Like many this week, I have been on a roller coaster of emotions - the bombing at the Boston Marathon, the shameful failure of the Senate to pass universal background checks or an assault weapons ban and then waking up yesterday to the on-going search for the second suspect in the bombing after a night of gunfire and explosions. I have been telling people that I feel like I am at one of the moments in a dystopian novel where hope is lost and we just don't see how our heroine will survive. Maybe what we need right now is the hope a Katniss Everdeen or a Tris can give us.
So where do we find hope? In dystopian novels often the hope comes from the sheer strength of will and perseverance of our heroine - they just keep going, keep trying - even when they are certain they won't come out alive - they keep going. Yet the other thing about these heroines is that they are not alone - even when they think they are the only one - there is a community, a group that helps out, that is also persevering. A group that may have been working for a long time waiting for just the right moment and usually that group is the one our heroine would least expect. Who have been those people this week in Boston, in Washington, in our own communities?
To all those in Boston who stopped and helped the injured - the police, firefighters and other first responders - loved all the posts of Mister Rogers reminding us to look for helpers. There were also ordinary people who stopped to help - I love that their stories are being known and shared.
This week I am so grateful for Facebook - for people letting us know they are alright, for communities like Church of the Larger Fellowship that started streaming their on-line worship service on Monday night for those needing a break from the twenty-four hour news feed. For friends who posted words of inspiration and hope.
I am grateful to people like Gabbie Giffords whose amazing op-ed piece spoke to my own anger and the promise that this fight is not over. I am grateful to our President for his words - again speaking to my anger and disappointment and vow that this fight is not over. I am in awe of the parents of Newtown, who after speaking and sharing their profound grief, stood there at the White House, sending a clear message that they are not done, that this fight is not over.
There have been reminders over and over that the goodness of people outweighs the bad. That love is stronger than hate. That hope is stronger than fear.
It can be hard to find hope in the midst of a week like this but don't stop looking. Even if you believe it is lost, look again and never stop looking.
I will leave you with two videos that my daughter posted this week that gave me hope. One is the trailer for a film, Girls Rising which my daughter actually went to see yesterday. Another is a TED talk, Shane Koyczan: "To This Day" ... for the bullied and beautiful.
Where have you found hope this week?
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
Thinking About Sex and Consent
I have been following the news stories about sex, rape and consent. It is good that we are hearing about consent being more than just saying "no" but rather actively (some have even stated enthusiastically) saying "yes". All of this got me thinking about sex and sexual ethics. At the end of the day each of us will be faced with making ethical decisions for ourselves about sex, even those who choose not to ever in engage in sexual activity - that is making an ethical choice about one's sexuality (not the only ethical choice - but it is one choice that one can make).
Additionally in the background is the on-going debate about sexuality education in our schools and what should we be teaching. One side arguing for comprehensive sexuality education - which includes information about contraceptives and condom use to prevent STD's versus abstinence-only education - which presents abstinence until marriage as the only option.
My position is that we need comprehensive sexuality education. As one who has taken the training for all age levels for the Our Whole Lives program - elementary school through adult - this is not surprising. There is great value in the OWL curriculum and I am grateful that my daughter experienced the Junior High Level class this past fall. It is full of good exercises on values and making choices.
I have also been reflecting on all of this in light of my ow life experience. I actually had pretty good sexuality education from both my family and my all-girls Catholic high School. I was given comprehensive information about anatomy, contraception and STD's along with the strong message that sex was reserved for marriage. The only ethical, moral choice in Roman Catholicism was within a heterosexual marriage. By the time I got to college I had come to reject the notion that sex was only moral and ethical within heterosexual marriage, yet at first, I did not now what replaced that clear, ethical line in the sand.
It was not until college that I began dating and became faced with having to make ethical choices around the engagement in sexual activity. I began to realize that this clear ethical line in the sand was not really so clear in practice. What kinds of sexual activity might be permissible even if intercourse was off limits? Once I rejected that clear line in the sand, then under what conditions might sex be permissible for me?
I finally decided to have sex with someone that I had been sort of seeing on and off - I don't know that you could call it dating really. We were interested in each other. I said yes to sex because I could not think of a reason to say no. I liked this person, this person liked me, we were going to be safe - so what the heck?
Afterwards I realized that deciding to engage in sex should be about more than just "what the heck?" I realized then that I needed to have clear guidelines for myself about what my sexual ethics were going to be. I realized that there had to be something between "anything goes as long as it is consensual and safe" and "only within marriage." It was then that I really thought through what sex and sexuality meant to me, how I understood my own sexual ethics in light of my faith tradition and community. I needed to have a strong guiding set of principles that I could rely on when I was in situations where I needed to make choices about sex and what kinds of sexual activities I would choose to engage in or not. What I learned is that consent, my internal consent - the yes I say to me and then give to someone else - should be more than I can't think of a reason to say no.
So beyond the fights about sexuality education in our schools, at some point people are going to be faced with making ethical choices about sex. When our children are no longer children past the age that our OWL curriculum says they should wait, will they have the tools they need to know when to say 'yes' from a deep sense of authenticity? Will the information they received in Junior High be enough to make those choices, often in the moment? Will they hear a message beyond condoms or safe sex to avoid pregnancy or STDs?
I guess I don't want another young adult to do what I did - choose to say yes because I could not think of a reason to say no. I hope that our young adults view sharing themselves in this most intimate way as a gift and that the best 'yes' is one that is congruent with both their ethics and with their emotions.
Additionally in the background is the on-going debate about sexuality education in our schools and what should we be teaching. One side arguing for comprehensive sexuality education - which includes information about contraceptives and condom use to prevent STD's versus abstinence-only education - which presents abstinence until marriage as the only option.
My position is that we need comprehensive sexuality education. As one who has taken the training for all age levels for the Our Whole Lives program - elementary school through adult - this is not surprising. There is great value in the OWL curriculum and I am grateful that my daughter experienced the Junior High Level class this past fall. It is full of good exercises on values and making choices.
I have also been reflecting on all of this in light of my ow life experience. I actually had pretty good sexuality education from both my family and my all-girls Catholic high School. I was given comprehensive information about anatomy, contraception and STD's along with the strong message that sex was reserved for marriage. The only ethical, moral choice in Roman Catholicism was within a heterosexual marriage. By the time I got to college I had come to reject the notion that sex was only moral and ethical within heterosexual marriage, yet at first, I did not now what replaced that clear, ethical line in the sand.
It was not until college that I began dating and became faced with having to make ethical choices around the engagement in sexual activity. I began to realize that this clear ethical line in the sand was not really so clear in practice. What kinds of sexual activity might be permissible even if intercourse was off limits? Once I rejected that clear line in the sand, then under what conditions might sex be permissible for me?
I finally decided to have sex with someone that I had been sort of seeing on and off - I don't know that you could call it dating really. We were interested in each other. I said yes to sex because I could not think of a reason to say no. I liked this person, this person liked me, we were going to be safe - so what the heck?
Afterwards I realized that deciding to engage in sex should be about more than just "what the heck?" I realized then that I needed to have clear guidelines for myself about what my sexual ethics were going to be. I realized that there had to be something between "anything goes as long as it is consensual and safe" and "only within marriage." It was then that I really thought through what sex and sexuality meant to me, how I understood my own sexual ethics in light of my faith tradition and community. I needed to have a strong guiding set of principles that I could rely on when I was in situations where I needed to make choices about sex and what kinds of sexual activities I would choose to engage in or not. What I learned is that consent, my internal consent - the yes I say to me and then give to someone else - should be more than I can't think of a reason to say no.
So beyond the fights about sexuality education in our schools, at some point people are going to be faced with making ethical choices about sex. When our children are no longer children past the age that our OWL curriculum says they should wait, will they have the tools they need to know when to say 'yes' from a deep sense of authenticity? Will the information they received in Junior High be enough to make those choices, often in the moment? Will they hear a message beyond condoms or safe sex to avoid pregnancy or STDs?
I guess I don't want another young adult to do what I did - choose to say yes because I could not think of a reason to say no. I hope that our young adults view sharing themselves in this most intimate way as a gift and that the best 'yes' is one that is congruent with both their ethics and with their emotions.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Willingness versus Willfulness
As I was on retreat in March I started reading Decision Making and Spiritual Discernment by Nancy Bieber. One portion of the book that really caught my attention was her discussion of willingness versus willfulness. Willingness according to Bieber is saying yes and opening oneself to the Holy, to the mystery and to possibility It involves embracing a certain amount of unknowing and being open to possibility. Willfulness on the other hand is the "yes, but." It is the relying solely on oneself and one's own will - it is not open to mystery, to unknown, to a trusting that all will be well. (Bieber, pp.21-22) This fits nicely with Parker Palmer's definition of vocation, "Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening." (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, p. 4)
I find this distinction between willingness and willfulness very helpful to me as I have been trying to listen for vocation and remain open and willing to what is next. I realized on retreat that I have spent much of the last few years trying to will things to happen - not in an open, trying new things, see where they go sort of way but more of the if I just keep at this it will work out. I have spent years believing that it all depends on me. There is not much room for God there - not much room for the holy. I realized on retreat how much time I had spent resisting God, resisting trusting God, being open to God.
As I reflected further on this - not just as to it applied to me personally - I realized that Unitarian Universalism can strongly contribute to willfulness versus willingness. It is understandable really - often the language of relying on God or the Holy can come across as we don't have any responsibility or don't have to "do" anything - we just wait for God to take care of it. It can be misinterpreted to mean that God will just step in and clean up the messes we make (an attitude my father-in-law recently expressed in talking about climate change).
Yet in my own experience when it is only about my will or "yes but," there is a limiting of possibility. If I am saying "yes but" then I am saying no before I even fully explore the yes. Willingness is about openness and paying attention. I actually have to be more involved, more connected because if I am not then I may miss something. If I am not trying something - saying yes to something - then I may miss it all together. On the flip side if I am being willful then I am so busy trying to keep it all going, making it all happen then I may miss the very thing I am looking for. Minimally I am not looking for new possibility because I am so busy keeping the current situation going.
Our focus on the individual sometimes over the collective contributes to willfulness, a do it all on my own pattern. It is exhausting. No person can do it all - no parent, no minister, no worker of any kind, no person can do it all on their own. We can extend this to no congregation can do it all either. We are relational beings and our strength as human beings have been in the ways we have worked together. We also don't do the spiritual journey alone - we need one another and we need a connection to that which is bigger than ourselves - known by many names - Spirit of Life, God, source of all - the name is not nearly as important as it is to realize that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, possibly more popularly known for his work Self Reliance, writes in The Oversoul, "I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine." Willfulness gives us the illusion that we are in charge, that we are in control.
I think Unitarian Universalism as a whole could use a whole lot of willingness - of saying yes - and less willfulness Less we can do this all on our own and more being open to yes, to possibility. More connection with one another and less we each have to do it on our own. Clusters and regionalization could be a part of this. Can we live into it? Can we risk saying yes without the but? Can we learn to trust not just one another, but trust that we are part of something larger than ourselves?
It won't be easy. It isn't easy for me - to trust, to say yes, to remain open. It isn't easy to acknowledge that I am not in control and that I need God, I need other people. Yet right now, in the midst of this transition, I need God and I need others more than ever. I know that what is next for me won't come unless I risk, unless I am willing, unless I am open to the unexpected.
Each day may we say yes, embrace willingness. May we embrace mystery and the Holy. May we stop trying to hold it all together and trust that we are part of God, part of creation, part of something we can only catch glimpses of.
May it be so.
I find this distinction between willingness and willfulness very helpful to me as I have been trying to listen for vocation and remain open and willing to what is next. I realized on retreat that I have spent much of the last few years trying to will things to happen - not in an open, trying new things, see where they go sort of way but more of the if I just keep at this it will work out. I have spent years believing that it all depends on me. There is not much room for God there - not much room for the holy. I realized on retreat how much time I had spent resisting God, resisting trusting God, being open to God.
As I reflected further on this - not just as to it applied to me personally - I realized that Unitarian Universalism can strongly contribute to willfulness versus willingness. It is understandable really - often the language of relying on God or the Holy can come across as we don't have any responsibility or don't have to "do" anything - we just wait for God to take care of it. It can be misinterpreted to mean that God will just step in and clean up the messes we make (an attitude my father-in-law recently expressed in talking about climate change).
Yet in my own experience when it is only about my will or "yes but," there is a limiting of possibility. If I am saying "yes but" then I am saying no before I even fully explore the yes. Willingness is about openness and paying attention. I actually have to be more involved, more connected because if I am not then I may miss something. If I am not trying something - saying yes to something - then I may miss it all together. On the flip side if I am being willful then I am so busy trying to keep it all going, making it all happen then I may miss the very thing I am looking for. Minimally I am not looking for new possibility because I am so busy keeping the current situation going.
Our focus on the individual sometimes over the collective contributes to willfulness, a do it all on my own pattern. It is exhausting. No person can do it all - no parent, no minister, no worker of any kind, no person can do it all on their own. We can extend this to no congregation can do it all either. We are relational beings and our strength as human beings have been in the ways we have worked together. We also don't do the spiritual journey alone - we need one another and we need a connection to that which is bigger than ourselves - known by many names - Spirit of Life, God, source of all - the name is not nearly as important as it is to realize that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, possibly more popularly known for his work Self Reliance, writes in The Oversoul, "I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine." Willfulness gives us the illusion that we are in charge, that we are in control.
I think Unitarian Universalism as a whole could use a whole lot of willingness - of saying yes - and less willfulness Less we can do this all on our own and more being open to yes, to possibility. More connection with one another and less we each have to do it on our own. Clusters and regionalization could be a part of this. Can we live into it? Can we risk saying yes without the but? Can we learn to trust not just one another, but trust that we are part of something larger than ourselves?
It won't be easy. It isn't easy for me - to trust, to say yes, to remain open. It isn't easy to acknowledge that I am not in control and that I need God, I need other people. Yet right now, in the midst of this transition, I need God and I need others more than ever. I know that what is next for me won't come unless I risk, unless I am willing, unless I am open to the unexpected.
Each day may we say yes, embrace willingness. May we embrace mystery and the Holy. May we stop trying to hold it all together and trust that we are part of God, part of creation, part of something we can only catch glimpses of.
May it be so.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Spring is Slowly Coming
It has been a long winter and I am highly impatient for spring - both literally and figuratively. Many of us are longing for spring and are weary of waiting. Here in Williamsburg it is only 50 today (that is a good winter temp for this part of the world) and not very sunny. I know those that live in the Northeast are done with snow and ice and cold temperatures. I have even seen Facebook stories charging the Groundhog with lying and fraud (like this one from VA Tech Police with this caption: The Virginia Tech Police Department has been investigating formal reports of an early spring in 2013. After obtaining some helpful tips from community members, we were able to locate the reporting party in order to ask some questions. After several hours of intense interview and interrogation, we are pleased to report that we obtained a full confession!!!! :) :
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Right now this tree should be blooming like this (I took this picture last March)
Here is what this tree looks like today:
It feels this way in my life too. I have been in a season of endings and a season of waiting. I have been trying to figure out what's next. I have been grieving leaving a job and a place that I loved very much even as I knew I needed to go, knew that it was time. I have found myself longing for the grieving just to be over with, just be able to move onto the next thing. I have been wanting to figure out the what's next. I have some ideas, some thoughts. Yet I find myself part way out of winter but not yet into spring. I am at Holy Saturday - a day of waiting, a time of liminality. To use the language of Ecclesiastes it is a time of mourning, a time of searching and a time of scattering stones. Yet I want it to be a time of dancing, a time of finding and a time to gather the stones. It is hard to sit here, hard to wait, to listen. It is hard to trust and not be anxious and afraid.
Yet there is hope, signs of spring. Just like the hint of buds on this dogwood tree, the daffodils that appear in unexpected places around Williamsburg. The promise is there. I am called to wait, to trust, to listen. I am moving through, I am trying things, testing the waters, knocking on doors. It is not just waiting, it is paying attention, it is risking putting myself out there - like with this blog post.
Is spring coming slowly for you or are you in the midst of it?
Right now this tree should be blooming like this (I took this picture last March)
Here is what this tree looks like today:
It feels this way in my life too. I have been in a season of endings and a season of waiting. I have been trying to figure out what's next. I have been grieving leaving a job and a place that I loved very much even as I knew I needed to go, knew that it was time. I have found myself longing for the grieving just to be over with, just be able to move onto the next thing. I have been wanting to figure out the what's next. I have some ideas, some thoughts. Yet I find myself part way out of winter but not yet into spring. I am at Holy Saturday - a day of waiting, a time of liminality. To use the language of Ecclesiastes it is a time of mourning, a time of searching and a time of scattering stones. Yet I want it to be a time of dancing, a time of finding and a time to gather the stones. It is hard to sit here, hard to wait, to listen. It is hard to trust and not be anxious and afraid.
Yet there is hope, signs of spring. Just like the hint of buds on this dogwood tree, the daffodils that appear in unexpected places around Williamsburg. The promise is there. I am called to wait, to trust, to listen. I am moving through, I am trying things, testing the waters, knocking on doors. It is not just waiting, it is paying attention, it is risking putting myself out there - like with this blog post.
Is spring coming slowly for you or are you in the midst of it?
Monday, April 1, 2013
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.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
A Palm Sunday Sermon
Building Up and Tearing Down
Margaret M. Sequeira, MTS
UU Fellowship of the Rappahannock, March 24, 2013
Reading Luke 19:28-40
I begin with a heartfelt thank-you for once again welcoming me and my family here today. It is such a joy to return to you and once again share my thoughts and reflections. When I talk to people about coming to preach here, I always tell them what a warm and welcoming community you are and what a joy it is to come here.
Today is Palm Sunday. It marks the beginning of the most sacred week in the Western Christian calendar and is known by Holy Week. The Orthodox Churches operate on a different calendar and for them Palm Sunday is not until April 28 and Easter on May 5 – their Easter may actually feel like spring! In Christian churches, people will hear this very same reading from Luke, they will receive blessed palm branches to take home – some will even be taught how to weave the palm into a cross. This week will be marked by a number of worship services, on Thursday known as Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday, depending on one’s tradition, will commemorate the Last Supper where Jesus washed the feet of disciples and the institution of the Eucharist. On Friday, Good Friday, Christian churches will mark the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. The week concludes actually on Easter eve – Saturday evening – with the Easter Vigil Service or at sunrise on Sunday morning with Easter Sunrise Service marking Jesus triumph over death in the Resurrection.
Now it is also important to note that Christians are not the only ones celebrating an important holiday this week. In the Jewish calendar, Passover begins. Passover marks the freeing of the Jews from slavery in Egypt and beginning of their forty year journey to the Promised Land. Moses is the hero of this story – finally convincing Pharaoh to let the Israelites go and then leading them safely away when Pharaoh changes his mind. Moses too is not always a popular hero. Not long after the Israelites flee slavery in Egypt do we find them complaining about hunger and thirst, how Moses should have never led them out, that they would rather be slaves where they at least had rations. Passover remembers and celebrates the Exodus and it is the foundational story of liberation and each year the Jewish people re-tell the story and pass it along to the next generation.
Now why begin this sermon on Building Up and Tearing Down with all this information about upcoming religious holidays? Well, this is our context – these holidays are happening all around us. We see Easter eggs and bunnies, sales on holiday foods, the Matzah and other Passover foods in the stores. Maybe even members of our families are inviting us to join them for these celebrations. So we are not isolated or apart from these – we are in the midst of it. Some of our UU Congregations are participating in and celebrating them in their own various ways.
So let’s talk about this reading from Luke and what this all has to do with building up and tearing down. The story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is found in all four gospel accounts. In each of the accounts Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey or colt and the people lay their cloaks and tree branches on the ground to greet him. He is greeted as hero, as king. Our story does foretell that not all are happy with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem – our antagonists, the Pharisees – are already trying to figure out how to stop Jesus. Now a note about the Pharisees and the gospel stories as they are often portrayed as the enemy to Jesus and his message. It is important to note that the Pharisees were fierce opponents to the Roman Empire and sought to preserve Israelite law and customs in a hostile, oppressive environment. Their insistence on the law was a form of resistance to Rome and many of them were crucified for their actions. After the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 AD their role of preserving Jewish law and custom was even more important – yet that often brought them into tension with the followers of Jesus. Luke’s account, which is addressed to a specific community of Jesus followers, comes after 70 AD – after the Temple has been destroyed. This is important because for too long the Jews have been the ones held responsible for the death of Jesus – specifically the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Jews were not responsible for the death of Jesus – the Roman rulers were responsible for executing Jesus. Dominic Crossan in his book Who Killed Jesus? makes the case that the passion narratives are a form of propaganda for the early Christian communities following the expulsion of followers of Jesus from Jewish communities.
So back to our story, Jesus comes into Jerusalem triumphantly – with the people praising him with the words “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven.” So how is it that one who enters with so much adulation and praise is then by the end of the week put to death? And not just executed but abandoned by his friends – only three women stay with him during his ordeal. Among his closest friends, the disciples, one, Judas, turns him over to the authorities, another denies him three times, Peter. In the end he dies feeling forsaken by all including God. How does this happen?
Now Jesus’ teaching was not always popular. One of the first things he does upon arriving in Jerusalem is to throw the money changers out of the Temple. This act alone would have been seen as a threat to Roman rule and occupation - enough to get him executed by the Roman leaders. He has tough words for people, particularly for the rich. Jesus was a prophet and the role of the prophet is often unpopular. Many of the Hebrew Prophets faced persecution and death. We human beings are often very resistant to hearing the truth.
Secondly the people were longing for a leader that would get them out from Roman rule and oppression. They wanted a revolutionary. Yet the kingdom that Jesus preached was not the one the people expected. People had heard the stories about Jesus – probably greatly exaggerated – and had built up a particular expectation, a particular hope. When that did not come to pass, they were disappointed. When Roman officials came for Jesus, they were too disappointed and afraid to stand with him – even those closest to him.
Let’s turn to some of our most revered heroes and prophets. Today we revere William Ellery Channing , one of the father’s of Unitarianism in America, for his abolitionism – actually all three New England fathers of Unitarianism - Channing, Emerson and Parker were all abolitionists. Yet Channing’s own congregation, Federal Street Church, was not pleased with his abolitionism and they eventually came to part ways. After insisting on officiating at the funeral of a prominent abolitionist, Channing would preach only one more time at Federal Street. Even we Unitarian Universalists can show a certain aversion to painful truths.
We often build up our heroes to impossible expectations, whether sports, politics or religious. We also will tear people down when they take positions that are contrary to our own or don’t live up to our expectations. In all these cases, the building up or tearing is because we have created an image for the person that is based in what we want not necessarily what is true.
One common understanding of Jesus is that as uniquely the son of God and in fact equal to God in divinity. Ralph Waldo Emerson challenged this notion of Jesus. Emerson in his Divinity School Address preached “Jesus taught that God incarnates himself in man evermore goes for the anew to take possession of this world.” He rejected Christian teaching that limited the indwelling of the divine to one or two people – rather for Emerson Divine indwelling was available to all. Jesus, for Emerson, was a great exemplar of a teacher who lived and showed others how God lived in him and encouraged others to do the same. For Emerson the projection of Divinity uniquely onto Jesus is to set Jesus on a false pedestal, much like the crowd in our story. It distorts the reality of Jesus and his message.
In the quote from Howard Thurman in the order of service*, Thurman had built an image of Jerusalem that did not match the actual Jerusalem he was visiting. He writes “the Jerusalem of my present experience was in profound conflict with what the Jerusalem of my imagination had taught me through the intimacy of my religious tradition and teaching. I felt the great gulf that separated the present place and the symbolism of what that place meant in the history of my own life and tradition. I do not desire to see it again.” Like Thurman we have built in our imagination an image of Jesus, an image of Jerusalem. Thurman wants to flee the actual Jerusalem in favor of the one of his imagination. How often do we do this? We often prefer our own image over reality.
Sometimes we prefer our own image because it lets us off the hook. Emerson makes this point – when we make Jesus divine we let ourselves off the hook to emulate him. After all we can’t do what Jesus did – Jesus was God. Sometimes we just so want to believe. All the sports stars, public figures that we or minimally the media put on pedestals. We put standards on them that are impossible and distort who they actually are. It is detrimental both to us as fans – as we are then devastated when they fall off the pedestal – and the person who cannot possibly live up to the impossible standard.
We need heroes and heroines. We need their stories for inspiration, encouragement, for hope. We also need to let our heroes and heroines be flawed and imperfect. I loved the Harry Potter books in part because the hero was not perfect. Harry Potter broke the rules, he got his friends in danger and trouble, and then he pushed his friends away. Yet he is also a great hero. What if we allowed our real life heroes to be flawed?
Because of course this tendency to idealize people and make them into we want them to be is not just reserved for public figures. We often do the same thing to family members and friends and then when they fail to live up to our standard we are hurt. Often in our hurt we tear them down, or toss them out of our lives. Maybe it is ourselves we set impossible expectations for and then tear ourselves down because we cannot possibly live up to it. Those impossible expectations we have set are not based on our true self – but on a false image of ourselves coming from others’ images and expectations, coming because we do not yet truly know our true self. The further we are from our sense of our true self, the harder it is to see others as themselves.
So I invite us to reflect together on how we may have created others in an image of who we want them to be rather than who they are. Who have we put up on pedestal that they cannot live up to or torn down unfairly? Let us seek not to build up people to impossible heights only to be hurt and disappointed when they cannot live up to our expectations. Let us remember the story of Palm Sunday – of a teacher, a prophet who lived a life in service to others, speaking out for those who had no voice, living on the margins, who was welcomed with great expectation only to be abandoned when he was not what others expected. Let us reflect that if the message of Jesus’ life and teaching was to show us how to live in the image and likeness of the holy as Emerson proclaimed, how can we see that image of the holy in ourselves and in others. May we seek to see the true self in the other and not an image we have created. May we seek our own true self so that we may more easily see the true self of others. Let us build ourselves and one another up, breaking down those false pedestals and images, and bring forth the holy in ourselves and one another.
*"It is important that I wanted to get back to the long-time security of my Jerusalem, which did not exist in any place or any time but which is a part of the fluid area of my own living experience." from With Head and Heart by Howard Thurman
Thursday, March 21, 2013
For Everything There is a Season...Except
Last week I was on a directed, silent retreat at Richmond Hill in Richmond, VA. It is a lovely center located in the city of Richmond with lovely views that overlook the city. It is an intentional community with a ministry of being in continuous prayer for the City of Richmond. It is a wonderful place for retreat and I highly recommend it.
While on the retreat my director recommended I reflect on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 - For everything there is a season. I am at a turning of the seasons in my life. I have just left my position at my Unitarian Universalist congregation and I am reflecting a great deal on the question of vocation. A season of my life has just ended and I am now in a time of planting and waiting.
As I was reflecting on this passage, I realized that no where in the passage is there a season or time for anxiety or worry. We are told there are seasons for things that many of us might not include - like killing, tearing, war and even hate - but no worry. Wow - hate, war, killing make the list but worry is out!
For me it was a call for trust - to trust that wherever we are in life, we are where we are meant to be. In addition, to trust that things will change, trust that it will not be this way forever - thank goodness!
This particular season I find myself in is filled with possibility and I have much hope and faith that I will find the right next place to live out my call. Yet I still struggle with anxiety and worry. I told my director that all those passages in Scripture that tell us not to worry, don't be afraid, in particular the one where Jesus tells us we should not worry about what we are to eat or drink or wear are not so easy to live. Yet over and over we are told, Don't Be Afraid, don't worry, do not be anxious - for I am with you. It is a message of abundance in a world that yells scarcity. It is a message to trust in a world that tells us that we are each on our own. It is a message of hope in a world that screams that hope is lost.
Over and over we are invited to "Be Not Afraid" that God is with us. Ecclesiastes tells us in its omission that there is no season for worry - that we are always called to trust. In this season of renewal, re-birth, this season of repentance and remembering - may we trust. Trust that we are part of something larger than ourselves, that we cannot see or know the whole, we can only see our part. May we trust that our part is integral and important, even if we cannot feel that right now. May we know deeply that we are not alone.
While on the retreat my director recommended I reflect on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 - For everything there is a season. I am at a turning of the seasons in my life. I have just left my position at my Unitarian Universalist congregation and I am reflecting a great deal on the question of vocation. A season of my life has just ended and I am now in a time of planting and waiting.
As I was reflecting on this passage, I realized that no where in the passage is there a season or time for anxiety or worry. We are told there are seasons for things that many of us might not include - like killing, tearing, war and even hate - but no worry. Wow - hate, war, killing make the list but worry is out!
For me it was a call for trust - to trust that wherever we are in life, we are where we are meant to be. In addition, to trust that things will change, trust that it will not be this way forever - thank goodness!
This particular season I find myself in is filled with possibility and I have much hope and faith that I will find the right next place to live out my call. Yet I still struggle with anxiety and worry. I told my director that all those passages in Scripture that tell us not to worry, don't be afraid, in particular the one where Jesus tells us we should not worry about what we are to eat or drink or wear are not so easy to live. Yet over and over we are told, Don't Be Afraid, don't worry, do not be anxious - for I am with you. It is a message of abundance in a world that yells scarcity. It is a message to trust in a world that tells us that we are each on our own. It is a message of hope in a world that screams that hope is lost.
Over and over we are invited to "Be Not Afraid" that God is with us. Ecclesiastes tells us in its omission that there is no season for worry - that we are always called to trust. In this season of renewal, re-birth, this season of repentance and remembering - may we trust. Trust that we are part of something larger than ourselves, that we cannot see or know the whole, we can only see our part. May we trust that our part is integral and important, even if we cannot feel that right now. May we know deeply that we are not alone.
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