I Will Not Stay Silent!

Now is not the time for silence, or saying it could never happen. Bad things happen when good people don't read the signs of the times.  The signs of our time are very dire and bleak. When a person running for President of the United States can systematically insult, demean and put in grave risk whole groups of people of these United States and the world, then we as good people cannot stay silent.

As many have seen, Donald Trump called for a complete ban on Muslims, even those who are US citizens from entering the United States, in addition to calls for monitoring mosques and ID cards for Muslims.  Certainly Muslims are not the only targets of Trump's anger and violence - people of color, women, people with physical disabilities and immigrants (documented and not) have been targets of Trump.  His message is resonating with a whole group of people, mostly white men who are angry. The anger of this group of white men is not without cause - after all many are working class who see every year that their jobs are vanishing and wages have failed to keep up with the cost of living for decades now.  Our political rhetoric, particularly from the right, blames immigrants, poor people, people of color for their problems rather than an economy that privileges the top 1% over everyone else. Donald Trump is tapping into their anger and frustration and giving them someone to blame when ultimately those like Mr. Trump who are a part of the 1% are cashing in on that anger in a myriad of ways.

Does this blame game sound familiar?  It should, because it is the foundational story of nearly every act of genocide.  Jews were to blame for Germany's problems, Tutsis in Rwanda, Bosnian Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.  In the United States, we rounded up those of Japanese descent under the guise of national security. Over and over again, after the truth comes out, we are horrified and we pledge "never again." We see the pattern that good people ignored the signs, they didn't think it could happen, not here, surely it is just rhetoric or that they spoke up too late or not at all.

We cannot just sit back and say "Oh No it will never happen here." We must speak up now and over and over again.  We cannot let Trump's words go unchallenged.

This list, which came from Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern, a Unitarian Universalist friend and colleague, of things we can do right now to be allies to the Muslim community.

I do not use Nazi analogies lightly, but the leading contender for one party's nomination has suggested we should shut down mosques and close immigration to Muslims. It is time to talk about fascism, religious persecution, and how we stop them.
What did Jews need German non-Jews to do when anti-Semitic demagoguery threatened them?  

Please. Do it now. 

I asked Samina Sundas what we UUs could do to support Muslims in our area and she said, please come to our Eid celebration and sponsor it if you can; I'll be asking the Board to do the latter, and urge you all to do the former. Dan established a relationship with the new mosque on San Antonio so that our middle schoolers could visit for their "Neighboring Faiths" program--we'll be asking them what they need from their non-Muslim neighbors.

Writing to the paper and declaring your support tells anti-Muslim cranks that it's they, not Muslims, who are isolated.

Make a video of yourself saying how you feel and put it on YouTube so that the world knows the people at Trump rallies don't speak for us.

Choose one thing and do it, so that we will not look back on this time and say "Why were the 'good Americans' silent?"

Each of us can do our part and most importantly we can pay attention and take seriously the threats that are being made against whole groups of people. Faith, authentic living, decent humanity demand that this time we don't just look back and say "never again"; if we mean it, then we will speak up and act now to stop this.

During this season of lights, of hope, of celebrating the return of the light after the darkest, longest night, of the oil that burned for eight nights instead of one, may we let our own light shine into these dark corners bringing light, hope and love!

Blessings during this holiday season!  May it be one filled with 

hope, peace and love for each of us and the world!

Easter: A Sermon on Resurrection and Freedom

I preached this sermon on Sunday April 5, 2015 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Outer Banks.

Story: excerpt from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Reading: "Maybe" by Mary Oliver

Easter

Happy Easter, Happy Passover and Happy Spring!  Today we celebrate re-birth, resurrection!  The theme of life, death and rebirth is a recurring one in religion and in life.  We know this cycle.  We are born, we live and throughout the life we have periods of joy, loss and joy again and at the end of our life we die and then what happens, well, we don’t know for sure. We do know that our stories and our love continue to live in the hearts and minds of those who have known us.

I love this particular scene that I shared earlier from the Harry Potter books. J.K. Rowling throughout the series makes a powerful commentary on life and death.  There is no magic that can bring back the dead, that even the magic that claims to, the Resurrection stone, brings back only a shadow of the loved one,  and finally that there are far worse things than death.  In this particular scene, Harry’s willingness to accept death, all the while loving life, stands in stark contrast to Lord Voldemort who is so fearful of dying that he seeks to make himself immortal by splitting his soul through the death of others.  Here Harry hovers in between, given a choice between going on and returning to continue the fight.  His willingness to die has destroyed the horcrux within him.  Earlier in this scene Dumbledore explains how Voldemort dismissed love and the deep magic that is embedded within it and it was his undoing.  Harry chooses to come back, continues to risk his life to finally defeat one who has wrought so much suffering.  Harry does not shrink away from living and loving. He knows there will be losses and in fact more beloved friends lose their lives in the final battle with Voldemort.

I particularly love Dumbledore’s line that what makes you think it isn't real because it is in your mind.  So often when it comes to the Easter story, or the Passover story, or the Christmas story, or the birth of Buddha – we ask “is it real? Is it true?” and I think in doing so we miss the point.  The problem I have with those who read the Bible literally is that it misses the point.  The Bible stories were not told and re-told and then written down to provide a factual account of events – they were stories meant to speak to deeper truths about life, about people and about how we are to live. We all know that the Harry Potter books are not “true” but we know they contain “truth.”  Like the truth that it is our choices that define us, far more than our abilities, that death is not the worst thing that can happen to us.  The resurrection story tells us about how Jesus impacted those who knew him and those that followed.  For the speakers, hearers and writers of these stories – it was not about providing a factual account – it was about saying that they experienced something in the life and death of Jesus that profoundly changed their lives.  Jesus showed us a life lived out fully and in the remembrance of that fullness has shown that death is not the worst thing, perhaps even conquered death.

Jesus advocating for a kingdom not of wealth and power but one of servanthood, where the first shall be last and the last shall be first, he lived in service to the least of these and for that he was too big a threat to Rome. Jesus gave people hope, he loved them, he fed them, he healed them.  In the midst of despair, horrible oppression under Rome he loved them, he welcomed them, he welcomed everyone – even the despised ones. The hope he inspired was a threat to Roman power and empire.  Much like Moses inspiring the Israelites – demanding that Pharaoh let his people go, Jesus preached hope and freedom and love.  Powers of empire, money and oppression do not want those who are less than to have too much hope or consider too deeply that things could be different.  The message of Easter is that despite the killing of Jesus, they did not stop believing in his message of love and hope.  The story of Passover is one of liberation, freedom from the bondage of slavery.

We have been hearing in the news lately a great deal about freedom, particularly religious freedom. This freedom is not the freedom to live fully and deeply but rather the freedom from – the freedom from having to make difficult choices, to be challenged, to engage the diversity of life.  Ultimately, laws like those Indiana recently passed seek to provide shelter for certain segments of the community to NOT serve or engage with those who are different on the grounds that to do so would violate their deeply held religious beliefs.  Freedom from is only one kind of freedom and in fact, imprisons those who embrace it into a world that is small where love is scarce.

Yet this is not the freedom that Moses was preaching or Jesus was preaching.  Jesus and Moses preached a freedom to live fully engaged, a life engaged with all sorts of people, all sorts of life.  For the Israelites they were led out of slavery in Egypt to find their Promised Land – a land flowing with milk and honey.  Jesus preached a renewed land, a renewed kingdom where the hungry would be fed, the prisoners freed, the sick healed.  This is a freedom into life and into living.  These so-called religious freedom laws are saying that somehow religious people need to be insulated from the full diversity of humanity and human life. That somehow in encountering those who live or believe differently it is a direct threat to their own religious faith implying that even their faith is too small for the world.

Mary Oliver tells us today how often we miss the soul, the spark of the divine even when it is right in front of us.  Even when the sea is calmed, the multitude is fed, we often get too caught up in the day to day to notice. In the Passover Seder, the song Dayenu, It would have been enough, we are reminded that if only God had brought us out of slavery, or just given Shabbat, or just given the Torah – it would have been enough. The song reminds us that all of life is filled with blessing – the blessing of liberation, of rest, of truth – there is an abundance  - it is more than enough. The Passover reminds us of the abundance of life, the abundance of the sacred.  Easter too reminds us that Jesus’ life and ministry in and of itself was wondrous and enough – what is even more is that it lived on in the lives of those who loved him who shared what they had learned.  Our job is to pay attention; to not miss the moments of the holy, the sacred.  Our work is to have eyes to see the abundance of blessings and beauty around us and to help others to see as well.

So today in the midst of Easter and Passover, I invite us into freedom. May we like Harry realize that we have a choice.  The freedom and choice we have is to embrace all of life – with its wide diversity, with its pain, its joy, laughter and loss.  May we embrace the work to make the world more just, more loving, a more free place for all.  “When that which is different that comes over the threshold” – May we embrace it rather than turning away muttering.

May we live knowing that there are far worse fates than dying. May our lives be fully lived!

Celebrations of Light

I preached this sermon on Sunday December 14 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Outer Banks.

Texts
Story for All Ages: Hanukkah Song - Adele Parody by Ash Soular
Reading: Isaiah 40: 1-5
40 Comfort, O comfort my people,
    says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that she has served her term,
    that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
    double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
5 Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
    and all people shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Sermon: Celebrations of Light

At this time of shortening days and long nights, we are blessed with an abundance of celebrations of light – Advent, Hanukkah, Solstice, Kwanza.  All of them put at the center the lighting of candles – to remember, to acknowledge and to celebrate both the darkness and the light.

While these festivals share the lighting of the candles over a period of days, 4 weeks for Advent, 8 nights of Hanukkah and 7 nights of Kwanza, each has its own story and context. Hannukah celebrates the Maccabees victory over the Greeks who had forced the Jewish people to denounce their religion, to worship the Greek Gods and banned all Jewish festivals including Shabbat.  The Greeks had turned the Jewish temple into a temple for Zeus.  The Maccabees refused to follow the Greek laws and waged a rebellion. The first miracle of Hanukkah is that the small group of Maccabees were successful in their revolt against the Greek.  The second miracle is the one we are more familiar with – the oil used for the eternal light – a symbol still in use in Jewish congregations today, lasted for 8 days rather than just the 1 day it should have.  The celebration for Hanukkah is found not in the Torah, psalms or other portions of the Hebrew Bible but rather in the Talmud.  It is also associated, as many Jewish holidays are, with specific foods – namely fried food.  Latkes or fried potatoes is one at least I grew up knowing about and just last year I learned that fried, jelly filled donuts are a traditional food in Israel.  It is a story of the celebration of freedom after overcoming one’s oppressors. It is refusing to sacrifice one’s faith and identity to the will of the majority.  It is a reminder that the freedom to worship and believe as one chooses for many has been challenging and a hard won fight.  Even here in a country where we affirm the basic right to worship or not as one chooses we know that we as Americans have not always lived up to assuring that fundamental freedom.  All too often some want freedom of religion to mean only their religion.

Advent does not so much mark the actual event of Jesus’ birth but rather is a season of hopeful anticipation leading to Christmas.  Christmas is actually a 12 day holiday in the Christian calendar. Advent is a joyful, hope-filled season.  This reading from Isaiah, which in Christianity is interpreted as foretelling the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, in which the people are longing for a Messiah to deliver them, to save them.  On this third Sunday of Advent, as the joyous occasion of Jesus’ birth is getting closer, a pink candle is lit for joy.  The questions for advent are about what are you waiting and hoping for; for what does your soul yearn.  This season of preparation in the Christian tradition is not about shopping for presents or putting up the tree, rather it is a preparation of the spirit, a time of joyful meditation and reflection of hope; of the light shining in the darkness.

Kwanza is the newest of these December holidays. It is an African American holiday which celebrates family, community and culture. Each day a candle is lit to represents a different principle inspired by a communitarian African philosophy. These principles of unity, self determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith are rooted in freedom, pride in African American identity and culture and a call to live the best life one can live.

All of these celebrations are dated around the winter solstice. It may be easy now with our electric lights to forget how dark winter was and how frightening.  There were no crops to harvest, one had to hope that enough had been stored away to last through the cold, long winter.  In fact, in Latin … ‘Solstice means the sun standing still.’ As the days got shorter and there was less and less light, it makes sense that people would want to find ways to remember, to entice and to welcome back the light. After all the solstice marks the turning of the year, after the solstice, once again the days grow longer and while many months of winter remain, the days will be brighter and longer reminding us that spring and summer will once again return.

It is critical for as Unitarian Universalists, to be mindful of the ways we think about and acknowledge these various celebrations.  It is important to remember the stories and history that come with these celebrations. For example, do we as predominately white congregation find it appropriate to light the Kwanza candles that celebrate the hard earned, not yet over fight for equality and freedom of African Americans?  It is critical that we not just pull out the parts of these holidays we like and ignore the stories. Rather our quest is for deeper understanding and connection.

So what are we yearning for in this season of light and darkness? What seeds are planted deep within in the darkness waiting to take root and burst forth?

Today where do we find those who cannot believe and worship in their own way even here in this country where we celebrate religious freedom and tolerance?  Where are people fighting for the freedom to worship as they please?  What are the limits of our collective religious tolerance?  As the Jewish people remember and mark the freedom over the oppression of the Greeks and reclaiming of their sacred space, are we in our own lives respecting the beliefs and worship space of others?

As we reflect on these celebrations of light we can think about what they have to teach us, to share with us which knowing that they call us into a deeper understanding of these traditions. Our third source states that our living tradition draws on “Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life” and our fourth source states “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves” so what wisdom are we gaining?

One of the draws for me to Unitarian Universalism was this inclusivity of the world’s religions including an equality of sacred texts.  For me, it is yearning to understand, to be informed, to seek wisdom. The challenge is to do so with respect of the traditions and people whose religions these are. It is to be a respectful visitor and learner, the pilgrim who humbles herself to listen and to seek to understand rather than to be understood.

So as we read the text from Isaiah of a people crying out for comfort, for deliverance, we ask how are we making a pathway for justice, for peace?  How are we preparing not just our homes, but our hearts this holiday season? How will you celebrate?  What are your most cherished traditions – spiritual and secular? For me I love sitting in the living room with all the lights out except those on the tree; the small lights of the tree illuminating the darkness.  I love our family baking traditions of sugar cookies, fudge and usually a few new items to try.  For me the holidays are about being with my family, welcoming back the light and reflecting on the year that is coming to a close.  I know that yearning for a smooth, clear path as one year closes and another begins. I know that darkness can seem overwhelming and to be searching for that one small light to keep hope burning.  What is it you are hoping for in this season of darkness and light?  What are your favorite traditions?  Will you put up a tree? Light the menorah?  Eat latkes?  What candles are you lighting? How are you honoring the communities and cultures of which you are a part this season? Make a point of sharing your stories and traditions with others in our community.

As a community we lift up and celebrate the diversity of traditions here – Jewish, Christian, pagan, humanist.  We seek deeper wisdom and understanding. We come together in recognition of our common search for meaning and for truth.  So however you celebrate this December, may it be filled with love, joy and wisdom.

May it be so!

God's Love is for All

I preached this sermon at the Community Wide Thanksgiving Service. This ecumenical service was sponsored by the Dare County Ministerial Association and took place at Outer Banks Presbyterian Church.

Readings:

Deuteronomy 8: 7-18
For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the LORD your God for the good land that he has given you. Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.

Luke 17: 11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean.Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

Sermon: God's Love is for All

“And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”  These words come from Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863, Thanksgiving Day Proclamation.  These words resonate with the words of Moses from our reading from Deuteronomy. Moses reminds the people to remain humble, to remain faithful to the covenant.  They are as relevant today as they were in 1863.

Deuteronomy is the fifth and final book of the Torah.   It is book that chronicles all of Moses instruction and teaching as the Israelite people are about to enter the Promised Land.  Just before the passage we read, Moses tells the people that God tested them in the wilderness, provided for them that even their clothes did not wear out nor their feet swell, during that entire forty year journey.  

This beautiful description of a land filled with abundance, with flowing water, plenty of fertile land and that none should be hungry, none will be in want.  I cannot help but think of the early explorers and settlers from England, France, and Spain who arrived on this new to them land, praising its abundance.  What must it had been like for those first English explorers landing at Roanoke Island seeing the beauty of this place for the first time?  Do you remember your first time to the Outer Banks?  Do you remember how you fell in love with this place?  I am a newcomer to this island and the first thing I say to anyone about this place is how beautiful it is, how breathtaking and awe inspiring.  

How much more the promise of a new land must have felt to the Israelites?  They had suffered under slavery, they had traveled for forty years in the wilderness suffering hunger, lived on a diet of Manna - a new food to them that must have gotten very tiring after a while.  How good it must have been to hear the promise of a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing. A land where you will lack nothing – Moses addressing the whole of the people of Israel and promising that not one of them would go hungry, that all would have not just enough, but abundance.

Moses also reminds the people that this abundance is not of their own making. He realizes that once they are comfortable in their fine homes with their crops and livestock that they may begin to think that what all of this is of their own making.  They will come to believe that they did it themselves and forget that they did not.  Moses reminds the people to be humble, to be grateful and to serve God, keeping God’s commandments.  What also strikes me in this passage is that the promise of abundance is made to all of the Israelite people – not a select few, not a few of the tribes but not the others – the promise of bread, figs, olive and honey is given to all of the people of Israel.  God’s love and care is abundant, freely given. 

So now let us turn to the reading from Luke.  Jesus is walking along the road and this group of ten lepers cries out to him for mercy.  They keep their distance as required by law. Leprosy is a terrible disease that causes severe physical discomfort and pain.  The skin is disfigured and painful. In Biblical times, lepers were required to live outside of cities as to not spread the condition.  It was a condition that resulted in both physical pain and social isolation, yet this group of ten calls out, asking for Jesus to have mercy on them.  They asked for mercy which for them would be rare and precious as they were feared and avoided by most.  Jesus sends them to the priest.  Along the way they are healed, the terrible pain and social isolation is to end.  It is the Samaritan, the foreigner, the despised one, the despised among the despised that comes back and offers thanks.  It is only at this point that Jesus asks any questions.  Were not all 10 healed?  Why is it only you the Samaritan that came to give thanks and praise?  

Again the message that God’s love is abundant, is for all – even the despised, even the despised of the despised.  Notice too that Jesus does not say well I am just going to un-heal those ungrateful 9.  The point of the story is that the unlikely one, the one outcast by humans that offers the thanks and praise. The point here, like in the story of the Good Samaritan is that God’s love cannot be boxed in, cannot be contained by human standards and judgments.

God’s love is universal, it is for each and every single person.  God’s love is so encompassing, so abundant, so generous that it exceeds all our human distinctions.  Jesus does not stop to ask what the lepers had done for themselves.  He doesn’t ask them to prove their worthiness, anymore than distinctions were made among the Israelites entering the Promised Land.

Lincoln in his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation lists the many blessings in the land despite being in the midst of the Civil War.  The Civil War caused all sorts of hardship, pitting families against families and tore America literally apart.  Yet in the midst of this terrible moment, Lincoln lists many blessings – good crops, successful mining, peace with foreign nations and a growth of population. Lincoln also reminds the American people that our bounty and abundance come not from ourselves, is not self-generating but rather the gift of God. It is to God we need to be humble and offer thanks. It is a call to humility.  Lincoln also talks about the effects of the war on people from both sides … he calls for compassion for all not just those on the side of Union. How often in our country today, do we focus on the divisions rather than having compassion for all? How often do we believe that we have created our own success, our own abundance? How often do we turn our backs on those who we see as less than? Today, we celebrate the Thanksgiving that reminds us to reach across our differences and to offer gratitude for the abundance that we have been gifted in this place and time. We also grieve for those who lost their land, their freedom and their lives in the process of creating the country we know today. We remember that the giving part of Thanksgiving reminds us to give back especially to those who are considered the outcast.

On this Thanksgiving Holiday may we offer humble thanks for the gifts in our lives. May we remember the generosity and abundance of God’s love. Then out of that place of humility and gratitude, may we offer the abundant love of God to a world hurting and deeply in need of healing. May we offer the love of God which passes all understanding to each and every person we meet, including the despised one.  May we follow the life of Jesus who offered mercy, offered love, offered compassion to those who asked, without question, without hesitation.  In this spirit of God’s abundant love may we offer our humble thanks whether we are spending this holiday here in the Outer Banks or away from here. May we bring a spirit of humility to our homes, to our families, our community and our world.  The world needs our humble witness to the abundant power of God’s love! 

May it be so!

Religious and Spiritual Humility - Revisited

As I get ready to preach at an Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service this Sunday I thought this particular post from December 2013 would be appropriate.  I need to remember my own humility as I preach this Sunday afternoon!

In this season of travel and spending time with a diversity of family and friends I hope this post provides some helpful ways to embrace those who do not think and believe as we do.  In particular, with the rampant and frankly vile divisiveness in our politics right now, humility would go a long way to bring healing!

Hope you are having a wonderful Friday!

As always I welcome your comments and feedback!

Blessings,
Margaret

Earlier this year I read this article on When White People Don't Know They're Being White.  The author is a white Christian and she talks about the importance of cultural humility rather than cultural competency. It is a place where people can make mistakes and keep learning.  As I was reflecting on the article, I thought about the need for humility in so many areas of life, but in particular I wanted to talk about Religious and Spiritual humility. 

As I read the news, particularly the latest about the Duck Dynasty star's racist and homophobic comments, that seem to boil down to a lack of humility about one's faith and belief.  There seems to be this understanding that in order for my faith, my beliefs to be right, everyone's faith and belief must be like mine. For if I were to allow for the possibility that other faiths, other religions, other cultures, have wisdom, beauty and truth, then mine might be wrong, I might be wrong.  We seem to need to be right, more than we need to be in relationship with one another.

And this is not just a fault of the conservative right, they just seem to have a very noisy voice in our public square.  Yet I have found this same arrogance, this same lack of humility in the liberal religious, spiritual circles that I inhabit.  I have heard and cringed at the comments that express how much more enlightened, welcoming, justice seeking we are than our conservative counterpoints.  Some atheists have claimed reason as their own, dismissing all people of faith and their belief in a force beyond ourselves as unreasonable and bound to believing in six impossible things before breakfast.  I have read articles like this one, that no part of science is based on any kind of faith and that to be a person of science and faith is an anathema.

Some express this arrogance as a desire to reduce all the religion and spirituality down to some simple truths like the Golden Rule.  Yet part of the beauty of the diversity of the world's religions and spiritualities is that they are in fact different. I do think that finding commonalities is an important piece of building tolerance and understanding, yet it is only a first step. This distilling down of diversity to a few simple universal truths, allows me to stay comfortably where I am and not be deeply challenged.  While it may produce a certain level of tolerance on my part, it will never generate deep respect, nor understanding and it is far from love. Spiritual humility calls upon us to accept that we may not have all the answers, that we might be wrong.

In Unitarian Universalist circles, I see two ways this religious arrogance operates.  The first is in the how much more enlightened we are then those in other religions, particularly Christianity. There is still far too much "anything but Christian" among us even as acceptance of theism, the language of reverence and an embrace of ritual has become common in our communities.  Secondly, it is this notion that because in our six sources we embrace the truth of the world's religions, that somehow we are uniquely and best suited to lead interfaith/multi-faith work.  Again, it is not enough to just assume all religions boil down to the same universal truth and just because we embrace all these perspectives does not mean that we are fluent in them all.  Also affirming that there is wisdom and truth to be found in the world's religions does not give us the right to decide to appropriate rituals and holidays of particular religions for our own uses, or that somehow we can bring a reasoned faith to lead multi-faith efforts.

Now this is not to say that UUs cannot do multi-faith work - many UUs do such work every day.  The work they do is grounded and powerful.  Yet anyone who has ever engaged in multi-faith work knows it requires deep humility.  It requires that first I understand myself and my own faith. I have to first know deeply who I am and who I belong to as a person of faith and then I have to listen deeply.  It is humble work. We have to acknowledge that despite our embrace of the world's religions, there is no way we can be deeply competent in the faith, beliefs, practices and customs of all those religions.  We must begin with "we don't know."  From this unknowing, can be the beginning of deep wisdom, deep respect and deep love. When I can accept that openness to other traditions does not equal knowledge or experience of that tradition, then I can begin to walk with another in the work of discovering our unique journeys and traditions ... that requires humility.

Being humble doesn't mean that I have to minimize or reject my own faith, my own sense of the holy, what I know or who I am or that I lack conviction.  Rather humility means that I say "I don't know it all" and that my experience is not everyone's experience. It is really letting go of the need to be right. It is being able to allow for the possibility that another perspective, another faith, another person might also have access to the holy, to beauty, to truth. In the multi-faith work that I continue to do, I am always struck by how much deeper my own faith becomes when I really listen to another's experience of their own faith without trying to translate it into my own experience or immediately dismiss their experience. It is certainly important to acknowledge where our faith leads us to different conclusions, different values but if we do so with humility then perhaps we can stop becoming such threats to each other and find the holy between us.

Spiritual and religious humility, one might say any humility, is sadly lacking. In our need to have good and bad, right and wrong, we seem not be able to hold paradox, to hold that there may be more than one way, more than one good, more than one truth.  Maybe at this point, nature has something to show us, just as we turn the corner to the return of the sun, of more light and the promise of spring and summer, winter begins here in the northern hemisphere.  A deep paradox holds, just as the days begin ever so slowly to get longer, we will experience the cold of winter (well theoretically anyway as I sit writing this in 70+ degree weather). Spring and summer will still feel a long way off as we deal with rain and snow, layers of clothing to stay warm - coats, scarves and gloves.  Yet nature tells us that slowly but surely spring is making its way here. Slowly the sun will come to warm the air.  As we embrace the practice of spiritual humility, let's embrace the paradox of knowing and holding to our own sense of faith, our own experience of the holy while making room for others to hold different beliefs, different experiences.  May we open ourselves to seeking not to know but to understand, respect and love those differences.  May we embrace our unknowingness and learn to live easily with it.

May you and those you hold dear experience blessing during this rich season of holidays!  Blessed Be!

Submission and Fasting: Deepening Our Understanding

I preached this sermon on Sunday July 27, 2014 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Outer Banks.

Texts:
Story:  “Mullah Nasruddin Feeds His Coat” Middle Eastern Islamic folk tale
Reading: "Ramadan Reflections to Welcome the Muslim Month of Fasting" Huffington Post

The month of Ramadan, the ninth month in the Islamic calendar, is about to come to an end on Monday evening - it ends with the sighting of the crescent moon.  As we begin to dive deeper into understanding of Islam and fasting let's begin with some basic facts about Ramadan and Islam.  Islam runs on a lunar calendar like Judaism.  Unlike Judaism, Islam does not add leap months to keep the holidays at approximately the same time of year each year so Ramadan can occur during any season of the year.  

Fasting during the month of Ramadan is an obligation found in the Qur'an and is one of the five pillars or obligations of the Islamic faith. The other four pillars or obligations are Shahadah - belief that there is only one God and Mohammad is his messenger, Salat or ritual prayer 5 times a day; Zakat to give 2.5% of one's savings to the poor and needy and to make a pilgrimage to Mecca once in one's life if one is able.  

Ramadan is a festive and sacred time, a time of both solitary practice and communal celebration.  While each person conducts the fast individually, families and communities gather before sunrise and sunset to share a meal.  The breaking of the fast each evening, iftar, is a celebratory meal that by tradition begins with the eating of dates.

  

As I was preparing for this Sunday I once again consulted with friends on Facebook about what they would want all of us as Unitarian Universalists to know about Ramadan.  My friend Kim, who is not Islamic herself but her husband and sons are and she fasts with her family during Ramadan, wrote " Ramadan is a beautiful spiritual practice. It's time set apart for contemplation, communion with God, focus on family, and a deepened empathy with those who regularly go without. It should not be practiced with emphasis on the sacrifice, rather with great appreciation for the abundance in our lives! It does take effort and it can be difficult, but that makes it all the more meaningful..."

Another, Ali Faruk from  Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA offered me his sermon called "Keeping  Your Soul Happy."  During Ramadan the body fasts so that the soul can be fed.  He preached "I encourage myself and I encourage you to pay careful attention to our souls. I remind myself and I remind you to never fall into the temptation of feeding our bodies in an attempt to satisfy the soul. I remind myself and I remind you to always be diligent in our worship, because in our worship (ibadah) as a metric, as a measurement for the health of our soul and the need to bring our lives back into balance."

It can seem contrary to us here in the west to think of fasting all day everyday without even water as being celebratory.  In a culture that often glorifies excess and impatience in getting one's needs and desires met, fasting all day can seem overwhelming and we wonder why would anyone do it.  Yet fasting is a central spiritual practice in most if not all the world religions. Judaism has six days of fasting during the year - not just Yom Kippur. The second most important fasting day within Judaism was July 15, overlapping this year with Ramadan.  It marks the destruction of both the first and second temples and falls within a three week period of mourning.  While within Christianity the practice has been greatly diminished, it is a part of the tradition.  Roman Catholics fast only a couple of days out of the year by consuming only one full meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstain from meat on those days and every Friday during Lent.   Fasting is a long standing spiritual practice throughout the world.

Both Islam and Judaism exempt the children and those who are ill or pregnant from the obligation to fast.  If a person is not well and cannot fast on a particular day during Ramadan, they can make up the day of fasting when they are well.  

In our very individually oriented culture it can seem strange to us to be connected with communities around the world. I have to say one of the things I miss about being Roman Catholic or even Episcopalian was the being part of a worldwide religion. I remember going to Mass in Switzerland during my post-college whirlwind Europe trip.  I didn't understand a word of the liturgy yet I was welcome there, I belonged. It didn't matter that I could not say the responses or sing, I was within my faith community, these were my people.  

Spiritual practices like fasting build a sense of community through common practice.  Muslims around the world are fasting together during this month.  I would imagine that fasting on one's own for even one day would be challenging without support and nearly impossible for a month. Yet a sense of being part of a worldwide practice, the knowledge that one is in community with people around the globe would be inspiring and motivation to keep going. It is also a sense of tradition, in which each one is connected with all those who are presently fasting and with all the generations of Muslims who have gone before.  Also each night the fast is broken in community, in prayer.  The day of fasting is celebrated with a common meal, giving something to look forward to after a long day.  Like Nasrudin in our story, who longs for the delicious feast awaiting him and even more the connections with others, to be in community after a hard day of work and fasting.

While we do not have a strong tradition of shared practice and even a certain disdain for tradition, this is slowly changing.  Over time we as UU's have developed more of a sense of shared practice - things like the symbol of the Chalice and lighting a chalice during worship and at meetings; the flower communion and water communion.  We have discovered a power in shared ritual and practice.  

So let us turn our attention to submission.  Submission is a notion that we both as Americans and as Unitarian Universalists struggle with.  After all it connotes a relinquishment of free will and thought.  It can bring notions of blind obedience to authority like the colonies before the American Revolution. Yet in Islam submission is not to secular authority, it is submission to the Holy, to the Spirit. Yet we religious liberals, we who do not have a sense of shared belief, many of us having no belief in a transcendent deity, struggle with the notion of submission.  Our sense of faith instead is in humanity, in human action, in not submitting.

Submission, as I see it, is the understanding that we are not in control.  It is the acceptance that things happen outside of our control and no matter how much we may plan and prepare, life will happen.  These can be unexpected gifts of joy and unspeakable sorrow.  Right now there is plenty going on in this world that we here may feel like we have very little control of.  The on-going conflict in Gaza, the kidnapping of school girls in Nigeria, Ukraine, poverty and on-going inequality here in the United States, the gridlock of our political system, the arrival of unaccompanied children at the borders of the United States fleeing violence and poverty.  Now these are not the actions of a transcendent deity and yet they are also not actions of any one person.  Rather they are the collective results of many choices and lack of choices.  Submission reminds us that we are not in charge, not in control.  It is that sense of transcendence and awe that comes with staring into the night sky and realizing that we are one small dot in a large and amazing universe.  Submission is that acknowledgement and amazement that life exists, that we live and breathe and love and none of that happens because we made it happen.

There is a freedom and rest in submission.  Throughout the Hebrew and Christians scriptures there is a call to submit, to surrender.  There is longing from the writers for rest, to set down the burden.  When we set down the burden, in a paradoxical fashion we have more to give to helping fix it. If I let go that I am in control, then suddenly I can be freed to act.  If I accept that I cannot do everything, then suddenly I am free to do what I can, to use what I have to help. If I stop, set down the burden and look up, I can once again be blessed by the amazement of creation, of the world and universe around me.

For Muslims, Ramadan sets aside an entire month to feed the soul, to focus on surrender and submission.  In submitting to the obligation to fast, there is an opening to slow down, to pay attention, to intentionally gather together in community.  As Eboo Patel tells us in our reading, the fasting requires him to slow down, to stop going at "mach speed."  To do something we do every day, often with little attention, to do it intentionally, with care.  In going without food, one can remember those who do not have a choice but to go without. The discomfort brings home the discomfort experience daily by those who fast not by choice, not as submission but who have no choice.  

It is also an embodied practice - fasting means we are disciplining the body for the sake of a larger purpose. This is similar to those who fast for justice causes - like the recent Fast for Immigrant Families.  In choosing to intentionally fast whether for religious or justice reasons, we embody the practice. It is not just in our heads, it is not just about reason, it is now in our bodies.  

For Unitarian Universalists this is a growing edge.  We are a rational, heady people and that is a gift.  It is a wonderful thing to use the gift of our minds and intellect.  Yet we often struggle with being embodied people, with being human with feelings and desires.  James Luther Adams, UU Theologian and Minister, pointed this out as the greatest flaw in liberal religion - that human beings are not simply rational creatures.  For fasting is not rational - there is no rational reason to deny the body food and drink everyday for a month.  Oh we may fast for 8-12 hours for a medical test or surgery.  Yet on the surface, fasting makes no rational sense.  Yet throughout the world, people fast intentionally for religious and justice reasons.  They may fast for a day or a month. Prisoners have fasted to protest unjust imprisonment or treatment.  

As the month of Ramadan comes to an end, as the month is closed with feasting and celebrating throughout the world, let us reflect on what we may have to learn from Islam.  What might shared spiritual practice look like within our faith community?  What might submission mean for us?  

I will close with the words of Sarah Sayeed: "This Ramadan, may we strive to be as fully present as possible, experiencing our physical hunger and thirst as the soul’s yearning for divine nourishment. May we find new meaning in our daily prayers and be refreshed by extra supplications. May Muslim communities be as the flowering trees of well-tended orchards, growing in abundance the fruits of patience, kindness, compassion and love."  May all our communities be as the flowering trees of well-tended orchards, growing in abundance the fruits of patience, kindness, compassion and love.

May it be so.

Religious and Spiritual Humility

Earlier this year I read this article on When White People Don't Know They're Being White.  The author is a white Christian and she talks about the importance of cultural humility rather than cultural competency. It is a place where people can make mistakes and keep learning.  As I was reflecting on the article, I thought about the need for humility in so many areas of life, but in particular I wanted to talk about Religious and Spiritual humility.

As I read the news, particularly the latest about the Duck Dynasty star's racist and homophobic comments, that seem to boil down to a lack of humility about one's faith and belief.  There seems to be this understanding that in order for my faith, my beliefs to be right, everyone's faith and belief must be like mine. For if I were to allow for the possibility that other faiths, other religions, other cultures, have wisdom, beauty and truth, then mine might be wrong, I might be wrong.  We seem to need to be right, more than we need to be in relationship with one another.

And this is not just a fault of the conservative right, they just seem to have a very noisy voice in our public square.  Yet I have found this same arrogance, this same lack of humility in the liberal religious, spiritual circles that I inhabit.  I have heard and cringed at the comments that express how much more enlightened, welcoming, justice seeking we are than our conservative counterpoints.  Some atheists have claimed reason as their own, dismissing all people of faith and their belief in a force beyond ourselves as unreasonable and bound to believing in six impossible things before breakfast.  I have read articles like this one, that no part of science is based on any kind of faith and that to be a person of science and faith is an anathema.

Some express this arrogance as a desire to reduce all the religion and spirituality down to some simple truths like the Golden Rule.  Yet part of the beauty of the diversity of the world's religions and spiritualities is that they are in fact different. I do think that finding commonalities is an important piece of building tolerance and understanding, yet it is only a first step. This distilling down of diversity to a few simple universal truths, allows me to stay comfortably where I am and not be deeply challenged.  While it may produce a certain level of tolerance on my part, it will never generate deep respect, nor understanding and it is far from love. Spiritual humility calls upon us to accept that we may not have all the answers, that we might be wrong.

In Unitarian Universalist circles, I see two ways this religious arrogance operates.  The first is in the how much more enlightened we are then those in other religions, particularly Christianity. There is still far too much "anything but Christian" among us even as acceptance of theism, the language of reverence and an embrace of ritual has become common in our communities.  Secondly, it is this notion that because in our six sources we embrace the truth of the world's religions, that somehow we are uniquely and best suited to lead interfaith/multi-faith work.  Again, it is not enough to just assume all religions boil down to the same universal truth and just because we embrace all these perspectives does not mean that we are fluent in them all.  Also affirming that there is wisdom and truth to be found in the world's religions does not give us the right to decide to appropriate rituals and holidays of particular religions for our own uses, or that somehow we can bring a reasoned faith to lead multi-faith efforts.

Now this is not to say that UUs cannot do multi-faith work - many UUs do such work every day.  The work they do is grounded and powerful.  Yet anyone who has ever engaged in multi-faith work knows it requires deep humility.  It requires that first I understand myself and my own faith. I have to first know deeply who I am and who I belong to as a person of faith and then I have to listen deeply.  It is humble work. We have to acknowledge that despite our embrace of the world's religions, there is no way we can be deeply competent in the faith, beliefs, practices and customs of all those religions.  We must begin with "we don't know."  From this unknowing, can be the beginning of deep wisdom, deep respect and deep love. When I can accept that openness to other traditions does not equal knowledge or experience of that tradition, then I can begin to walk with another in the work of discovering our unique journeys and traditions ... that requires humility.

Being humble doesn't mean that I have to minimize or reject my own faith, my own sense of the holy, what I know or who I am or that I lack conviction.  Rather humility means that I say "I don't know it all" and that my experience is not everyone's experience. It is really letting go of the need to be right. It is being able to allow for the possibility that another perspective, another faith, another person might also have access to the holy, to beauty, to truth. In the multi-faith work that I continue to do, I am always struck by how much deeper my own faith becomes when I really listen to another's experience of their own faith without trying to translate it into my own experience or immediately dismiss their experience. It is certainly important to acknowledge where our faith leads us to different conclusions, different values but if we do so with humility then perhaps we can stop becoming such threats to each other and find the holy between us.

Spiritual and religious humility, one might say any humility, is sadly lacking. In our need to have good and bad, right and wrong, we seem not be able to hold paradox, to hold that there may be more than one way, more than one good, more than one truth.  Maybe at this point, nature has something to show us, just as we turn the corner to the return of the sun, of more light and the promise of spring and summer, winter begins here in the northern hemisphere.  A deep paradox holds, just as the days begin ever so slowly to get longer, we will experience the cold of winter (well theoretically anyway as I sit writing this in 70+ degree weather). Spring and summer will still feel a long way off as we deal with rain and snow, layers of clothing to stay warm - coats, scarves and gloves.  Yet nature tells us that slowly but surely spring is making its way here. Slowly the sun will come to warm the air.  As we embrace the practice of spiritual humility, let's embrace the paradox of knowing and holding to our own sense of faith, our own experience of the holy while making room for others to hold different beliefs, different experiences.  May we open ourselves to seeking not to know but to understand, respect and love those differences.  May we embrace our unknowingness and learn to live easily with it.

May you and those you hold dear experience blessing during this rich season of holidays!  Blessed Be!

Finding in Unexpected Places

This past July I attended a week long retreat at Pendle Hill called "The Art of Spiritual Discernment" with Nancy Bieber.  I had long wanted to attend a program at Pendle Hill and this one spoke to me strongly.

It was a wonderful week filled with insights.  I had expected it would be but what I did not expect is how I found there what I had long sought within Unitarian Universalism - a truly diverse group of souls, exploring spiritual questions together, respectful of each other's differences and learning from one another.  I have kept in touch with this group, I have asked for their prayers, and held them in mine.  

I knew of Unitarian Universalism long before I joined or even attended a UU worship service.  While I was working at Catholic Charities in the early 1990's I used to walk into the San Francisco UU building.  They have beautiful tall slabs that speak to the equality of the Scriptures - that all are holy, all contain truth.  This is something I had long believed. 

This is what I had hoped to find in joining Unitarian Universalism - a place where people of different beliefs, different backgrounds could risk sharing deeply together.  Yet it has been rare that I have found those places within in UUism I am sorry to say.  Occasionally in a covenant group or a one on one conversation but not generally as part of the whole culture of a congregation.  Too often I have found our congregations to be places of mere tolerance as long as one is not too vocal in one's beliefs.  Too often places where every religion except Christianity is welcome. Places where a great deal of time is spent watering things down to a lowest common denominator.  Often I as a religious leader censored myself before anyone else could - afraid that the words I might use would be too theistic, too Christian or too whatever.  

Yet at Pendle Hill here was this diverse group of people - Quaker, Baptist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, UU (I wasn't the only one) etc. We were diverse in age, diverse in why we had come - yet we were all searching to live our lives more faithfully - to listen to where the Spirit was calling to us. We were invited, actually instructed, to do our own translating - i.e., people were invited to speak using the language and words they were most comfortable with and it was up to each of us to translate it for ourselves.  It was amazing!  Yes people used words that wouldn't be mine and I didn't expect that person to change to meet my needs.  I was invited to take responsibility for my own spiritual understanding - not expect others to change to meet my needs.  It is what I expected to find within Unitarian Universalism but have found there only rarely. I too did not need to censor my words, afraid that they would offend or open up old wounds.

The potential of our UU faith is to offer places for diverse people to explore their faith together.  For that to happen each person needs to take responsibility for their own spiritual journey.  Each needs to do their own translating - and be curious and respectful when engaging with others.  We need to stop once and for all the everything but Christianity attitude that is still all too prevalent.  

It has been my experience that it is in progressive Christian communities that I have found the most respect for diversity.  Both Pendle Hill and Richmond Hill have offered a place for diverse people to gather without watering down their own identity.  They practice true radical hospitality.  They have provided places where I can explore myself, my faith.  I can be challenged in my faith by wrestling with the words of others.

I love the potential of Unitarian Universalism and yet I find myself longing for more actualizing of our potential.  I long for us to be a place of radical hospitality, curiosity and deep respect.  I long for us to speak deeply of who we are which may mean doing some work to figure that out.  I want us to embody revelation as open and on-going through curiosity and openness and a lot less of the "we don't believe...."  

It has been a joy to find what I have been looking for in places like Pendle Hill and Richmond Hill and now I long to find more of it where I had expected to find it ... within my chosen faith.