Sermons

Bible Text: Deuteronomy 30:15-20 | Preacher: Rev. Margaret A. Beckman

Reading: From the Hebrew Scripture at Deuteronomy Chapter 30, selected and adapted

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 – New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Adapted.
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and
adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous…. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray . . . you shall perish. . . . I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
Reading: The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

from New and Selected Poems, 1992, Beacon Press, Boston, MA SERMON

Sermon
All across these United States of America, people will pause today to remember the events of Sptember 11th fifteen years ago. If we were old enough to know what was happening that day, it is a day we will never forget.

It seems that each generation has a defining moment or moments. For my Grandmother, it was December 11, 1936, when King Edward VIII abdicated the throne of England. For my mother, it was the attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. For me, it was the assination of President John F. Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963. For my youngest sister, who was born the day Kennedy was killed, it was the explosion of the Challenger on January 28th. For our young adults, it will be September 11th. The question we ask and answer, time and time again is, “Where were you when . . .?”

On September 11, 2001, I was at work in Bangor when my colleague, Tom, came flying down the hall telling everyone to gather at the computer lab where he had connected us to live coverage coming from New York City, and then from Washington and Pennsylvania. Like many of you, I was stunned.

Can it really be that fifteen years have come and gone since then? Like many of the tragic events that mark a life or a generation, this event was characterized by many as a national loss of innocence. I suppose it was. I also suppose that the same was said of the events I mentioned earlier – Pearl Harbor, Kennedy assasinations, and explosions of Space Shuttles. How much innocence must we posses in order to keep losing it again and again and again? Maybe it’s not so much innocence that we lose in the presence of large-scale tragedy, especially violence committed intentionally by fellow human beings, but well-being. The kind of well-being that allows for feelings of safety and confidence and predictability in life is what I’m talking about when I say that violence and tragedy cause its loss or at least its significant diminishment.

In some ways, a generation is often defined by its most significant tragedy. But I want to suggest to you that we are better defined not by the tragedy itself, but by our response to the tragedy. For those who are directly impacted by the tragedy, the impact is enormous, sometimes fatal. We cannot ignore or underestimate the horror and suffering such events leave with its closest victims. So, today, let us humbly honor and remember those whose lives were lost or irreparably damaged by attacks of September 11th.

Most of us are impacted at a distance in a national tragedy – even one so horrific as the Spetember 11th attacks. We are deeply effected and we seek to give the event some proper place in our lives and in our understanding of the world. A loss of innocence – perhaps especially for the young who have not yet encountered a series of terrible things in their lives. For all of us, a loss of well-being. Our sense of trust and safety is upended. How can we restore balance? Can I restore a sense of well-being and trust for the future?

Sometimes we are tempted to think that the world is more dangerous than it used to be or that people now are more violent than they were in decades or centuries past. Not really. With our contemporary instant media coverage we know more about violence and danger all around the world and it seems that it is unrelenting. We also know that the world has always been a violent and dangerous place. The human being is sometimes violent and dangerous – since Cain killed his brother Abel and then denied responsibilty for his actions, humans have engaged in disturbing and horrific behavior. The ancient Israelites knew this, and we know it.

We also know that we are susceptible to the projections and interpretations of others. One of the things that we have learned since 9/11 is that leaders can feed our fear and make use of events to advance their own interests and agendas. I’m not going to delineate how that happened in 2001 and the days since then – you all know it. Another thing that we have learned is that the capacity for human compassion is enormous. Again, you all know this. Think back to what you know about the response of people around the world to the attacks of September 11th. There were thousands of people on the scenes of the crashes offering whatever help they could. So, we are presented with the juxtaposition of the capacity of human beings to destroy each other and the even greater capacity of human beings to reach out to help, to love, to comfort and to repair.

What we do with this juxta position is a choice. The choice about how we formulate and reformulate our worldview in the face of both unspeakable evil and infinite good is important. It makes all the difference in how we live and how we go on living after the horrible things that happen in this life.

There are those who would have us believe that the world is so dangerous that in order to be safe we must give up our liberty and freedom. There are those who tell us that people cannot be trusted and are ready to murder us in our sleep if they get the chance. There are those who have tried to convince us that whole groups of people, known by their nationality or religion or skin color or language or sexuality or ethnicity, are our enemies. We are asked to believe that people unlike us are not to be trusted and are dangerous and cannot be granted the hospitality of our homeland. The result of all this interpretation of terrible events and the people who cause them is that there is a great deal of fear and mistrust and anxiety that are we expected to live with and manage. It comes out sometimes as if someone was saying to us “Be afraid, be very afraid.” Fear is a powerful emotion. It can keep us alive. Overdone and it can lead us into death. It is a choice.

While we know that the world is dangerous and that there are terrorists who will act in evil and terrible ways, we also know that there is another truth. It is also true that people are kind and compassionate and respectful and fair- minded. We have seen many, many examples of complete strangers rushing into harm’s way to help save another or to offer comfort to those who suffer.

We see every single day the power of love to overcome fear, hope to cast out despair, justice to triumph over oppression. What shall we do with these competing versions of the world and humanity? It’s a choice and it’s not a new choice.

Whether we give in to the worldview that promotes despair, distrust, disengagement and cynicism is up to us. It’s easy to lay blame and demonize those who are different and those who seek to find their happiness in our suffering. Heaping threats and curses upon neighbors who we have cast in the role of enemy is easy – now and in times throughout human history. But we don’t have to see our neighbors as enemies or the world as completely dangerous. We can choose to see the good in the faces of those who look different from us and who live differently from us. We can choose to affirm the dignity and worth of all people – no exceptions – without advocating for or allowing evil behavior. We can promote the well-being of ourselves and that of people everywhere. We can take up the hard work hard of restoring well-being for ourselves and for others when terrible things happen.

Here’s the thing – we cannot fully embrace life when we fear and curse our neighbor. Way back in the time of the Hebrew people who would eventually become the nation of Israel, it took the intervention of their God to remind them that their destiny was theirs to choose. Choose to be consumed with fear and distrust and you choose the way of death. Choose compassion and gratitude and the blessings laid before you and you choose the way of life.
I [your God] call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
The language and situation of the ancient Hebrew people may seem alien and remote to us today, but human nature is not so different now from then.

When we fall on our knees in pain and anguish about what is happening in our world, we do not importune an external all powerful god to intervene in human affairs and vanquish the evil while rewarding the good, and then sit back and expect this god to take care of us and the problem, if not now, then in the life after this life. No, we look to our own inner wisdom, tried and refined in the fires of our own experience and history. Our salvation lies not in an external divine intervention, but in our own, often divinely inspired, ability to consciously and intentionally act on behalf of ourselves, others and all of life. It is, after all, much more likely that each of us will be the target of random acts of kindness than it is that we will be the target of terrorism. It is much more likely that each of us will commit random acts of kindness than it is that we will commit acts of terror.

We are people of faith; a faith based on experience and deep reflection about what it means to trust humanity and the universe. We will not be led astray by the fear and curses of others – for that is the way of death. Ours is the way of life – offering and accepting the blessings of this world – not because of terrible things, but in spite of terrible things. We return evil with kindness because it is good for us and for the world to do so. We restore well-being by acting on behalf of well-being. We will continue to lead our children in the ways of responsibility and compassion – moving ever closer toward the truths written on our hearts and the goals outlined in our Unitarian Universalist principles. Human dignity. Justice and equity. World community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. Respect for all of life. These are not empty words or the utopic visions of ivory tower philosophers who do not descend to the depths of human misery. These principles ring true not because people repeat them from the pulpit and tell us they are true. These principles find a valued and lasting place with us because we have tested them in our own experience and we find them worthy of our efforts and sometimes our very lives.

Mary Oliver reminds us that we might not know how to pray. But, we do know how to pay attention. We do know how to see the beauty and blessings that surround us on this earth we call home. She asks a single question, but the answer to that question makes all the difference. Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

We are given but one wild and precious life. We can issue curses into the wind because of fear and distrust. Or, we can fall on our knees in gratitude for the blessings we have. My dear Spiritual Companions, set before us this day of both remembrance and hope is life and death, blessings and curses, promise and fear, confidence and cynicism. The choice is ours.

Choose Life that we and our children may live. Blessed Be. I Love You. Amen.