Caste 2 - Sermon for week ending October 24, 2020

Reading 

From Caste: The Origin of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

When people have lived with assumptions long enough, passed down through the generations as incontrovertible fact, they are as accepted as the truths of physics. They are as true and as unremarkable as the air that we breathe. In a caste system, the abiding faith in the entitlement of birth becomes enmeshed in the minds of the dominant caste, so that if a lower caste person rises, the response by the dominant caste person is to perceive a threat to their existence, a heightened sense of unease, of displacement, of fear for their very survival. 

Sermon

I’m devoting a second week to this book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents. If you are reading it and want to delve more deeply, since it is an Oprah Book Club pick, there are lots of good resources online, including a podcast, with Oprah and the author, Isabel Wilkerson talking about the book with a panel of folks from different places in the caste hierarchy. And filmmaker Ava DuVernay, who brought us When they See Us, 13^th, and Selma is making it into a film for Netflix. There is so much in this book that is relevant to everything we have been talking about this summer and fall. The topic of Chapter 11, for example, is being played out these very days.  It is called “Dominant group Status Threat,” and it is at the root of so much of the hatred and vitriol coming from white people aimed at black people. Wilkerson notes in the chapter that working class white people need the demarcation of caste the most because they have relied on the illusion, perpetuated in the Jim Crowe South, that no matter what downward social mobility they experienced, they would never be on the bottom. They would always be above black people. She quotes historian David Roediger, who said about this group,“They might lose everything, but not their whiteness. Psychologically, this gave them a since of safety.” But they saw things beginning to change with the Civil Rights movement, which opened up the job market to African Americans. People that they had viewed as inherently inferior were now in the mainstream, which left them with the fear that their white skin might be losing the value it had had in the past. Black people became a threat to their place in the hierarchy. During the 8 years of an African American president, these working class white people began to feel more and more threatened, and the fear that their standing was losing ground became worse. By 2016, they were proclaiming that they were more discriminated against than black people, who were taking their jobs away from them. These fears and resentments made them receptive to the racist and xenophobic messages of the white supremacy movement. Attaching themselves to politicians who voiced white supremacist views, they were even willing to vote against their own interests, healthcare and the government programs they were benefitting from, because of their greater need to maintain their status as members of the dominant caste. Wilkerson says there is no greater motivator than the belief that undeserving groups are getting ahead while your group is left behind. A recent PRRI survey revealed that 65% of white working-class Americans believe that American culture and way of life has deteriorated since the 1950’s. They report feeling like strangers in their own country, and they are doing whatever they have to do to protect the caste hierarchy. We are seeing this in action every day, across our country, our state, and our town. White people mock the murders of black people by police, and celebrate when the police aren’t held accountable. They vilify the Black Lives Matter movement, and venerate the armed white supremacists who show up at protests and shoot unarmed black Americans at will. Those in the dominant caste who fear their demise have always reacted by seeking to destroy those in subordinate castes. It’s the cause of most wars. Someone fears that someone else might take away what they believe is rightfully theirs. So they eliminate them to maintain their superiority. We see it in the church, as we learned more about from the book White Too Long .And we see it throughout the Bible, in the persecution of the Jews, by higher castes, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians. It’s in all the prophetic books and the Psalms. It’s in the gospels, from the Romans, and throughout the New Testament. The caste system, the belief that it is ordained by God and necessary for society that certain groups are below others has been around for so long, and is so deeply ingrained in the human mind that it seems almost impossible to be free from it. But it isn’t impossible. What humans built, humans can dismantle. In the last paragraph of the book, Wilkerson gives us a view of what our world could be if we were to free ourselves from the illusion of caste. She says, “In a world without caste, instead of a false swagger over our own tribe or family or ascribed community, we would look upon all humanity with wonderment, astonished at what our species is capable of and grateful to be alive to experience it. In a world without caste, being male or female, light or dark, immigrant or native-born would have no bearing on what anyone was perceived as capable of. We would recognize that we are in need of one another more than we have been led to believe. A world without caste would set everyone free.” May we continue to do all that we can to help dismantle this system, this mindset, that keeps us so separated from one another and replace it with one that brings us together.

 

 

Caste - Sermon for Week Ending October 17, 2020

Readings:

From Caste: The Origins of our Discontents

Caste is the granting or withholding of respect, status, honor, attention, privileges, resources, benefit of the doubt, and human kindness to someone on the basis of their perceived rank or standing in the hierarchy. It is the warm grooves of comforting routines and unthinking expectations, patterns of a social order that have been in place for so long that it looks like the natural order of things. Casteism is the investment in keeping the hierarchy as it is in order to maintain your own ranking, advantage, privilege, and keep others beneath you.

From Matthew 15: 21-28.

Jesus went to the district of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me Lord! My daughter is being tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer at all, and the disciples came and urged him saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” Jesus said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus answered, “Great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Sermon: 

I have just finished this very interesting book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson. She defines caste as “an artificial ranking of human value that uses rigid boundaries to keep the ranked groups apart and in their assigned places.” She expands on that definition throughout the book, as we heard in our reading. And she looks at 3 different caste systems: India, Nazi Germany, and America, saying that, in India, the Dalits were the untouchables. In Nazi Germany, it was the Jews. And in the United States, it is black people.

Caste, she says, is the underlying structure of race and class. Someone of any race can rise in class through hard work and ingenuity, but caste is fixed at birth, and those who are at the bottom will remain at the bottom. She quotes NBA star LeBron James, who says, “No matter how great you become in life, no matter how wealthy you become, how people worship you or what you do, if you are an African-American man or an African-American woman, you will always be that.” Her research led her to identify the pillars of belief that caste rests on, like divine will and heredity. One of the strangest ones to me is the belief in the purity of the dominant caste and the fear of pollution from the castes beneath it, which is where ‘untouchable’ originated. This belief has been on display here in the U.S throughout history,  in the supposed sanctity of water. Even as late as the 1970’s when I was a teenager, African-Americans were banned from white beaches, lakes, and pools, lest they pollute them.

And the white dominant caste went to great lengths to enforce the bans. When St. Louis attempted to open their public pools to black people, white mobs chased, kicked, and beat any black person they saw coming to the pool, including children on bicycles. In Cincinnati, whites threw nails and broken glass into the water. When a civil rights activist attempted to integrate a public pool by diving in and swimming a lap, the pool was drained and filled with fresh water. White people would not go into water that had touched black skin. On the PBS show, Tell Me More, lawyer and Justice advocate Bryan Stevenson recently shared a personal experience about a pool that has stayed with him his whole life. When he was a kid, their family was traveling from their home in Delaware to South Carolina, and they spent the first night in a hotel. When they saw the pool, he and his sister couldn’t wait to get in. They stood at the edge.

He held her, and they jumped in, and it was glorious. Then he noticed that all the white parents “were going crazy,” shouting to their children, “get out of the pool, get out of the pool,” and children were scrambling to get out. Finally there was one little boy left. His father came and grabbed him by the arm and yanked him out. Bryan asked the man, “What’s wrong?” And he said, “You are wrong, followed by a racial epithet.” Stevenson said that black people have so many of these memories that they have to find a way to navigate them so they can stay healthy. He said, when they were teens, he and his sister told a different version of this story to their friends, that she stood on the side and said, “All white people out. I’m coming in.” They all knew it wasn’t true, but it was a way to carry the story, he said, so they could hold onto their humanity. How did humans get to the place of believing that they could be polluted by other humans? Wilkerson says that the caste system was created and is maintained by continually persuading a majority of people that it is ordained by God for certain people to be lower than others, some even subhuman. I don’t think those white children in the pool believed that they would be polluted by the black children. But their parents did. And soon enough, they would too. Caste is a state of mind that holds everyone captive. Even Jesus wasn’t immune.  In our gospel reading, Jesus, who was of higher rank than the Canaanite woman, first ignored her plea to heal her daughter, then said he didn’t heal her kind, and drove the point home by calling her a derogatory name. It took her prodding to get him to take a look at what he is doing and ask himself why? To take off his cultural blinders and awaken to the tyranny of the caste system.

Jesus was open to being awakened. And he made a choice to see past artificial boundaries. He and the Canaanite woman reached across caste and made a connection as two humans. We can do that too. We must do it if we want a world of justice and equality. But it will take work. It will take rejecting the myth that we always took for truth. For those of us in the dominate caste, it will take owning our responsibility for helping to maintain the system which benefits us to the detriment of others. And it will take radical empathy, to listen to and work to understand other folks’ lived experience. We can change our mindsets so that we who in the dominant caste can choose not to dominate. And we who are in a subordinate caste can resist the box others try to force on us. We can become invested in the well-being of all our fellow humans, and join together to help solve the problems of our world.

 

Blessing of the Animals - Worship service for week ending October 10, 2020

Readings: 

St. Francis of Assisi born into a wealthy family, but he renounced his wealth and devoted his life to God. An Italian Catholic friar, mystic, and preacher, he founded the Men’s Franciscan order and the Women’s Order of St. Clare. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in Christian history. He is remembered for his generosity to the poor, caring for the sick, and his love and reverence for nature and animals. Francis is known as the patron saint of animals, birds, and the environment.  

 

“Luke,” a poem by Mary Oliver

I had a dog who loved flowers.
    Briskly she went through the fields,

yet paused for the honeysuckle
    or the rose,
        her dark head and her wet nose
  touching  the face of every one

with its petals  of silk,
    with its fragrance

  rising into the air
  where the bees,
    their bodies
        heavy with pollen,

hovered—
  and easily
     she adored every blossom,

not in the serious, careful way
    that we choose this blossom or that blossom—

the way we praise or don’t praise—
  the way we love or don’t love—
        but the way we long to be—

  that happy
    in the heaven of earth—
        that wild, that loving.

 

 

A prayer for Animal friends, By Kim Harvie

Great Spirit of life, 
We pray today for our animal friends, 
Grateful for their companionship and devotion. 
By our kindness to them, 
May we be worthy of their love. 

We pray also for pets who are gone from us, 
But who brighten our days 
And who comforted us by night. 

We pray for animals unknown to us 
Who are suffering, 
For many that are hunted or deserted or tortured. 
We ask for them pity and mercy. 
And for those who handle them 
We ask a heart of compassion, gentle hands, and kind words. 

Help us to be true friends to the animals 
And love them and keep them and bless them 
All the days of our lives. Amen.

 

Blessing: 

As the patron saint of the environment, St. Francis would be disappointed in how we humans have been treating it. Global destruction of forests, oceans filled with plastic, carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels that melts our icecaps, causing sea levels to rise, and the destruction of habitats and ecosystems. As the patron saint of animals, he would be disappointed in how we treat them. There are over 70 million homeless pets in the United States. Only around 7 million dogs and cats enter shelters. And almost half of those are euthanized. We have to do better.

Lobby for no-kill shelters and for spay and neuter programs, educate people that pet ownership is for life, and continue to donate money and food and supplies to organizations that are doing what they can to help. Thank you for all that you do.

 

Today we honor those pets who loved us their whole lives but are no longer with us, especially Ming, Smudge, Watson, and Penny. And we bless those that are still here with us: Zeke, Rosie June, Chartwell, Amigo, Poncho, Alfa, Oliver, Malcom, Charlie, Drifter, Romeo, Elvis, Tab, Tango, Lizzie, Biscuit, Sir Hugo, Hansel, Bella, Polson, Bear, Oreo, Rose, TJ, Esme, Violet, Little Grey, Moses, Sophie, Jitters, Honey, Bucky, Wiz, Blu, Abby, Tux, Tiara, Trevor, Poco, KJ, Riley, Rusty, Toby, Jack, Duffy, Maggie May, Cleo, and Sox. To all of you wonderful pets, thank you for your unconditional love, for your comfort when we need it most, for teaching us patience and relieving our stress, and for helping us see the world through your eyes and your spirit of adventure and wonder. May you have a long, healthy life, filled with love and happiness and tasty treats. May God bless you and keep you. May God’s face shine upon you and give you peace all your days.  Amen.

For Such A Time As This - Sermon for Week Ending October 3, 2020

Reading: 

Our reading is from Chapter 2 of the book of Esther. Esther becomes the new queen.

After Queen Vashti was dethroned, the king’s attendants said to him, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king, and let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This pleased the king, and he did so. There was a Jew whose name was Mordecai, who had brought up Esther, his cousin, for she had neither father nor mother.  The girl was fair and beautiful, and she was taken into the king’s palace with the other girls. The turn came for each girl to go to King Ahasuerus. The king loved Esther more than all the other women. Of all the virgins, she won his favor and devotion, so that he sat the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. Esther did not reveal her kindred or her people.

Sermon: 

“For just such a time as this” is one of my favorite lines in the Bible. It comes from the book of Esther, a book that many fundamentalists believe should not have even been included in the Bible, as it has no mention of God. In Judaism, though, the book of Esther is the basis for the Festival of Purim, celebrating the deliverance of Jews in the diaspora, in this case, Persia.

Although Esther is the main character in the story, most folks favorite is Queen Vashti, a hero to feminists everywhere, because when her husband, King Ahasuerus, was giving a banquet for the nobles of the Persian provinces, and she was holding one for the wives, he demanded that she come to his banquet so that he could show off her physical beauty to the men. And she refused. Humiliated, the King dethroned her and made a degree throughout the land that the husband is the master of the house. After that, a haram of beautiful women was gathered so that the King could choose his next queen. And he chose Esther, who, as we heard in the reading, was not Persian, but Jewish. Her cousin Mordecai warned her not to reveal that fact to the king or anyone else, because the Jews were persecuted in Persia. But when the king’s top official, who hated Mordecai because he ‘didn’t know his place, convinced the king that all the Jews in the Kingdom should be killed, young and old, women and children, Mordecai went to Esther to ask her to plead for her people before the king. Ever since Vashti’s offense, anyone, including the queen, could be put to death for even entering the King’s inner court. And even if she did get in, and stay alive, the king would know the truth she had been hiding, that she was a member of the group of people he had just ordered killed. Mordecai convinced her to do it anyway by appealing to her big heart and to her responsibility as a person of privilege, saying, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Esther was privileged among her people because she was the queen of Persia. And she got that position by “passing” for Persian.  Passing is as old as human civilization itself.  In order to have more opportunities in a society ruled by white supremacy, or in some cases just to stay alive, light-skinned African Americans have passed for white. Jews in Nazi Germany bleached their hair and passed. Gay people pass all the time. Mordecai asked Esther to use the privilege she had gained by passing to save the lives of her people who couldn’t, including him. It is a profound question that he asked her to consider: “Who knows? Perhaps you are here in this place for just such a time as this.” Maybe God put you here. Maybe fate. Maybe it was just a random confluence of events. But here, you are. And here, you have the opportunity to do something great for your people. You are the only one who can. It is a question that we can ask ourselves. Are we in a place or a position that we haven’t been in before to do something for someone else? Something that will make a real difference?  Are we prepared to do it now, where we weren’t before? Is this a time where we can use our privilege to help our fellow humans who don’t have it? How important are they to us?  Are they worth our making sacrifices for? John Lewis was born into a family of sharecroppers. When his life-long commitment to fighting discrimination gave him privilege, gave him a voice that people listened to, he used it to lift up others. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the daughter of immigrants and grew up in Flatbush. When her life-long commitment to fighting discrimination gave her privilege, gave her a voice that people listened to, she used it to lift up others. Jimmy Carter has said more than once that he believes that he won the presidency so that he could get to know leaders around the world and make the connections that allowed him to accomplish everything that the Carter Center, created after his presidency has done and continues to do, to save and improve the lives of people all over the world. Like Esther, this might be our crucible moment. Being stuck at home during Covid is a good time to think about what this question might mean for us, personally and as a church.  What are we able to do now that we might not have had the finances or the direction or the information to do before?

How have events in our world in the last few months ignited a new spark in us to do something to contribute, to make a difference? Are we in this particular place for just such a time as this?

What new vision can we help to make a reality? Let’s think about it.

Life & Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Sermon for Week Ending September 26, 2020

Reading

“When Great Trees Fall,”  a poem by Maya Angelou

 

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened. 

Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

of dark, cold caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period, peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

Sermon: 

I think all liberal, progressive people will remember what we were doing and what we felt when we heard the news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. My first reaction was shock. Of course I knew she had been battling cancer, but she had been battling and beating it for 20 years. I guess I thought she would do it again. Then came deep sadness ,that her beautiful bright light had been extinguished. I retreated for some alone time, and read the many tributes already being posted. And it was only a while after, that, like you I’m sure,  I began to think about what her death would mean for our country, the real possibility of a conservative court for the next 50 years, where our children and grandchildren will not have the rights that we do now. And then, the hateful, political rhetoric and maneuvering began.

But I want to ignore that part today to lift up the life and legacy of this woman who devoted herself to fighting for equal rights for women and minorities. A first generation American on her father’s side and second generation on her mother’s, she said that the three most important lessons her parents taught her were to love learning, to care about other people, and to work hard for what she believed in, and that’s  what she spent her life doing. One of only 9 women in her class at Harvard Law School, in 1956, she found barriers everywhere. But in her second year, as the mother of a 2-year-old, and with a husband fighting cancer, she was among the top 25 of over 500 students, the criteria to make Law Review, which she did. While her husband Marty was ill, she attended his classes and her own, organized his friends to help, and typed all his assignments. That, she said, is when she learned to burn the candle at both ends, which she continued doing for the rest of her life. Unable to find a job in a law firm after graduation,

because she was a woman, she began teaching women’s studies and taking on sex discrimination cases. When she first started arguing before the Supreme Court, she said she saw herself as a kindergarten teacher, educating privileged male justices about issues they had never even questioned. And with the landmark cases that she won as general counsel to the ACLU, she became the leading gender rights lawyer of her generation. We are all familiar with her record as the 107^th justice of the US Supreme Court, where she freely exercised her dissenting voice. And where she joined the majority in cases of discrimination, legalizing same- sex marriage and allowing dreamers, immigrants brought here as children, to remain and go to school. Ruth also loved the opera, the only place, she said, where her mind was completely clear of work and she was immersed in beauty. Although she was considered the somber one in her marriage, Marty being the gregarious life of the party, she had great wit and humor. One of my favorite stories, which you might have heard, was about her son, James. She said that when he was young, she considered him a lively boy, but the school psychologist called him hyper-active. She was always being called away from work to go to the school to hear about something he had done. Then one day, when they called, she said, “James has two parents, and it is his father’s turn.” And after that, although James’ behavior did not improve, they seldom called because they didn’t like taking a man away from his job. Then, she added with a twinkle in her eye, “and probably because when Marty was told that James’ latest offense was stealing the elevator, he replied, ‘How far could he have taken it?’”  Ruth taught us so much. The importance of hard work, commitment, and civility; She taught us that change doesn’t happen overnight; that dissent is patriotic;  that women belong in all places where decisions are made. She taught us to speak truth to power; to appreciate the joy of being alive; and to help keep our country in tune  with its most basic values.  

While watching her Service of Remembrance at the Supreme Court, seeing all 120 of her former law clerks, spread out across the front, to welcome and guard her casket, all the young people there, who referred to her as the Notorious RBG, and were trying hard to follow in her footsteps, and a little girl in a Supergirl costume saluting her casket, gave me hope that her legacy will be fulfilled. Someone called her a prophet, one who imagined a new world and then worked to make it a reality. I agree. And just as Elisha took up the mantle from the prophet Elijah, it is now our turn to take up her mantle and carry it forward. Yes, these are hard times,  but we can’t give up. When we get weary, we can look to Ruth as a model of how to keep fighting to make the world better. And perhaps we can become a part of the peace that blooms when great souls, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, die.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Stick To The Basics - Sermon for Week Ending September 19, 2020

Reading 

Micah 6:8  The Message 

It is already plain how to live, what to do, and what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor. Be compassionate and loyal in your love. And lastly, don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.

----------------------------------------------------

Sermon

We often hear people say, “We live in unprecedented times.” If you are like me, you long for precedented times! You know, plain old, average boring, normal days without fires or floods! Without horrifying news, political or otherwise.  We want a day when we are not fearful for the future of our fragile democracy. A day when we don't have to hear about Black men dying in the street or Black women dying in their beds or  immigrant children in cages in detention. We long for a day when we don't have to cringe when we hear health statistics of new infections and death from a global pandemic. 

Is it wrong to want life to be simpler and more predictable? Not at all! Our collective stress levels are off the charts. Zooming was a novelty at first but the shine has worn off . Now there is such a thing as “zoom fatigue" from too much screen time. The freedom of having more time at home has also gotten stale, even for many introverts. We want to go shopping or out to eat without fearing that we are taking unnecessary risk.

The number of things that concern us and yes, I am going to say it, are unprecedented!! 

For me personally, the last several months have been incredibly stressful. My husband Harry has gone through a health crisis with several twists and turns. He's much more stable now but our daily lives have changed.

 I have had to learn new medical language, argue with insurance companies and take up new family responsibilities. Recently, my sister-in-law asked me how I was doing and I replied, “I didn't cry today.”

That reply came from a person who is not usually a fountain of tears.  I imagine you have shed more than your usual number of tears too, whether they have been from sadness or fear or frustration.

What helps us cope in times like these is resilience. Resilience is the ability to recover from difficult experiences and setbacks and to move forward, adapt and maybe even grow.  Many of you already have a great deal of resilience from your life experiences as you have admirably shown. I am preaching to myself here! 

I hope something I say might give your own resilience a boost. 

 The good news is that resilience is a learned skill.  We can all benefit from having more tools in our toolbox.  Yes, your temperament and your early life experiences play a part in shaping how you handle things. Experts who study resilience have noted three personal traits which help us through difficult times:  Having core spiritual beliefs, a moral compass and social connectedness are the foundational tools of resilience

And We can also cope better if we narrow our focus. What? Aren't we supposed to be global citizens? Knowledgeable about all pertinent topics? Able to comment widely on Facebook? Not necessarily. A narrower focus helps reign in our worries. Living in the here and now allows us to better appreciate what is immediately around us. In such stressful times, it's perfectly ok to not read everything that comes across your newsfeed.

 A friend recently told me she now has to sleep with a mouth guard to stop grinding her teeth.  I suggested a little less news binging might also help.

Reflecting with a narrower focus reminded me of a song that has stuck with me over the years. It's by Tracy Chapman who is a Black singer songwriter of folk and blues who is active in human rights advocacy. She was raised by her single mom in Cleveland, OH. It tells of her mother's hard-won life advice to her daughter. It's called “All that you have is your soul.”

 This song was on her Grammy winning debut album in 1987:

Oh my mama told me

'Cause she say she learned the hard way

Say she want to spare the children

She say don't give or sell your soul away

'Cause all that you have is your soul.

Don't be tempted by the shiny apple

Don't you eat of a bitter fruit

Hunger only for a taste of justice

Hunger only for a world of truth

'Cause all that you have is your soul.

 

And if all that we have is our soul, what are we do to with that precious gift? 

We get advice on that from today's verse from Micah, who is called a minor prophet with a major message. At the time of his writing, the northern kingdom of Israel had already fallen to the Assyrians. The southern kingdom was not learning very well from history. They were sitting fat and happy and dare I say self- righteous. They were pretty confident that the fate of their northern neighbors would never happen to them. The prophets' job at that time was to call Israel to account and tell them they were whistling in the dark. It was not a popular message.

Micah spoke not only words of judgment but also words of mercy. He tried to show Israel a way out of its predicament. 

God has already made it plain, says Micah. Keep a narrow focus. Don't get swallowed up in the trappings of religion, doing the right things for the wrong reasons. What God wants from us is really quite simple.

 It's three things:

Treat our neighbors justly and fairly;

Be compassionate;

 and take God much more seriously than you take yourself.

Remarkable that this minor prophet was also a mental health expert for those of us stressed out in 2020!

It's also remarkable to me how squarely the three things this verse describe line up with the three skills most basic to resilience!

Have core spiritual beliefs- take God seriously

Have a moral compass-treat your neighbors justly and fairly

Be socially connected-be compassionate and kind. 

In these difficult times, We can find small manageable things to do among these three things in our pandemic daily lives.

We can smile with our eyes over our masks and thank the grocery store clerk.

We can call to check on a neighbor we haven’t seen at their mailbox.

We can take a few moments to write in a journal or simply admire the plants in our yard. One of my art friends in NJ has taken to photographing the insects he finds on his small farm. He is up to 67 different kinds! 

When all that we have is our soul, we don't want to risk tarnishing that precious gift with worry about things over which we have no control.

Certainly, a pandemic is one of those things. Is it Possible that we will come through this stronger? Yes, because resilience is a learned and we can stay open to learning.  

 Many today are once again finding peace in the words of a prayer, written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr between 1932-33 in the midst of the Great Depression. It was widely adapted by the 12 - step recovery movement and called the Serenity Prayer.

 We don't often hear it in its entirety but when we do, we know that Reinhold Niebuhr knew something about the three basic skills of resilience. I hope it speaks again to you today:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen

 

 

  

 

Remembering 9/11 - Sermon for week ending September 12, 2020

Our reading for this week is by Albert Camus.

In the midst of hate, I found there was within me, an invincible love.  In the midst of tears, I found there was within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was within me, an invincible calm. I realized through it all, that in the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there is something stronger, something better, pushing right back.

Sermon

This week is the nineteenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, and I know all of us can remember where we were and what we were doing that day. I had stayed home from work because I had 2 doctor’s appointments. A little before 9, Cathy, who was at work, called to tell me that an airplane had hit the North tower of the World Trade Center, and the news was calling it terrorism. I stayed glued to the TV all morning. I watched the towers fall, and heard about the attack on the Pentagon and the crash in Shanksville. Over the next few days, we learned that 343 firefighters, just doing their job, running into a burning building, were killed. Many stayed over after finishing their 24-hour shift, and went back out.  A total of 2,977 people were killed that day. I know that lots of folks were angry. I wasn’t. I was sad. And grateful to be able to hug my children. We put our flags up, to say that we might be down, but we were not out. We were still here. And nothing could crush our spirit. As the days went on, we began hearing more and more about the helpers, as Fred Rogers called them. He said that when he was little, when something bad happened, he would be afraid, and his mother told him to look for the helpers, which made him feel better. There were so many helpers. The group of strangers who joined together to take back Flight 93, preventing it from reaching its target and causing more death. Rick Riscorla, Morgan Stanley’s security director, who ignored the announcement to shelter in place in the South Tower and evacuated all but 13 of the 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees from the building. And Welles Crowder, known as the man in the red bandana, a 24-year- old equities trader who helped dozens get out, then went back in with firefighters to save more. His body was later found on one of the stairwells. When those seeking refuge ran south to the water, they were met by hundreds of boats, that had arrived despite the smoke-filled air and the real possibility that another attack might happen at any moment.  Over 9 hours, they evacuated over 500,000 people from lower Manhattan. Volunteer firefighters showed up to staff the fire stations and take care of all the other emergencies while the New York firefighters were at the World Trade Center. When the attacks forced all planes to land, the folks of Gander, Newfoundland, took in 6700 people, nearly doubling its population. They gave them food, water, and shelter. Pharmacists worked round the clock to make sure prescriptions were filled. Bus drivers in the middle of a strike went back to work. They treated the stranded passengers and crews as their own. At the changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham palace, the queen broke with the tradition and ordered our National Anthem to be played, followed by 2 minutes of silence. People all around the world grieved with us. And in every major city in the US, folks stood in line for hours to give blood. Everywhere, there was a spirit of compassion, as we realized that we were all in this together. So many of our fellow humans had died. Their friends and their families were suffering such grief.  And we wanted to do something, anything to help. Humans are naturally good and loving and kind. That’s what our reading for today reflects. In the midst of hate, we have, within us, love. In the midst of darkness, we have within us light. The teachings of Jesus tell us that there is light in every darkness. And the darkness doesn’t overcome it. The light shines through the darkness. It did on that darkest of days. We saw the very best of humanity. A spirit of unity and a desire to make the world better in whatever way we could, to take care of one another.

To embrace the good. A group of children who were born on that day started a campaign to do good deeds on 911 anniversaries, “To keep alive the spirit of unity and compassion, to pay tribute to the victims and honor those who rose in service.” One of the children, now 19, said,
“Doing something good makes me realize that I have the power to change things and there is nothing stopping me.” The 911 attacks were the worst thing to ever happen to us, yet we pulled together. I long for that. I want it today, when our world is so divided. I believe that light shines through the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. I believe that inside of all of us, we have love and goodness. So do an extra good deed this week. I promise to. And let’s remind ourselves that love always has the power to change the world.