Readings

From the 1805 “Treatise on Atonement” by Hosea Ballou

The belief that the great Jehovah was offended with his creatures to that degree, that nothing but the death of Christ, or the endless misery of [humankind], could appease his anger, is an idea that has done more injury to the Christian religion than the writing of all its opposers, for many centuries. The error has been fatal to the life and spirit of Christ in our world; all those principles which are dreaded by [people] have been believed to exist in God; and professors have been molded into the image of their Deity, and become more cruel.

Isaiah 58

Is not this the fast that I choose:
To loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see them naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger,
the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

You shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

Sermon “Whose Will Is It?”

To live in this world is a precarious task. Despite all of our knowledge, wisdom, care and caution, we cannot escape danger or risk. Even if we disregard the dangers caused by our own hands, like war, genocide, abuse and violence, there are still destructive forces which hold the power to wreak havoc and tragedy into our lives. To be human on this earth is to know that there are larger forces in this creation beyond our control.

The devastation of the earthquake in Haiti is the heartache we hold in our hearts this morning and the horror to which we are called to respond. The pictures and stories which come to us echo other natural disasters that forever changed people’s lives: Hurricane Katrina, the Southeast Asian tsunami, floods and wildfires, landslides and tornadoes, to name a few. How do we make sense of a world in which whole cities can be turned to rubble in a matter of minutes? What response can we offer to the traumatized survivors who ask “why” out of their anguish? What is the role of faith in healing the mind, body and spirit of a people who have been tested beyond what any of us can imagine?

I raise these questions because as soon as the unthinkable happens, our faith is tested. Many of the stories about the earthquake and its aftermath have focused on the question of faith: how the faith of the survivors has been tried or how faith is still playing a role in getting them through. The Mankato Free Press reported one woman’s anger, as she railed against God: “God, we know you can kill us! We know you’re the strongest! You don’t need to show us!” Her anger contrasts with the words of the Rev. Eric Toussaint, speaking on a Sunday amid the ruins of Port-au-Prince’s Cathedral: “Why give thanks to God? Because we are here. What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now.” And there have been countless stories from survivors who spent hours or days beneath the ruins of fallen buildings who credit their faith with helping them to make it until help finally arrived.

But is Rev. Toussaint really right? Are earthquakes and other unspeakable tragedies truly God’s will? Here in our own country, there are some preachers and religionists who would have us think so, like the Rev. Pat Robertson who views the earthquake as God’s curse upon the Haitian people, because of their supposed pact with Satan in achieving their independence, just as he argued that Hurricane Katrina was God’s commentary on legalized abortion in the United States. Yet many of us simply don’t buy that kind of theology. “Why do we always have to go here?” said the Rev. David Burns, pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, in a recent CNN article. “Can’t there be another explanation rather than, ‘God did this?’ Why not, ‘God does not micromanage the world. God’s heart breaks with us and instantaneously moves to comfort, catalyze imagination and compassion, and instill hope.’ ”

Too often, it is the Pat Robertsons of the world who get the most air time for their outrageous, controversial statements. This is part of the reason that our Religious Education committee decided to take class time to talk about some of these quotes with our children and to explore what Unitarian Universalist’s do believe about God’s will. We wanted to help them find a response more in keeping with our liberal religious tradition of freedom, justice and compassion. For while we are a theologically diverse tradition, we do not teach that tragedy is “God’s will.” How could we? We trace our Universalist heritage back to Origen of Alexandria’s radical assertion that God is too loving to damn people to an eternal hell. If we still hold to that spirit, if God or the Holy or the Spirit of Life – however we name the sacred – is still a loving, life-affirming force in our world, then how could we possibly argue that God deliberately chooses to damn some people to a living hell here on earth? I believe that we must articulate a different answer. We must proclaim an alternative message to the world. But if it is not God’s will, then whose will is it? Or is it really anyone’s will at all?

For me, making sense of the world’s tragedy begins with a shift in our images of God. In rejecting the image of God as an angry, all-controlling father figure, some reject all notions of God period. But it is equally important to honor that those among us who experience God and do not share Robertson’s view. There are many other images of God from the religions and philosophies of the world which offer themselves to us, which do not seek to divide us between the saved and unsaved, the punished and free, but rather to connect us all with compassion. Even within our own history, the 19th century Unitarians offered the alternative image of a gentle parent, inspiring abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker to use the radical language of Mother and Father God. The 20th century Universalist reformer and early feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman observed: “As the thought of God slowly unfolded in the mind of woman, that great Power would have been apprehended as the Life-giver, the Teacher, the Provider, the Protector – not as the proud, angry, jealous vengeful deity men have imagined.” (Parker, p. 115)

But more recently, the theological world has been influenced by even more radical paradigm shifts. I have been fascinated by the body of work of the process theologians, whose perspective seems to encompass the mysteries of both science and spirit, as well as the tension between God’s power and humanity’s freedom. The challenge is that their work is so dense, it is often impossible to explain in easy terms (they have an even worse elevator speech challenge that we do!) But Rebecca Parker, in her book Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now, offers a helpful metaphor: “Picture the universe like Indra’s net, an image of Hinduism. Indra’s net is an interconnected web of countless strands, and at every intersection there is a jewel drop of water that reflects the whole. Process philosophy sees the universe as the plentitude of these jewel drops, each holding the whole in precisely the way the whole is reflected at that point of intersection…. In each moment the whole is configured in a different way, and over time – over a series of blips – the net appears to be in motion, shimmering or undulating. These shimmers are people running, tides moving, comets soaring, grass growing, suns burning, rocks eroding. In the people running, there are emotions flowing, thoughts forming and passing, things remembered, things forgotten. And all of it is the cosmos, in an ever-changing pulsation of becoming and ceasing.”

You do not have to be a process theologian or follower to understand the power of their perspective on the holy. If God is a part of the process of life and if we are a part of it, too, if we are connected as free-thinking, choice-making co-creators of this great interconnected web of life, then earthquakes are not sent down from heaven as punishment. They are complex events that happen out of the forces of nature of which we are a part and which no one, not even God, can fully control. Like the Presbyterian minister from Atlanta observed, this God is not a micromanager. This God is a creative, cosmic force. Just as our humanity is a creative, cosmic force living in dynamic relationship with God, the world, and all that is.

I don’t offer these alternative images to get God off the hook, but rather to help us understand that our wrestling with God gives us the language and understanding to wrestle with our human predicament. This process God may or may not appeal to you, or might at first glance feel too impersonal. For can a God who is a part of the power of the ocean waves really hold the full weight of our pain or despair? Or offer us the strength of a shoulder to cry on in our long nights of the soul? And yet, the paradigm of a punishing or even a loving parent can be an isolating one, if it only speaks to a single, vertical relationship of salvation. The idea of Indra’s net, with all of its shimmering drops of water, means that we are all connected to one another and to the source of life in ways so deep that we will never fully comprehend them. So, if we see ourselves as sharing the weight of one another’s pain, if we understand that the strength we lean on is found in the strands of the web that connect us each to the other, then our response to those who cry out “why?” in their anguish is to proclaim to them that it is not their fault and to reassure them that they do not carry their burden alone. Our response to tragedy, to a tear in the web, is to recognize that we are called to help heal and restore it for the welfare and salvation of us all.

How do we mend those tears? By keeping our connections with each other alive. By embracing each other in our pain and loving each other in our grief. We know this in our personal lives, when our lives are changed in ways not of our choosing. When death comes or relationships end, we discover lifelines to steady us through those special people who simply show up to sit with us in our tears. When accidents or injuries occur, we are moved by those strangers who step out of the demands of their own lives to come to our aid. When we find ourselves struggling to care for an ailing parent or an ill child, we are sustained by the family and friends who take care of us, who bring food and encouragement, so we can find the strength to care for those who need us most. We do not leave one another to our own individual fates, as though we have each done something to deserve our struggle. Instead, we instinctively trust that we are connected in our joys and sorrows, that we are one in our humanity, more deeply than we will ever know. And so we act, with what limited freedom and opportunity we have, to help one another co-create our response to life’s pain and to rediscover our hope.

Just as we are called to be co-creators and web-menders with those around us, so are we also called to address the tears that have a more global scale. There are larger connections to be embraced, from the strand of the web that connects us to the creatures of the rainforest and the sea, to the strands which connect us to human beings around the world we will never meet. Knowing that we are a part of a world where earthquakes and tsunamis will come, we look to the strain we are putting on our earth, even as we lend aid to those who must rebuild. Knowing that it is those who have the least resources and who live with the most inequities, who too often pay the heaviest price of disaster, we renew our call to address the crisis of poverty. Knowing that we are a part of a mortal creation that is ravaged with illness and war, we commit ourselves to the pursuit of healing and to the universal human rights which will give us all access to the resources we need for our basic health.

These are not just abstract connections or global acts. It is the same act of trust and love which we give to those who are dearest to us. Somewhere in Haiti, there will be child who is given needed medical care and housing because of what we do today. Somewhere there will be a woman merchant who is given the assistance she needs to restart the business that is her family’s livelihood. Somewhere there will be a man who survived the earthquake, but sustained the loss of a limb, who will be given the training he needs to build a new future. None of these people will see a picture of us to feel connected to a particular face. But through the help they receive, we can hope that they will understand that another human being, no matter from how far away, cares whether or not they live or die, whether or not they are suffering or healing, whether or not they have the chance to reclaim the meaning of their lives. We act, so that they will know that it is not God’s will that they suffer, but our will that they know that the world is filled with care. Rebecca Parker reminds us eloquently of our task as co-theologians: “A theology adequate to the realities of violence in our world must speak from the depths of our life experience. It must speak words of anguish and words of hope. The anguish is this: Violence can break our hearts and efface the sacred goodness of life in this world. The hope is this: Love, in its myriad forms, can recall us to life.”

In the days after the earthquake, I heard a TV interview with an older woman who was rescued after several days underneath a collapsed building. She talked about how her faith sustained her and how she prayed during the long hours of waiting. She recalled how her injured companions would call out for water, but how she tried not to dwell in fear. Instead she tried to embrace the feeling of safety because she knew she had air to breathe. This was the focus of her prayers, the steady breathing in and out of the breath of life that nourished her and the gratitude for that air which gave her hope that her days on this earth were not yet at an end. This was the prayer that saved her – a prayer that renounced isolation, but that welled-up from her sense of connection and nourishment from Life itself.

This is the saving role of faith in a world of unspeakable tragedy. To keep us open to the air around us and the life that sustains us. To keep us connected to the love and hope which is trying to reach us through the web of creation. To keep us sustained in the trust that our humanity is meant to be a blessing, not a curse. Perhaps Rev. Toussaint almost got it right, when he pondered “Why give thanks to God? Because we are here.” It is not the earthquakes that are the will of God. It is that we are here that is the will of Creation. We are here. We are here together. And it is what we do with that gift that matters most of all.

Spirit of Life and Love,
in a world of sorrow and confusion,
we would find a way to honor our pain.

May we not shy away from our heartache -
the losses we have suffered,
the tragedies we have witnessed,
or the betrayals we have known.

May we not gloss over our despair -
the hopelessness and the helplessness
which can weigh down our spirits.

May we not dismiss our emptiness -
the sense of nothingness which arises
from our numbness and our doubt.

For out of heartache comes compassion,
out of despair comes courage,
out of emptiness comes acceptance,
and out of our pain comes a rededication to life and love.

“McDonald’s in Warsaw” by Emily Gage

In 1991, my friend Suzanne’s New Year’s Resolution was to be first in line at the new Warsaw McDonald’s. We had heard a rumor through the Peace Corps grapevine that it was coming. It seemed so tantalizing, the thought of the golden arches peeking through the tall gray buildings of downtown Warsaw, that we thought maybe we had started the rumor. Still, I was convinced. My New Year’s resolution was to be right behind Suzanne in that line.

I wasn’t sure at first why the McDonald’s thing seemed so important. It wasn’t as if we were underfed. In the six months that we had been in Poland, we had met only unprecedented hospitality and generosity. A meal in a Polish home was an almost endless affair with dishes and glasses constantly being filled as if by magic. Especially during this time, when our linguistic skills were limited, food was a way of communicating. Our hosts and hostesses showered us with affection through the amounts of food they offered us. We, in turn, showed ours by eating everything set before us. If only, I often thought, they didn’t like me quite so much.

And it wasn’t as if we didn’t like the food. Over the months I had come to adore pierogi, filled with cheese or mushrooms or blueberries. I ate cabbage and potatoes and strawberries prepared in ways I never dreamed possible. I even developed a great fondness for beets. And one particular day, after a long hiking expedition, we reached a hut at the bottom of a mountain. There I sat down and ate one of the best bowls of bigos – a stew full of sauerkraut and kielbasa – that I had ever eaten. I had hiked just long enough and it had cooked just long enough (it improved with age) to make it the perfect match of a meal.

Still my thoughts turned to the golden arches.

One day, miraculously, there they were, almost hidden by the building next door. We had long since missed being the first in line, but I took my place among the snaking file of people along the sidewalk. There was an air of excitement; for the Poles because they were on a new culinary adventure; for me, because this was the end of a long quest.

I sat down amidst the crowds, and took a bite of my cheeseburger. And I kid you not, tears came to my eyes. Not because it was particularly delicious, no, but because this cheeseburger tasted exactly like every other McDonald’s cheeseburger I had ever eaten. And here it was in the midst of this strange country, where everything had been new. This cheeseburger was a soothing blanket of familiarity that fed my soul, so long trying to sort out living in a foreign country. I felt renewed in a way I had not thought possible; not by the food really, but by this nourishment of connection to my past, to my country, to the rest of the world.

I don’t eat cheeseburgers much any more. And there are far too many McDonald’s in Warsaw now.

My new resolution is to find the right recipe for bigos, that stew I had at the bottom of the mountain that summer day in Poland.

“Welcome Morning” by Anne Sexton

There is joy
in all
in the hair I brush each morning
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry “hello there, Anne”
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning
All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.
So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning
lest it go unspoken.dies young.

Sermon “The Power of Food: Are We What We Eat?”

Let me begin this sermon with a clear caveat: this sermon is about food, not guilt. In our society, which bemoans the national rise in obesity, promotes a wide variety of directly opposing diets, knows rampant anorexia and bulimia among its men, women, and children, contains avid meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans alike, worries about the future ramifications of pesticides and GMO’s (genetically modified foods), and asks its most skilled gourmet chefs for delicious meals that will require less than fifteen minutes to make, there is no other topic which can promote such personal passion and delight, such widespread frustration and pain – not even sex.

Food matters to us whether we are struggling to shed a few pounds, to feed an over-scheduled family, or yearning to taste our favorite dish at the Sunday dinner table. The measure of a nation’s wealth and compassion is whether its people enjoy feast or famine, and how large the gap is in between. Even its religious symbolism is as universal as the rituals of hospitality to strangers, as elegant as the Taoist and Zen influenced Japanese Tea ceremony, as ancient as the Jewish Seder meal and the Christian communion cup. It has been a symbol of wealth and plenty, of taboo and want, mystery and knowledge. Just think of that famous apple from the tree of knowledge that Eve dared to taste. Nevertheless, I believe that on all levels of mind, body, and spirit, the food we eat deserves our attention, gratitude and understanding, but not our judgment. So turn off those self-critical voices in your head. We are not talking about guilt. Instead, we are talking about power and joy.

In the short story “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper,” American humorist and author Mark Twain tells of one editor’s first week on the job. At the end of the week, an older gentleman came to visit him, gently asking: “Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?” “No,” replied the editor, “this is my first attempt.” “Very likely,” answered the gentleman. “Have you had any experience in agriculture practically?” “No; I believe I have not.” “Some instinct told me so,” said the older man, putting on his spectacles. “I wish to read to you what must have made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it: ‘Turnips should never be pulled. It injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.”

Most of the non-farmers among us are astute enough to know that turnips do not grow on trees. Yet, in more indirect ways, we have become strangers to our food, knowing as little about the source and circumstances of the meal which adorns our dinner plates, as that naive young editor did. The majority of the supposedly fresh food available to us in our supermarkets has traveled at least 1500 miles over 7-10 days to reach us. Chains are not only discouraged from buying from local farmers, some are forbidden to do it, since doing so endangers the profits the national suppliers desire for themselves. The suppliers win, because the local markets cannot afford to lose the bulk prices on canned goods, flours, and more that only those same suppliers can guarantee. Except for the hunters among us, most of us meat eaters never know the animals who give their lives to our sustenance, nor do we know whether they spent those lives cramped on gigantic corporate farms under absentee owners, or running free on family farms with owners who knew them by name. The current irony of our global abundance is that, while we can purchase any type of food the whole year round, our mass-produced, high yield agricultural methods are reducing the variety of crops down to one or two uniform seeds with little regional or biological diversity. One recent study reported that Minnesota rates #7 in the nation for the number of its organic farms (550). And yet a reporter at this year’s Minnesota State Fair, created to celebrate our agricultural achievements, found it nearly impossible to reach her goal of tasting state-grown foods at the Fair. Even our famous Spam is not made from Minnesota meat! It is not just that we have become strangers to the sources of our food; we have become strangers to our nation’s dwindling population of farmers. More and more there is no one to come and tell us how our turnips are really grown.

Yet, if we have become strangers to our food, it is also, in part, because we have become slaves to time. In the United States, restaurant sales have increased 1300% in the past 40 years and only half of us report that we cook regularly. We don’t have time to cook, much less time to grow our own food, or even to pause, as the Cherokee people teach, to ask for forgiveness and give thanks for the bounty we consume each day. Since the 1950’s, with the invention and expansion of the concept of “fast food”, the quintessential meal of a hamburger and french fries has become even more American than apple pie. According to journalist Eric Schlosser in his groundbreaking book, Fast Food Nation, in 1970, Americans spent $6 billion on fast food. Now, we spend more than $134 billion a year, more than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music combined. The typical American consumes approximately three burgers and four orders of french fries every week. On any given day about one-quarter of the adult population of the United States visits a fast food restaurant.

And so, it is not surprising to learn that one out of every eight workers in America has at one point in their lives been employed by McDonald’s. Their Corporation annually hires one million people, more than any other organization, public or private. They are one of the largest companies which has succeeded in consistently thwarting most of the attempts of its employees to unionize and has used its considerable lobbying power to keep the minimum wage low. They are among the largest purchasers of beef, pork and potatoes in the nation; the largest owner of retail property in the world; the operator of more playgrounds than any other private entity; one of the largest distributors of toys. A recent survey of American schoolchildren found that 96 percent of them could identify Ronald McDonald. The only fictional character with a higher degree of recognition was Santa Claus.

Like my friend Emily, I have lived abroad and known the relief and comfort of sinking my teeth into a steaming, melt-in-your mouth cheeseburger. The fact that it was chemically engineered to taste exactly like every other McDonald’s cheeseburger I had ever eaten did not decrease my pleasure. Yet, I contrast my McDonald’s experience to some of the smaller businesses where I shop and eat. No Egg McMuffin ever tastes as savory as a fresh omelet from our own Ron’s Pine Street Cafe in Nicollet, or a warm scone from the Coffee Hag. I’d much rather watch the pizza maker toss his crust into the air at Dino’s pizzeria in North Mankato than unwrap the frozen pizza from the store. I buy my vegetables from a farm in Wisconsin, and sometimes I feel like Twain’s young editor when I can’t even recognize or name all the veges in my weekly box, but the farmer sends a newsletter as my guide, along with recipes. At the height of the harvest season, I wander the farmer’s markets just to take in all of the colors and shapes, sights and smells. When I come home for dinner with a McDonald’s bag in my hand, I know exactly what my dinner will taste like, but I eat it with a sense of hurry, almost as a second thought on my way to the next task of the evening. When I come home with food knowing the faces of those who tended and harvested it, or cooked it, its presence on my table seems like a gift to be savored.

The poet Wendell Berry writes: “To live we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.” He adds: “Eaters must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used.” For people like Berry, the challenge, are we what we eat?, is not a health dilemma, it is a spiritual and ethical one. He believes that human beings are born with souls that need to be grounded, quite literally, in their own patch of the earth, with its own unique beauty and bounty. In this view, the McCulture that gives rise to mega-markets and fast food strips is not about grease, but rather its lack of local flavors and regional choice. The struggle to be grounded is about the struggle to be an individual, a free farmer and a free eater, in an age of corporate control and uniformity. It is about the growing rarity of people lingering around the common table, sharing their time tested, favorite family recipes. It is about people knowing, in both a very literal and a symbolic way, where their food comes from, who prepared it, and what its true price and gift is.

His vision may seem idealistic, and it is. But the importance of what he challenges us to consider does not lie in the hamburgers or tacos alone, or in the number of meals that we eat in the car on our way to somewhere else, but rather our sense of their inevitability. We have allowed fast food and its counterpart, fast living, to become more than an occasional convenience. They have become the norm. But recall the most enjoyable meal you’ve had in recent memory – chances are, it wasn’t fast food. Try to remember the best dinner conversation with your family or friends in the last month – how long did that meal last? Was it an unusual or typical length? Go through the list of stores and restaurants you frequent – how many are locally or family owned, and does it affect the quality of life in this region that they are here? Why is it that our Fellowship luncheons are often the best attended Sundays of the month, with a wide variety of home-cooked dishes, like today’s annual Chili feed? What meaning do your backyard gardens hold for you? To say that food is a sacrament means that it holds the power to connect us with what is holy, whether through the touch of nature in digging a turnip out of the ground, or the relationships built around a common table, or the gratitude that comes from each delicious taste of life’s abundance. Yet, its sacramental power is not automatic. It takes our time. It takes our slowing down. It demands that we pay attention.

I have many quarrels with the Genesis story of our Fall from the Garden of Eden, but for the sake of this sermon, I’ll lift up just one. What about that forbidden apple? Why was the knowledge that it held so bad? The knowledge of the earthly and sensual world – the direct experience of taste, tartness and crispness. Perhaps there is danger in enjoying too much of it, but what we are learning today is that there is also danger in not having enough of it. “There is joy in all…” Anne Sexton reminds us. “In the chapel of eggs I cook each morning, in the outcry from the kettle that heats my coffee… in the godhead of the table that I set my silver, plate, cup upon each morning… So while I think of it, let me paint a thank-you on my palm for this God, this laughter of the morning lest it go unspoken. The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard, dies young.”

Deciding what you will eat, how you will eat it, and with whom you will share it, are acts of real power. We tell ourselves that we do not have time to claim it, but there is an international movement out of Italy which challenges this assumption. The Slow Food Movement’s symbol is the snail. Its Official Manifesto declares: “We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods… A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life. May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency. Our defense should begin at the table…”

It is a defense of things which cannot be promoted in a value meal, or indeed given any price. Last Wednesday was the beginning of Lent, when many Christians choose to deny themselves some pleasure, often food, for the 40 days preceding Easter. Such chosen rituals or fasts are different from dieting. When we fast, we abstain in order to gain new appreciation and gratitude for the bounty which surrounds us. All that is delicious suddenly becomes holy. When we diet, we abstain often as a punishment for excess or a means of control over our lives. All that is delicious suddenly becomes forbidden and taboo. The defense we mount at our tables and in the chapels of our own kitchens is to reclaim the simple joys of nourishment, without having to go to the extremes of feast or famine, overindulgence or rigid rules. It is to create a gathering space, where the crispness of a fresh orchard apple, or the delight a summer raspberry reminds us that life is both tart and sweet. We become grounded in a place where things need not be super-sized to satisfy both the body and the soul. In this spirit, my colleague Clinton Lee Scott called Lent “a time of maple syrup and raised doughnuts, a time not for monastic introspection, but for expansion of mind and heart.”

“To live we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation.” writes Wendell Berry. If we have become inevitably distanced from the farms, the orchards, and the land which feeds us, then the work of our hands in the kitchen is the last bastion of our sacred connection to the earth. Here in the washing and preparing of the carrots and peppers, the tears shed over chopping onions, the tantalizing taste of cinnamon and spices from around the world and the aroma of fresh coffee, we come into direct contact with the life that has given itself, in some shape and form, for our well-being. And we are asked to create something worthy of that sacrifice, something worthy of the time we devote to the task. So, bread we bake in our kitchens is not just bread, it is a connection to life’s power to rise. The soup we stir is not just a melting pot of the contents of our refrigerator, it is a connection to the slow process often required for life’s flavor to come into its own. The meat we prepare connects us to the earth’s creatures and tangibly reminds us of life’s sometimes harsh, often beautiful interdependence. The defense we mount at our table has its roots in our kitchens, where we become grounded once again in the daily needs and work, joy and truth of our humanity.

Finally, the last elusive, but precious thing we defend at our tables with our resistance to the fast food of fast living is the common table and its call to hospitality. A drive-through dinner invites haste and loneliness. A home-cooked meal invites real presence and good company. By this, I don’t mean a meal served on our finest china and crystal, but rather a meal whose bounty always has enough to fill an extra plate. Growing up, my mother often invited my friends to stay for dinner, and no matter how much we played together, it was those shared mealtimes and conversations which deepened our connection. Something about the act of sitting down together to share in such a basic human need and pleasure as eating holds at bay for a time all of the other forces which seek to draw us apart. We become grounded in community, a community created in our willingness to share the work of hands and the blessings of our lives.>

Most of us will never return to a life directly reliant on the land, like our ancestors, nor would that be sensible. But that does not mean that we must live removed from the rhythms and wisdom of the earth, or from the people who make their livelihoods from that rhythm. It does not mean that we cannot mount a defense of our tables and defend the sacrament of a savored, home-cooked meal shared with those whom we love. It does not mean that we have to accept McCulture unquestioningly, as though it were the only American food tradition there is. The signs of spring are emerging around us, that season of planting and rejoicing. Make it a grounding time. Discover where your food comes from and who tends it. Prepare it with joy. Share it with gratitude and affection. Resist the temptation to drive under those golden arches on the way to somewhere else. Let your soul be nourished by the taste of a different bounty and by the freedom you give to yourselves to claim it. For if we are what we eat, then let us be wise and savor the moments of our becoming.

Spirit of Life and Love,
we are grateful for the signs of spring
which speak to us amid the piles of snow.

For the bright sun which melts icicles
and freshens the whiteness of the fields,
for the loud chatter of birds who have begun to clean out their nests,
for the lone turkey foraging amid the brown grass found along the highway,
for the taste of warmth in the noonday wind,
may our spirits rejoice.

For the support that we receive during our daily struggles,
for the strength that we discover despite our body’s aches,
for the blessings of our lives that endure despite our losses,
may our spirits find comfort.

For the sweetness of love that surrounds us,
for the presence of family and friends that sustain,
for the gifts of the earth that nourish us,
for the renewal that comes to us from seeds deep within us and around us,
may our spirits give thanks.

Readings

by Robert West
If in our time the faith of some seems to falter,
if today we may be less sure of success,
if now we seem less certain that the old promises will be fulfilled,
we yet must continue.

All of us know how dark and dangerous is this time in human history –
no one would deny it.

Perhaps the very density of the darkness will cause more persons to kindle lights.

We must continue to work for world community.

Because we are who we are, we can do no other.

by Rev. Lisa Doege
“Why a flaming chalice?” the question comes.

It’s the cup of life, we answer.
A cup of blessings overflowing.
A cup of water to quench our spirits’ thirst.
A cup of wine for celebration and dedication.

The flame of truth.
The fire of purification.
Oil for anointing, healing.

Out of chaos, fear, and horror,
thus was the symbol crafted, a generation ago.

So may it be for us,
in these days of uncertainty, sorrow, and rage.

And a light to warm our souls and guide us home.

Sermon “How the Chalice Got Its Flame”

“This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!” I’ve sung those words since I was a small child sitting in chapel at the Unitarian Universalist congregation of my childhood. It was easy to sing and we sang it with gusto, laughing as we used our hands to answer the question, “hide it under a bush? Oh, no! I’m going to let it shine.” I’ve sung those words at General Assembly, with 4,000 voices strong, as the chalice which visits us today was kindled. I’ve sung them around the family dinner table, as we lit the flame of a hand-crafted chalice, so small that it could fit in the palm of your hand. Last year, I even felt a sense of coming full circle, when it became our chapel song for the year. Before long, I heard our children spontaneously burst into singing or humming it as they ran off to play. It warmed a place in my heart.

What is this light of ours that we want it to shine out into the world? What is the meaning of this fire nestled in a cup that we kindle together Sunday after Sunday? Just how did the chalice get its flame, and why does it still matter to us today? I want to offer more than a history lesson this morning, as important as that history is. For many Unitarian Universalists, including myself, the chalice has become a living symbol of what our free faith is all about. And like most effective symbols, it has multiple meanings and many layers to the truths it seeks to illumine. Yet it is also true that like most symbols, from time to time there are shining moments when it has the power to bring us together across our differences, to inspire us, and remind us of why our religious lives and values matter.

It would only be fair to recognize, however, that for some of us, there is a certain irony that a creedless faith which rejects dogma should have any kind of symbol at all. My colleague David A. Johnson observes that “No single symbol has universal acceptance among us. For some the cross remains the central symbol, for others a grouping of world religious symbols centers worship, while for some no symbol is acceptable. In recent years the flaming chalice has become the most frequently used symbol… its most common meaning today is the light of knowledge and the search for truth.” In a creedless faith, it is appropriate that not all individuals and congregations embrace the chalice in their religious lives in the exact same way. Still, I do not see the chalice as a challenge to our religious freedom and spirit of inquiry. On the contrary, for me, the chalice burns as a concrete reminder that there are truths larger and more ancient than any creed or any one community could ever capture.

So how did the chalice get its flame? There are several strands of history to explain how a flaming chalice become the symbol for two traditions which value freedom of conscience and love’s call to serve all people. As we talked about with the children this morning, the flaming chalice brings together two ancient symbols – a cup and a flame. Whether we draw on the insight of feminist writer Riane Eisler who sees the chalice as a symbol of the “partnership way” of being in community, or refer to the ancient cups and flagons that have always been found at religious altars and sacred meals, like Jesus’ last supper, the chalice is a reminder of the shared cup of our humanity. The flame itself echoes the sacrificial fires of ancient India, along with the eternal flames at tombs and the lights of cathedrals, mosques, and meeting houses. In all of these contexts, the flame symbolizes the nature of the religious search, the “witness, sacrifice, testing, courage, and illumination” that we experience throughout our journeys.

Within this symbolic context, there are two specific points in history, when these two symbols came together in such a way to give the chalice its flame. The first was in the 14th and 15th century in Bohemia, where a priest named Jan Hus preached some of the early reform ideas that preceded and influenced the Protestant reformation. Hus believed that the Bible should be available in the common tongue, that indulgences were unethical, and that the communion cup should be offered to all, among other things. Caught up in a papal schism, as well as these theological debates and their political consequences, Hus was arrested in Konstanz, Germany, unfairly tried and cruelly executed by being burned at the stake. Until the end, he repeatedly refused to recant his beliefs in order to save his life. Some came to believe that “the flame in the communion cup symbolized the enduring flame of his faith, burning up from the chalice, together forming the shape of a cross.” The cup was his commitment to the ordinary people and the flame a reminder both of his sacrificial martyrdom and the truth of his values and ideas which endured and continued to shine a light of hope beyond his death.

The second moment came in the 20th century, when a Austrian artist named Hans Deutsch had to flee Paris in 1940 after the Nazi invasion because of his critical cartoons of Adolf Hitler. He went into hiding in Southern France, then Spain, then eventually got to Portugal on a altered passport. There, in Lisbon, he met the Rev. Charles Joy, who was operating an underground rescue organization on behalf of the then-practically-unknown Unitarian Service Committee. After Deutsch had joined their work, Joy asked him to create a symbol for their papers “to make them look official, to give dignity and importance to them, and at the same time to symbolize the spirit of our work…. When a document may keep [a person] out of jail, give [them] standing with governments and police, it is important that it look important.” And so with a simple pen and piece of paper, the logo of the flaming chalice was born and its “important look” went on to save countless lives during the war.

Interestingly enough, even though both Deutsch and Joy understood the ancient symbols that Deutsch invoked in his chalice, they found varying personal meanings in the design they both helped to create. Even though he knew that the cross was not part of Deutsch’s thinking, Joy could still see an echo of it in the chalice, which to him symbolized the sacrificial love which embodied the best of Jesus’ life and teaching. For Joy, the chalice was a reminder of our ideals, the best aspirations of our humanity. However, years later, Deutsch wrote to Joy, expressing his admiration for the new insight that Joy had helped him to discover: “There is something that urges me to tell you… how much I admire your utter self denial [and] readiness to serve, to sacrifice all, your time, your health, your well being, to help, help, help. I am not what you may actually call a believer. But if your kind of life is the profession of your faith—as it is, I feel sure—then religion, ceasing to be magic and mysticism, becomes confession to practical philosophy and—what is more—to active, really useful social work. And this religion—with or without a heading—is one to which even a ‘godless’ fellow like myself can say wholeheartedly, Yes!” For Deutsch, the chalice represented the selfless call to service to others.

Which is the real story of how the chalice got its flame? Arguably, both have historic merit, but I doubt they are the only stories that could be told. For if there was one lesson that I learned growing up singing about letting my little light shine, it was that each of us helps to kindle a chalice flame every time we strengthen our community and act in service to the larger good and hope of our world. But it is usually not our own chalice that we light. Albert Schweitzer’s observation rings true: “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” The enduring power of the chalice is found in community.

Just as our tradition teaches that revelation is not sealed, that truth was not just proclaimed once long ago, but is instead constantly evolving and being rediscovered, so our chalice is not just a historic artifact that burned brightly in our movement’s beginning and coming of age, but is a living symbol that is still calling us to be relevant to our times. This is not just theological idealism, it is faith grounded in the practical philosophy Hans Deutsch recognized with his artistic eye. Every time we feel the tug to answer our world’s need, every time we struggle to sacrifice something of ourselves for the larger good, every time we seek to live out the values of freedom and love, we come upon the opportunity to give the chalice its flame once more.

Months ago, when we scheduled this service, none of us could have known about the devastation in Haiti that is happening now. The continuing tremors, the crumbling infrastructure, the death toll that rivals the population of the city of St. Paul – it is a tragedy of such epic proportions that it is easy to feel helpless. But it is in exactly such helpless times that our action is most needed. Last Sunday, moments before the service began, helping hands were copying and stuffing flyers inviting our support of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s Haiti fund and their relief work on the ground. I arrived to the meeting of our Religious Education Committee this Wednesday, where we read local newspaper clippings quoting various religious leaders about God’s will and his supposed decision to protect some and not others. We discussed ways to help our children respond to such hurtful statements with a more Universalist trust in the compassion of the holy. Then I continued on to our Board meeting, where Jeremiah challenged us to figure out a way to respond to this tragedy as a whole congregation, and we chose Feb. 7 to come together as a community of all ages to raise as much awareness and support as we can. We are, of course, joined by many others of all faiths and life circumstances throughout the world who are responding. But I was still moved by our clarity about what our religious response needs to be. I heard in our conversations echoes of Rev. Joy’s commitment to love and of Deutsch’s admiration of the call to “help, help, help” as the ultimate profession of faith. And I could feel the warmth of our chalice flame kindled anew.

If you go to the UUSC’s website, you will see up-to-date news of their efforts in Haiti. You will also see a new chalice logo, from the one originally created by Deutsch, which was unveiled just a year and a half ago. It is a chalice, held in two hands. At its unveiling, Executive Director Charlie Clements observed, “Of course, we retained the flaming chalice, but now you can see it is framed by joined hands … these open hands, universal symbols of welcome and fellowship, sweep outwards, indicating our engagement with the broad community of people committed to human rights. The chalice enshrines our origins; its central position reaffirms the continuing importance of our Unitarian Universalist values. The logo’s sweeping parallelism suggests flowing energy, consistent with our vision for UUSC as a dynamic and agile force in the world of human rights advocacy.” It is a beautiful vision, but it also reminded me that all symbols worth their salt should be a dynamic, agile force in the world, unafraid to adapt and speak to a new time, a new people, and a new day. “Let it shine!”

Yet even as the chalice and its flame call us to build up our world, with the outward transformation we seek, it is also a reminder to tend to our inner transformation as well. The General Assembly chalice is actually a beautiful example of this. It is the Unitarian chalice brought together with the Universalist circle, but the presence of two circles represents our merger and joined traditions. This is the first year that I discovered that the chalice travels in the district where the General Assembly will be held. This chalice has been kindled in congregations large and small, with buildings and without buildings, on coasts and mountains and the fertile valleys in between. It is kindled at the opening and closing of the assembly itself, and each year, at the service of the Living Tradition which honors our ministry and shares the roll call of the ministers who have died in the previous year, it is lit by one of the surviving families. It has probably been lit with candles and oil lamps and sterno cans with the magic touch of salt – all the many ways in which we give our chalices their flame. It has been a witness to our collective story, to our democracy, to our communities with all their memory and hope.

So it is, too, with our own chalice. I remember clearly that rainy, cold February day when we moved from our home on Pohl Road to this home on Charles Ave, all within the same service. If we could have kept the flame of the chalice glowing, like the Olympic torch, leading our parade of cars, we would have done so. Conceding to reality, we thought carefully of the importance of the chalice in that ceremony of leaving and arriving. It felt right to have Jane Foster, charter member of this Fellowship, whose vision and sacrifice helped to make our congregation a reality, light the chalice for our last service at Pohl Road. And it felt equally right, after the parade of cars and the rows of umbrellas, to have our children kindle the chalice for our first service in this home, for they will help to create the vision which will continue Jane’s and our founders’ legacy. So the light of freedom, hope, and love is passed on from generation to generation. “Let it shine!”

Soon after we made ourselves at home here, we were given a new chalice, beautifully commissioned for us by a local potter, an artist who knows and appreciates our congregation. It is a larger chalice, so that its flame can be visible to everyone gathered here. This is the chalice that we kindle, Sunday after Sunday, at rites of passage, and other special events of our congregation. Often we choose different words from week to week, to lift up the power of the flame. Through our time together, I have found that the words which seem most fitting are words of gratitude and hope. I speak of gratitude because I actually reflect on the many hands which create our community as I approach the chalice. I think of the sacrifice of time and energy, of the meetings and the struggles, of the delicious meals and the inspiring music, of the words of comfort and cheer, of those beloved members now gone, and those who are just arriving. I think of all the acts of love, sacrifice, and dedication that our chalice has witnessed and it is that gratitude which kindles the flame of hope in my heart.

Our heritage of freedom, love and service will live on in our world, because we are willing to enter into the struggle and joy of embodying it. At times, we are the chalice. At times, we are the flame. At times we are that spark which is so desperately needed by another. Through the shared witness of our lives, the two come together to be a beacon of light to our own spirits and to our world. May our chalice flame continue to shine! So may it be!

Spirit of Life and Love,
help us to be one with the world.

Help us to be one with the victims of earthquakes and other unspeakable tragedies, that our tears and assistance can show them the truth that they are not alone.

Help us to be one with those who are on the ground giving aid,
that our strength can buoy them in their exhaustion and our gratitude give balm to their despair.

Help us to be one with the children everywhere,
that our arms can comfort and hold them and shelter them from the storm.

Help us to be one with the lost and confused,
that our listening ear can help them discover the beauty of the wilderness
and the way through.

Help us to be one with our own helplessness and sorrow,
that our own hearts can have patience and trust for the journey we all share.

Help us to be one with each other,
that we might deepen our humanity
and save each other with the love and hope that we find.

Amen and Blessed Be.

Readings

In the Book from Even in Quiet Places by William Stafford
A hand appears.
It writes on the wall.
Just a hand moving in the air
and writing on the wall.

A voice comes and says the words,
“You have been weighed,
you have been judged,
and have failed.”

The hand disappears, the voice
fades away into silence.
And a spirit stirs and fills
the room, all space, all things.

All this in The Book
asks, “What have you done wrong?”
But the Spirit says,
“Come to me, who need comfort.”

And the hand, the wall, the voice
are gone, but The Spirit is everywhere.
The story ends inside the book,
but outside, wherever you are -

It goes on.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Sermon “The Enemy of the Good”

It came to us while we were discussing the health care bill during its time in the Senate. Our UU campus ministry group sat around our flaming chalice, munching on oreos and trying to decide whether or not it was better to get the health care reform passed, even with some wrenching omissions and compromises, or better to champion a more inclusive bill that might more surely fail. We could see both sides of the debate, both the pragmatic realism of achieving the good that was possible and the principled idealism of not compromising the full goals of reform. With some reservation, we found ourselves leaning on the side of passing a less-than-ideal bill to begin the needed change. In conclusion, one of the students offered this proverbial wisdom from the French Philosopher Voltaire: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

Intrigued, I went home and looked it up. Sometimes it is also translated as “The best is the enemy of the good.” It is often quoted as encouragement to champion greater acceptance of simply being good enough, so that we are not frozen in inaction or fear of failure. My friend and colleague Ed Harris, in his book How You Can Have a Good Day Everyday (even if you made other plans), has a chapter on common mistakes people make. Number 10 on his list is the idea that “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.” “Wrong!” he argues. “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. If it is worthwhile, fun, it is OK to do it badly. We all have to start somewhere. This mistake is a cloaked perfectionism. We can’t be “perfect” and we miss out on much that is good in life if we try to be. If it is fun to sail, camp, dance, sing, write, play the piano then it should be done. Do it badly to begin with and go as far as you can with it.” Ed’s point is not to diminish our appreciation for those who truly excel in their gifts and take their art or talent to a new level. But if the rest of us never dare to start off doing something badly, we will never challenge ourselves to learn something new or to deepen our skills. I tell new ministerial students regularly that I was the only student in my theological school to take the public speaking class twice. If I hadn’t been willing to start off badly, I’d wouldn’t be a parish minister today.

But I think Voltaire is actually challenging us to make a different distinction. He is not arguing that we should give up our ideals or our aspirations of achieving our best work, only that we be mindful of those times when we are no longer achieving the goodness that possible is today, because we are still stubbornly focussed on the perfect goodness we hope for tomorrow. This is trickier to avoid than it sounds. In Western religious and philosophical tradition, we have often been taught to see perfection and goodness as one and the same. Having been taught the image of the omnipotent, all-perfect God, we are reminded that human beings are created in that image, and if we follow the right teachings and earn a spot in heaven, we will be returned once more to that perfect state. As Stafford reminds us, we have been taught to expect the handwriting on the wall and the voice which says “You have been weighed, you have been judged, and have failed.” And so we learn to fear that voice, whether we hear it coming from the Divine, or from others, or even from within ourselves.

Even those of us who have wrestled out a different theological understanding, who would follow the comforting Spirit to the place where the Book ends but the story goes on, can still find ourselves rooted in a culture which urges the essentially Judeo-Christian idea of the perfection of our character. The American identity is clear. We are the people who pull ourselves up by our boot-straps. We are the contestants on the reality contests such as the Biggest Loser, or American Idol, or Survivor where there can be only one ultimate winner. We are the Vikings fans who understand that Brett Favre’s one goal is to win the Superbowl. We are the ordinary citizens who regularly judge ourselves, and often our relations, against ideal body weights, school testing standards, happiness indexes, and standards of living.

Within this context, just to suggest that perhaps perfection isn’t all it is cracked up to be sounds like wimping out, settling for sub-par performance, making excuses for not try just a little harder to close that last gap between the A and the A+, or at worse arguing for lower standards of morality. I can hear the hint of doubt in the voice of a friend who, having improved her health significantly, is still obsessed with those last five pounds and unable to honor her hard work. I can see it in the report of the respected leader who stepped down because only some of their ambitious goals were met. But I believe that this commitment to perfection can be a spiritual danger when the lack becomes all that we see, and shame and frustration overshadow a more balanced perspective on how far we have come. In his book, The Burdens of Perfection, Andrew Miller observes: “In some moods, or for some people, the desire to improve can seem so natural as to be banal. The impulse drives forward so much in our culture that it can color our thoughts and shape our actions without being much noticed. But in other moods, or for other people, this strenuous desire becomes all too noticeable, and its demands crushing. It can then drive a sleepless attention to ourselves, a desolate evaluation of what we have been and what we are.”

It has occurred to me that some of our Western interest in Eastern religion and philosophy may grow out of a desire for alternatives to the harsh burdens of this “onward and upward”, “succeed or fail” view of the spiritual and moral quest. While generalizations are risky, the Eastern approach to human growth and improvement seems less about perfect action than about perfect understanding. Much of Eastern teaching is couched in paradox with cautions against self-righteousness. Beware the temptation to believe that you are approaching enlightenment, or what the Buddhists call “perfect wisdom,” for it is a sure sign that you are further away from it than you think!

The Upanishads of Hindu Scripture teach this riddle: “That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect. May peace and peace and peace remain everywhere.” Chuang Tzu offers this advice on the Taoist search for the Way: “The sage embraces things. Ordinary [people] discriminate among them and parade their discriminations before others. So, I say, those who discriminate fail to see. The Great Way is not named; Great Discriminations are not spoken; Great Benevolence is not benevolent; Great Modesty is not humble; Great Daring does not attack. If the Way is made clear, it is not the Way.” Confucius’ grandson Tzu-Ssu (483-402 B.C.E.) talks about sincerity, rather than goodness or moral character: “Sincerity is the fulfillment of our own nature, and to arrive at it we need only follow our true self…. When we fulfill our own being, we become truly human; when we fulfill all beings, we arrive at true understanding… Thus, when we act with sincerity, everything we do is right.” What I take from these riddles and deliberate spiritual puzzles is that perfection is not a state of achievement, but rather a state of inner peace. Righteousness, or prideful morality, is not a measure of religious virtue, but a sign that the way is lost. Sincerity teaches us to act out of who we are right now, instead of out of the despair of who we are not.

Somewhere amid this body of both Western and Eastern wisdom is a more balanced understanding of what it mean to grow our souls, of what it means to rise to the challenge of living ethically, spiritually, and lovingly in a world of selfishness, greed, and hardship, without becoming trapped in a self-defeating, competitive perfectionism. Somewhere here is a more balanced realization that our morality needs some soul, that our idealism needs some humility, that our understandings of the good need some pragmatism and openness to the mystery. If the perfect is the enemy of the good, then perhaps we need to remember more clearly that the peace we discover within ourselves is the true friend of the good.

Mary Oliver touches on this insight, when she reminds us that “you do not have to be good… You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” I may have known this as a young child, but this is not the lesson that I was taught as an adult. It has taken me years to unlearn the impossible idea that the good I can bring to the world should be achieved through an as-perfect-as-possible performance of my many roles. In my early years of ministry, I had a colleague who talked about wanting to discover the real minister’s handbook – the one that provided the exact right thing to do or say in every situation, that explained how to write a real sermon, that taught what leadership means in a liberal religious community. I wanted one, too. Then I found myself wanting more of them – the real spouse’s handbook, the real parents’ handbook, the real citizen activists’ handbook. I could find lots of advice, but no definitive handbooks ever appeared.

Slowly I began to realize that no book would ever save me. My life was not a performance or a test. Rather the good that I could bring to the world would have to come from within myself, from that sincere place within that is at peace with being who I am in the world. The Chinese word for peace, heping, is comprised of two characters meaning harmony and level (or flat), which suggests equalizing and balancing. The Buddha believed that peace could not come from inflexible stances, which inevitably lead to conflict, but rather had to allow for change and newness. It makes sense to me. If we become focussed on the rigidity of perfection, if we fear the judging voice of the Book, we lose our balance and our softer response to the daily events of our lives. I have learned that when I can be comfortable simply showing up, at peace with who and where I am, trusting that I will discover what to do, that I am able to be of greatest help to others as a minister, a mother, or a friend. When we find some peace within ourselves about the paradoxical nature of our world and our humanity, when we focus more on our understanding of the good than on our ideals of the perfect, we are freer to truly act in the world. When we remember that peace is the friend of the good, we are able to let the goodness we have found make its difference and move on to the goodness yet to be.

A similar transformation is possible in the way we approach the significant relationships of our lives. This past Sunday, my family returned from the celebration of my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary. Given that my grandfather spent most of December in the hospital with pneumonia, we were deeply grateful to be able to gather for a celebration and not a funeral. (Today is his 96th birthday.) Thinking about 70 years of marriage, it might be tempting to tell the story of my grandparents’ marriage as a kind of a fairy tale or a story of two soul-mates destined for each other. It is true that their story is a love story, but it is not a story about finding the perfect mate, as TV shows like the Bachelor would lead you to believe. They met at a public swimming pool in Manhattan, a young man from the Bronx and a young woman from Brooklyn (neither of whom had ever been to the other’s burrough) and they were married six months later. They lived through my grandfather’s navy service in WWII. They raised two daughters. They survived the ups and downs of work and family life. They found they had many differences in personality, socialability, and life goals. They fought a lot, they worked things out, and they learned to love each other. Last weekend, as they held hands and sat in seats of honor surrounded by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, I asked my grandmother what she had been telling people about their secret. With a laugh, she replied “Four things, not necessarily in this order: patience, love, perseverance, and shots of bourbon.” If they had gotten married today, with the expectations of perfect compatibility that we sometimes hold, I wonder whether or not they would have made it. Not all relationships are meant to last. But in their specific case, I celebrate that they did, for by coming to peace with their differences, they found a legacy of love and goodness for themselves, and for our whole family through the years. When we remember that peace is the friend of the good, we are sometimes able to allow the goodness to be found in our relationships to grow, however imperfect they may be.

Last, but perhaps not least, by letting go of the need for absolute perfection, and opening ourselves to the goodness which remains possible, we transform our approach to life itself. I think that the French philosopher was calling upon us not to just be at peace with making mistakes or achieving a less than perfect goodness, but also to be at peace with those things in this world that are beyond our control. How do we know when it is better to pass imperfect reform than to stand for all our principles? How can we help to save a world with is filled with so many tragic problems, or help transform a humanity which has learned so much distrust and hate? For years, I felt frozen in my ability to make a difference on issues of racism, because I was overwhelmed at the magnitude of the mountain we still need to climb and feared climbing it badly. Until I reminded myself that while I couldn’t control a whole mountain, I could do something about showing up and trying to climb my own corner of it, even if I did sometimes fall. We live in paradox. Sometimes we must let go of what is not ours to achieve to discover what we can still do.

Nonetheless, when we fail to achieve our goals for ourselves, or our perception of other’s aspirations for us, we still get caught up in inner cycles of shame, self-criticism, despair and doubt. And yet, who among us, has never failed or fallen short? Why are we so hard on ourselves for not achieving a state of being that may actually not be within our grasp anyway? This is not the point in the sermon where I conclude by inviting you to give up your new year’s resolutions or to stop aspiring to some new skill or achievement. By all means, challenge yourself to grow and to live your life more fully in the ways you long for! Make those choices, work on those relationships, dare to do something badly at first. But when you begin to find yourself preventing the goodness that is possible today, because you are still working toward that perfect goodness of your dreams, stop and take stock. Ask yourself if you can find greater peace within yourself and your own struggle in order to discover the goodness that surrounds you once more. When we remember that peace is the friend of the good, then we will let go of what is not ours to choose and embrace our lives with greater acceptance and creativity.

Years ago, a youth advisor wrote some advice about life to share with his young crew. We do not know his name. But he shared two lists with them – the bad news and the good news. There is much wisdom in both, but I share them with you this morning, because I believe that they embody the truth Voltaire was speaking to, the peace that is the friend of goodness, now and always:

“First the bad news…

1. Life isn’t fair.

2. The question is not “why me?” It’s “why not me?”

3. No matter how bright, charming, lovable and well intentioned you are, not everyone is going to approve of you, love you, or even like you.

4. From time to time it will rain on your parade.

5. Every now and then, no matter how careful you try to be, you are bound to do something unbelievably stupid.

Next the good news…

1. Unless you are hanging around some really mean people, no one but you will remember the dumb things you’ve done.

2. You do not have to have an opinion on everything.

3. Virtually all of the bad things that may happen in life are survivable. A lot of it is even eventually useful.

4. Although you may not be as wonderful as you hope, you are not nearly as terrible as you may fear.

5. Progress is made slowly and in small increments. The tortoise always beats the hare, in Aesop’s fable, and in life.

So may it be!

Spirit of Life and Love,
in these snow-bound days
as the light begins its return,
we would learn to live with a wintry spirit.

Help us to shovel each snowfall
with the mindfulness of the Buddha,
to discover new joys and warmth in indoor places,
to trust that beneath the crunch and sparkle of the landscape,
deep within the earth,
the seeds of spring prepare themselves.

Help us to answer January’s invitation
to slow down,
to see our lives in stark contrast,
to reclaim the comforts of home,
to welcome our bodies and spirits into a time of hibernation and renewal,
until we are ready to burst forth in creativity once more.

For there are abundant gifts to this frozen time,
as there are in each and every season.
May we keep our spirits open
to the clarity and beauty of the winter sun.

Readings

The Rabbi’s Gift (as told by M. Scott Peck):

Deep in the forest, there was a monastery that had fallen on hard times. Once thriving, things had now become so bad that there were only four monks and the abbot left, all over seventy. The monastery was clearly dying.

Despairing over the monastery’s decline, the abbot decided to visit a wise rabbi and seek his counsel. The rabbi welcomed the abbot and listened carefully to him. But, when the abbot finished his sad tale, the rabbi only shook his head and said, “I know how it is. The spirit has gone from the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to synagogue anymore.”

The two men wept together. Then they read Torah and spoke of many deep things.

Eventually the abbot had to leave. As the two men embraced, the rabbi said, “I’m sorry I had no advice for you. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

The abbot returned to the monastery, He sadly told the monks, “The rabbi couldn’t help, We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say was that the Messiah was one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”

The monks pondered. What did the rabbi mean? Is the Messiah really one of us?

The abbot maybe?

Or, Brother Thomas who is so clearly a holy man?

Surely not Brother Elred, who is too crotchety. But, when you come right down to it, in retrospect Brother Elred is always right about things.

Brother Phillip maybe. No, Phillip is so quiet and passive. Still, when you really need someone, Brother Phillip has a way of magically appearing.

Maybe the rabbi meant one of the visitors who come here from time to time. Has the Messiah been here and we didn’t even know it? Or is he on his way?

Surely the rabbi didn’t mean me! I’m just an ordinary person. ….But… what if he did mean me? Oh God, I am not the Messiah am I? I couldn’t be that much for you, could I?

As the pondering continued, the monks began to treat each other deep respect, just in case one of them really was the Messiah. And they began to treat themselves with respect, too. Just in case…

Occasionally hikers coming through the forest would visit the monastery, sometimes stopping to pray in the dilapidated chapel. They began to notice something strangely compelling about the monastery. For one thing, the monks radiated love and respect.

People began to make special trips to the forest, just to be in the presence of the monks. They brought their families and friends to show them that special place.

Some of the younger men began to talk to the old monks. And then one young man decided to take orders. And then another joined. And another. And another. Within a few years, the monastery was thriving again, Thanks to the rabbi’s gift, it became a vibrant center of light and spirituality.

from the writings of Rumi (13th century Persian Sufi mystic and poet)

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,?some momentary awareness
comes? as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house?empty of its furniture,?still, treat each guest honorably.

[S]he may be clearing you out?for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,?and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent?as a guide from beyond.

Sermon “Soul Food”

The story of the Rabbi’s gift and his suggestion to treat everyone as though they might be the Messiah seems particularly true to me at this time of year. This is not just the season of silver and gold, candles and dreidels, tinsel and presents, and all those carols. It is also the season of hospitality, of open houses and family gatherings, company luncheons and holiday teas. There is a reason that we bake all those cookies, ponder those punch recipes, and experiment with those appetizers. In this sacred season, we seem to intuitively understand the importance of gathering together – even when it is difficult to be with others. Even when we don’t really have the time. Even when our houses never seem quite ready for our guests.

Walking through the aisles at the store with sparkling glassware and elegant place settings, I have often wondered if we understand just how ancient these rituals of hospitality are and how central they are to our spiritual traditions. In ancient Greece, the art of hospitality was considered so important that it was under the protection of Zeus himself. Throughout the life of Jesus, he is constantly inviting people to join him at the table, whether for wine at the wedding in Cana, or feeding 5000, or even the last supper. In Islam, the prophet Mohammed teaches that the generosity we show to our guests reflects trust in the All-Generous nature of Allah himself. In Hindu culture and tradition, the unexpected guest is called the atithi, which means “without a set time” and, no matter one’s social resources or status, one is expected to offer three items to your guest: sweet words, a sitting place, and refreshments (at least a glass of water). And throughout the world, you will hear echoes of the story of an angel or God or Elijah visiting in disguise, only to reward the person who truly opens their hearts and homes to them.

Still, I wonder if such stories, while teaching us to see our embrace of the stranger as an echo of the loving embrace of the Holy, have actually begun to distract us from the everyday spiritual importance of hospitality and our rituals of invitation, welcome, and feasting. At a recent conference in Ottawa, Ontario, I had the opportunity to hear Thomas Moore, author of such books as Care of the Soul and most recently Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. Moore makes a distinction between the spiritual needs of the spirit (or mind) and the spiritual needs of the soul. In his experience as a theologian and psycho-therapist, he finds that the human spirit likes distance, but that our souls crave intimacy. So, first and foremost, he argues that the soul needs a home – a physical body and real places to experience pleasure and beauty, pain and loss. But once it finds that home, what the soul needs more than anything is a friend.

Contrast that idea – that what the soul needs more than anything is a friend – with recent concerns that Americans are now at risk of becoming among the most isolated people in the world. A 2006 study by sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona reported that Americans’ circle of confidants has shrunk by roughly one third in the past two decades and the number of people who say they have no one with whom to discuss important matters has more than doubled, up to 25% of the respondents. The role of social media networks like facebook, and the technology of mobile phones are cited both as reasons for increased isolation and as evidence of a widening, more diverse network of support, depending upon which side of the debate you are on. Still, even with that caveat, the implications are startling. One in four of us does not feel that we have anyone with whom we can discuss our inner life – the questions and experiences, doubts and insights that make us who we are. Three in four of us feels that our circle of companionship has shrunk significantly. Is this simply the result of the increasingly overwhelming pace of modern life? Or have we lost sight of the importance of nourishing our souls, not just with meditation and spiritual practice, but with the personal connections from soul to soul which enrich and enliven our days?

With this context in mind, each act of hospitality, or even the simplest offer of a cup of tea, sounds like a revolutionary idea. And it is. But not because each guest might be a potential Messiah or angel or god or goddess in disguise. Rather, because each guest is a potential soulmate – an ordinary human being, like ourselves, with an extraordinary life journey to share. This is the ancient wisdom which I believe we still know on some deep level – that to open our homes and table to others is to open our hearts and our humanity to a wider connection as well. In doing so, we do not just offer the gifts of physical food and shelter, but we offer gifts of soul food and meaningful community. So how might we offer each other sweet words, a sitting place, and refreshments during this hectic, lonely, sparkling and dream-infused time of the year and beyond?

Sometimes the sweet words we offer are ones of seasonal ritual. Every culture the world over has traditional greetings for celebratory times of the year. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays do not have a corner on this market! At Ramadan, a traditional greeting offers “May every year find you in good health!” Jews often hail one another with “joyous festival”. Kwanzaa is greeted with the Swahili words for “What’s the news?” And there are other, daily ritual words – “How are you?”, “Won’t you come in?” , “Can you believe this weather?”, or “How about those Vikings?”

Even when they feel trite, these rituals have the purpose of establishing a connection. And if you doubt their importance, try going through a day without them, and see how odd it can feel. But the soul food we crave does not come from these ritual words of hospitality alone, but from the deeper connections that they lead to. Recently, Wayne and I were invited to the home of a friend of a friend. I could feel myself getting nervous on the way over. I didn’t know these people. What if it was awkward? What if we didn’t have anything in common? At first, we did talk politely about the weather. We were offered refreshment. We asked about each other’s Thanksgiving, each other’s work. But by the time we had walked through these rituals together, deeper topics emerged – the joys and frustrations of gardening, struggles with the commercialism of the holidays, the sadness of supporting friends with cancer, the joys and adventures of adoption. By the time we left, three hours later, we had made new friends. The effort had been worth it. Why had I been so worried?

Then I heard the advice of a 4th grader this week, as he was listening to the younger 2nd graders trade stories about their ever-shifting friendships and whom they had lost. He offered, much more wisely than me, “But do you want them to be your friend? Then try to make them laugh. That’s how I’ve gotten all of my friends – by laughing.” His advice helped me to remember that it is sometimes not the words themselves, but the environment that our words create which make us feel welcome. Sweet words can be inviting words which welcome us in. They can be laughing words which bring us together. They can be the familiar words of a story, told year after year, that remind us from whence we come. They can be quiet words, which leave open spaces between them for silent understanding. Whatever they may be, sweet words help us to find words that connect, rather than divide, that invite rather than alienate, that lead to honest topics rather than superficialities. They create a time and a place in which friendships, old and new, can become food for our souls.

But as Thomas Moore reminds us, the soul also needs a home, as well as friends. The art of hospitality extends past our sweet words of greeting to a sitting place, where our guests can rest in comfort. With your mind’s eye, take a walk through your own home for a moment. Where is the sitting place for your guests? Do you greet them in a formal living room? Do you linger at the dining room table? Is there a special stool in the kitchen, or rocker on the porch, where conversations linger through the afternoon? The actual Latin root of the word for chair is cathedra, so that the honored seats of the early bishops were literally set in Cathedrals. But it is an interesting image. The cathedras of our own homes – places of honor and dignity, not just for certain leaders, but for everyone who comes.

The connection is not merely symbolic. I remember clearly the true story of an elderly woman who walked into her kitchen one morning to find a runaway fugitive climbing in through the window, with the police on his tail. Instead of responding in outward fear, she asked if he was hungry. When he responded “yes” with tears in his eyes, she told him to sit down at the table and she would fry him some eggs. The police did eventually come, but everyone was treated civilly and no one was harmed. The sitting place had offered a recognition of humanity and goodwill.

In my own living room, we have an old, sturdy rocker which is both a favorite of our guests and a favorite family spot to read the evening paper. It has a storied place in the Schneider family lore, however. It was originally owned by one of the Schneider farmers in Iowa, several generations ago. As was sometimes customary in that day, he had arranged to be married through an ad in the newspaper, and subsequent letter writing to his beloved. On the day she was supposed to arrive by train, a terrible snow storm hit. Undeterred, he attached the rocking chair to his largest tractor and went and fetched her from the station with his unusual sleigh. Sometimes, as we are visiting in our living room, I contemplate that sometimes, even the offer of a sitting place can be the beginning of a courageous adventure.

Such colorful stories remind us that our physical hospitality matters to the nourishment of our souls. In the story of the borrowed latkes this morning, it is no accident that it is only the news of the family running out of chairs, of room for everyone to sit down for their meal, which changes Mrs. Greenberg’s mind about joining the Hanukkah feast. There is something powerful about sitting down to the table together, which Rachel also senses as she tries so hard to win Mrs. Greenberg over. And so our cathedras offer us a special place at the table where we glimpse our connection to a larger community of all souls.

Last, but certainly not least, after sweet words and a sitting place, it is the hospitable tradition to offer our guests refreshments. The Hindu teachings are clear that this need not be anything fancy or extravagant. Even a glass of water will suffice. But every host and hostess in all cultures knows that a shared drink, or a shared meal, however large or small, changes our relationship with one another. For Moore, the meaning found in this sharing is not spiritual, but soulful. It is not an intellectual experience to be pursued, but a visceral experience of being alive that re-enchants us with the world in which we live. It a sharing of the pleasure of taste, the joy of company, and the imagination of story and conversation that creates the intimacy which nourishes our soul. Although there are no guarantees, the evidence of human history is that the shared meal can temper us to our enemies, redeem us to our family and friends, and bring together nations and peoples in new ways. It is the foundation of families, and perhaps even the bedrock of our society.

As I was researching this sermon, I became aware of a difference of opinion about whether or not there is a distinction to be made between hospitality and entertaining. Some feel that the pressure to entertain and present a perfect house is actually one of the reasons that the art of hospitality is declining in our culture. They recall with fondness how their mothers just added an extra potato to the pot, when someone was over close to the supper hour. Others feel that there is a joy in creating a special atmosphere for welcoming people as guests in their home. In my mind, they are both sides of the same coin. I have felt as hospitably received in my mother-in-law’s kitchen as at her formal Christmas table. The china is different. But the intent to welcome and to nurture an on-going relationship is the same.

And yet, the china still has something to teach us from time to time. During a worship service in Ottawa, my colleague Patrick O’Neill told a story from his early ministry, when he was called to visit a family upon the death of their mother. When he arrived, he found her adult daughter sitting on the living room amid a pile of boxes in tears. Her parents, she explained, had worked themselves out of the poverty of the Great Depression and built a prosperous apple orchard. Yet they had always lived frugally. Her mother had treated herself to very few pleasures in life. And now that she was gone, the daughter had found a box of un-opened Wedgewood china in the back of a hallway closet. Her mother apparently, had splurged once, but for some mysterious reason had never used it. Why was that? Was she afraid it would somehow be broken or chipped? Was she satisfied to own it, but concerned about appearing ostentatious to her family and friends? Had she simply forgotten about it through the years?

The answer will never be known. But as he drove home that afternoon to prepare the Memorial Service, it was clear to him that what bothered the daughter the most was that her mother had never even treated herself to the secret pleasure of a solitary cup of tea on her best Wedgewood China. Often, we think of the power of offering our hospitality to others, of treating strangers as potential Messiahs or friends. But there are moments in our lives when it can be equally important to offer such hospitality to ourselves and to nourish our own souls. At the close of his sermon, Rev. O’Neill sent us all home with this one charge – to go back to our homes, scattered throughout North America, and to sit down at our tables with a cup of tea in our very best china and to raise the cup in remembrance of the mother from Yakima, WA.

One of my favorite poets, Shel Silverstein, offers this short musing on the power of hospitality entitled, “How Many, How Much”: “How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live ‘em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give ‘em.”

The holiday gatherings and the family feasts of this season are not just opportunities to eat and mingle at this festive time of year. The warm hospitality that we offer and gracious hospitality we receive are nourishments to our souls, which we should not take for granted, but can lift up and celebrate. So consider carefully the sweet words, the sitting places and the refreshments that surround us this season and prepare yourselves not only for an occasional angel or Messiah in disguise, but for an abundance of friends. For it is in the intimacy of our shared humanity that we remember the light, the goodness, and the mystery inside each of us. So may it be.

Spirit of Life and Love,
in this season of paradox,
of light and dark,
stress and stillness,
food and want,
crowds and loneliness,
help us to make connections
to the wonder that surrounds us.

Help us to welcome both strangers and friends to our table,
to share the food and the laughter,
the stories and the tears.

Help us to honor our ancestors,
as they return to us through traditions
carried on year after year
in loving memory.

Help us to prepare the gifts which cannot be wrapped,
but which will always be treasured -
gifts of time and companionship,
play and rest.

Help us to gather around the warmth of candlelight and flame-filled hearth,
beneath the beauty of the stars,
and bear courageous witness to the love and hope that we find.