are we called while our nation’s young men and women fight a war in Iraq, while political parties, candidates, and their supporters bombard us with contradictory ads, while the earth’s health is dealt blow after blow to its well-being?
We have children to raise, parents to care for, jobs to find or keep, grandchildren to nurture, our own health to consider-- what more can be expected of us? To what are we called? What do we have time left to do? How can I as one person make any difference anyway? When can I enjoy the world?
I feel like E. B. White who said:
It’s hard to know when to respond to the seductiveness of the world and when to respond to its challenge. If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
Mary Oliver starts out seeming to lead us toward the seduction choice, when she says:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.
Man oh man, that sounds good--what a relief!
But then she call us to go deeper--she goes on:
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Well, ok, let’s talk about despair—it’s that feeling we all get when we are feeling bereft and when we don’t think we have any power to change things.
Have you been experiencing any despair? … perhaps related to a human crisis of relationship, finance or health? Perhaps related to world concerns? I have.
Despair, for me, comes from my good dream of what the world could be and how that dream seems to be fading, and so “my dream is both my desire and my agony” (Wendell Berry phrase). For instead of multi-lateral negotiations, we are at war. I feel despair, I get tears in my eyes each morning when I read of another young man or woman from our country who is reported killed. I know what that means to their families. All they have left are memories of birth, of first steps, of hugs and arguments and graduations. In different circumstances, those could have been my sons. I feel despair, that we never hear about the Iraqi citizens who die, never see the numbers, let alone their names.
Are any of you with me in this?
As a country I sense we are feeling communal despair, fear and confusion—about social and economic struggles; about terrorism and how to fight it, and about a growing sense of vulnerability; about war, and our nation’s role in the world; We have differing opinions but we all are affected by these problems.
At times like these we should be able to turn to our religious faith to give us some guidance and comfort and hope. So today, I want to speak about what I think our religious response needs to be, to what we should be committing.
Unlike some faiths, as Unitarian Universalists, we have no dogmatic views of how to respond to suffering and despair. We are generally unsure as to whether there is an afterlife of any kind. Waiting for the comforts of heaven while just tolerating troubles here on earth is not a usual approach to salve our troubled UU hearts. We are not trying for a piece of celestial real estate.
How then DO we counteract our despair? Many of us are drawn to Buddhism with its wisdom of non-attachment—teaching us that letting go of possessions, relationships and dreams can reduce despair. And it does for me in my personal life.
But when it comes to responding to people not having their basic life needs met—food, water, shelter, freedom; when it comes to people living in fear of being killed in war, a spiritual philosophy of just non-attachment doesn’t do enough for me. I seek something in addition. I must find ways to add my stubborn ounce of weight onto the compassionate action side of the scale.
So what might be our response? What is our calling as UU’s? If we have any dogma as UU’s, and yes, I know that I’m treading on shaky ground here—it is that we humans are born whole, with potential for both good and ill, and with capabilities for making this world a more loving and just place.
Mary Oliver’s words:
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese,
The world calls to us to be engaged with it—how? In so many many ways. The example of a friend, an invitation, a new experience, an incident that makes us juggle the way we see things. Or it comes as a little but growing intuition tugging at our consciousness pulling itself up out of our unconscious until we give it recognition. Ultimately the call is a prophetic voice asking penetrating questions of us, as to how we can more deeply live our values in the ways we live and work, the ways we socialize, the ways we spend our resources of time and talent and money, the ways we speak.
I believe our calling is nothing less than for each of us to be prophets.
James Luther Adams, or JLA as he is often affectionately named, was arguably the most respected rational UU theologian of the late 1900’s. He coined the phrase “the prophethood of all believers.” This was a take off from the “priesthood of all believers”, a Protestant concept that dispelled the need for priests as intermediaries between us and God. The idea was that Jesus’ death was the ultimate sacrifice which eliminated the need to sacrifice the lamb or the first born. We are all priests, able to name and communicate with the holy—needing no intermediary. And we are also all called to be prophets.
Now by prophets, he didn’t mean foretelling the future. He meant forthtelling—paying attention to human behavior and predicting what would happen if no changes are made; he meant testifying to values that would better uphold life, and speaking to the meaning of the times.
JLA said “We live in a world of change and as religious liberals we have the obligation to confront the problems posed …A church that does not concern itself with the struggle in history for human decency and justice, a church that does not show concern for the shape of things to come, a church that does not attempt to interpret the signs of the times, is not a prophetic church. The prophetic function is not assigned merely to the few. The prophetic liberal church is the church in which persons think and work together to interpret the signs of the times in the light of their faith, to make explicit through discussion the thinking that the times demand.”
We can learn something about being prophets from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. These people like Jeremiah, Isaiah, were people who stood on the edge of their times, foresaw great changes happening, and were willing to speak about the meaning of the times. They were willing to name the human idolatrous behaviors which were bringing about the destruction of their culture. They were willing to name the struggles of good verses evil, of justice versus injustice. They were willing to take risks as they criticized the tendencies of their country’s people to forget their higher calling amidst temporary pleasures and greed. They sought to shake people out of their pride, calling for a change of heart, mind and action. They were able to envision the potentialities of their nation to bring about good, and the creative transforming powers and resources available to begin needed change. With fear and trembling, for being a prophet was a risky profession, the prophets named the crises and demanded ethical decisions, here and now.
Micah is a good example of the biblical prophets. Working in the 730’s BC, it was his calling to advise the rulers of the Kingdom of Judea. He was identified with ordinary citizens, and felt compassion for the poor and the oppressed. He blamed the rich and powerful for exploiting the vulnerable and creating even greater inequalities of wealth and influence. Programs of armament and fortification further aggravated the Kingdom’s economic problems. Earlier in our reading we heard his most famous call to the people of his time—people who were asking him the same question we ask, “How should we be living? To what should we commit ourselves?”
His answer was that what is required of you is to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. That may be my favorite verse in the ancient Hebrew Bible, and yet how contemporary is its wisdom! Justice, kindness, humility. Three words that to me are good summaries of our own seven principles—when we talk about worth and dignity of all people, or of caring and supporting each other; when we talk about walking softly on the earth, we are talking about justice, kindness, and humility.
If our being a Unitarian Universalist is to mean anything we must make these words come alive in the world—the words must become flesh in our daily lives through what we say and what we do, what we commit to, and how we spend our resources.
It is my hope that here on Sunday mornings, we will stand on the edge of our lives and speak of issues important to our families and to our world. By coming together, we bolster each other as we continue to work towards our good dreams for the world—counteracting despair through the companionship of each other.
We are being called. Can you hear it? As Mary Oliver said:
Over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.
Announcing your place in the family of things—and where is that place? It is right where you are that you are called to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly. We are all at different places and phases of our lives, with different responsibilities to others.
I believe that we each can make these values come alive right where we live and breathe. Are you busy raising a family? Talk to your children about justice issues in the news. Are you taking care of elderly members of your family? Embody loving kindness. Are you working in a leadership position? Propose changes that will bring about greater equity and fairness. See the world through the filter of these religious values, and speak them with your voice and your actions.
No matter where we are in our lives, we all can commit to one common action—voting. The voting booth is the great equalizer. The freedom to vote is a major element of our representative democracy. It is available to all of us now only because people worked hard, were imprisoned, and suffered for these rights. If we are called to anything we are called to vote our values—vote for issues and candidates that most closely match your values. The United States has enormous effects upon the world politically and environmentally. We owe it to the world to vote and to enable the disenfranchised to vote.
But the bravest, most courageous part of our calling as prophets, our calling to stand on the edge of our lives and times, speaking the truth—will be speaking from a minority viewpoint. Prepare yourself to speak up in situations where you feel justice is not being served, even though you may be the first to speak. Without looking around to see if you have any supporters, say it.
I remember a time when I was working for a local city. It was a scary moment for me. I had just been promoted to department head status, the first one for the City’s human services. All the other department heads were men. So I was the only woman, in the lowest esteemed department, with the lowest salary. I felt uncertain as to my role and power, and how I would get along with the guys. We had a new City Manager. As we gathered for a meeting, a core group of the guys—the ones that had been there the longest, were speaking and laughing in sexually disparaging ways about a woman who worked for the City. I had been getting tired of hearing this type of conversation, and somewhere within me came the courage to say: “that’s not funny, that’s not funny at all.” Silence followed. The subject changed. Later that day the new City Manager, who was still sizing things up in the City, called me in. Oh-Oh I’m in trouble I thought.
I expected that the best that would happen would be that he would give me advice on how to get along better—and the worst – well, that he would just criticize me, which would be a bad way to start with a new boss.
I showed up, acting calm, but inwardly worried. He said, “Peg, you are President of your church as I was before I moved up here (he was Lutheran and we had talked about what it was like to be Presidents of our churches). We bring important values from our faiths. So I wanted to ask you to help me out. I want you to participate more. I want you to speak up more. The values you bring are important to this City. I want your values to be the dominant ones here. We need to make some changes.” He sent me a clear call. I breathed a sigh of relief.
If you are out in the world and you find yourself in the middle of something that you think is not moral or just, find your way to let your voice be heard. We are called to speak the minority viewpoint, as we see the world through our values. All good movements begin with minority viewpoints.
And, I believe we are called to be smart by adding our individual voice to those of others who share our values for justice and kindness and humility. Give of your resources of time and money, as you are able, to organizations that embody your prophetic voice in the world. It is in working together that we have the most power to bend this world closer to a heaven here on earth.
And finally, let’s not forget the dilemma E. B. White posed—that of choosing between improving the world and enjoying the world. I say, don’t choose. I say, love the world first, enjoy it, savor its amazing and bountiful gifts to us—for from a space of being—as my father used to say—“filled to satiety,” satisfied, our prophetic voice will ring more strongly.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
Are moving across the landscapes,
Over the prairies and the deep trees,
The mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
Are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
Over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.
Amen