between faith and fear: We Begin Again in Love

Sermon delivered October 2, 2016 at Foothills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

“We Begin Again in Love”

Rev. Laura Bogle

When he was in the 9^th grade a young boy named Artemis Joukowsky was given the assignment to interview a person of moral courage. His mother suggested he interview his grandmother, which he did. That interview led not only to a much closer relationship with his grandmother, it led to years of research and ultimately to the production of a film about his grandmother and grandfather—Martha and Waitstill Sharp. The movie, “Defying the Nazis” aired on PBS a couple of weeks ago—

It’s an incredible story of courage and sacrifice of ordinary people during extraordinary times. Waitstill was a Unitarian minister; Martha his spouse was much more than the ministers wife. She was a social worker who had defied her family to go to college on a full scholarship to Brown University.

In 1939 Waitsill was contacted by leaders of the American Unitarian Association and asked if he would undertake secret missions in Europe to help get refugees and dissidents out of what was becoming an increasingly dangerous situation with Nazi power growing.

He said yes, as long as his partner Martha could join him.

And that began several years of the two of them undertaking incredibly dangerous work, and the beginning of what is now known as the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

In the end they both survived, and they helped bring many, many people to safety, including hundreds of children.

They were acting as individual citizens, connected to networks of faith organizations, at a time when the US government was *not* acting, was not giving many visas to those fleeing Nazi occupation, not accepting many people into our borders.

Waitstill was not the first person the American Unitarian Association asked to take on this mission.

In fact, he was the 17^th. He was the 17^th asked and the first to say yes.

They left two small children behind and risked their own lives to save the children of others. The pain their own children experienced during those times of separation comes through in interviews with them in the film. And their marriage did not last. In the end they both were irrevocably changed by what they experienced. It is not a perfect storybook ending. But what in real life ever is?

Exploring this history, I remember the words of Maya Angelou, “History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon the day breaking before you.”

Two things were sparked in me watching this film, two questions that I am still sitting with:

· Would I say yes if I were asked to move right into the danger?

· What is it that leads ordinary people to do such extraordinary things?

I think I know the answer to the first question. I would have a very hard time to leave behind my children and my home and basically become a spy in a foreign land, travelling through war and occupation. Though my highest ideals call me to love my neighbors as I love myself and my own family, I don’t live that out in many ways.

I certainly am not doing it now, when we are facing the greatest refugee crisis the world has seen since WWII. Just this weekend almost 100 children lost their lives in one city—the city of Aleppo. In a sense we are all being asked to take action by these deaths and the millions and millions of refugees displaced from their homes. The leaders of the UUA are not calling us up with a secret mission – but they shouldn’t have to.

There is so much pain and suffering to respond to in this world, we can become overwhelmed and not know where or how to act. This paralysis can lead to guilt for *not* acting, leading to further paralysis. When I feel I’m not doing enough, I have less energy to do things I can do.

And the polarization of our current political context in the United States does not help. We—and let me just speak for myself-- I can get so wrapped up in what “the other side” is doing or saying or not doing or saying that it just pulls me right off my center. I begin to be defined by what or who I am against, rather than what or who I am for. I forget that I am part of the great interdependent web of all existence that includes everybody, the whole world, including Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump; including police officers and unarmed black men; including the children of Aleppo and those who are dropping bombs on them.

And that my friends, is why I need a religious community, a community of faith and practice. Because sometimes, I want to be able to say yes, to do something new and risky in the service of Love. None of us can say yes to every question, to every scene of suffering we encounter. But together, we can cultivate the ability to have moral courage in our everyday lives. Moral courage moves us toward the danger, the hard places, the conflict—wherever that may be in our lives—and yet stays rooted in a place of Love.

Unitarian clergyman Edward Everett Hale, writing in the early 1900’s called us to moral courage, – “I am only one, but still I am one. I can’t do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

We don’t have to wait until the UUA calls us up for a secret mission. We can practice moral courage every day.

I believe one of the answers to my question “What is it that leads ordinary people to do extraordinary things?” is connection to a community of faith and practice. A place and a people that can remind you of your highest commitments and values, that challenges you to live them out, that can hold you when you know you haven’t lived up to them fully, and can remind you that there is always a chance to begin again. A place and a people that helps you to begin again in Love.

This is one of the reasons why I find the Jewish tradition of collective repentance and atonement at the New Year so powerful.

The Jewish word usually translated as repentence is tshuvah which literally means to turn or return. Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, opens into the Days of Awe – nine days of reflection until Yom Kippur. It is a time to take account of our lives, where we have hurt or wronged others or ourselves, and to ask for forgiveness of those sins.

Rabbi Albert Goldstein writes, “What is sin? It is sickness of soul, unhappiness with what we are doing with our lives, to ourselves and to others who share our life: the unhappy misapplication of our talents and energies in directions that bring us no sense of fulfillment, no feeling of achievement or joy in living. …

And translated into everyday language, what is repentance? What, indeed, but the need and the longing to change, the effort to heal ourselves, the quest for a cure for our sickness of soul.”

During the Days of Awe there is an encouragement to actually go ask for forgiveness from those you have individually wronged. But in the end, at the High Holy Day services of Yom Kippur, repentance happens as a collective confession and ask for forgiveness.

So one may be asking for forgiveness for something one didn’t actually do; I didn’t actually drop bombs on the children of Syria, and yet because we are connected, I did. I didn’t actually pull the trigger that killed Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, NC, but I have not done all that I can to bring down white supremacy and racism.

We ask together for the strength to change, to turn towards health and peace. A chance to begin again in Love.

Recognizing where we have failed to act, what we have failed to do, can help us to move out of paralysis and hopelessness to step into what we can do.

Confessing and asking for forgiveness collectively reminds us that none of us reaches wholeness and reconciliation alone. We will all only be saved together to the extent we recognize our connectedness.

A candidate won’t save us, an election won’t save us. (Though believe me, I want you to go vote. Please vote.) But we know that the ugliness that has been uncovered in this election cycle is not new. The racism and the xenophobia, and the misogyny and the threats of violence are not new. And they won’t go away after Nov. 8, no matter who gets elected.

Our faith, the practice of our faith, the building of our community, is not for the good, easy, happy times. We are here for times just such as this, my friends. Times when we are reminded each and every day of the high stakes in this life, times when we are clearly being called to act with courage.

I am comforted and challenged by the ancient wisdom of Rabbi Tarfon, who said “It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.” (Pirke Avot 2:21)

And so today I invite you into our own collective repentance and forgiveness, our own ritual to begin again in Love. This litany was written by Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs and there is a sung response. I will read a line and invite you to sing the words “We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.”

I invite you to rise in body/spirit.

A Litany of Atonement (Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs)

For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference