Sermons

READING ~ Once to Every Soul and Nation is a hymn based on the much longer poem "The Present Crisis" (1845) by James Russell Lowell (1819 -1891). It was written as a protest against the Mexican–American War.

Once to every soul and nation comes the moment to decide,
in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side:
then to stand with truth is noble, when we share its wretched crust;
ere that cause bring fame and profit, and ‘tis prosperous to be just.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet ‘tis truth alone is strong;
though its portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong.
Then it is the brave one chooses, while the coward stands aside,
till the multitude make virtue of the faith they have denied.

READING ~ Courage Poem #26 Sri Chinmoy, Union and Oneness, Agni Press, 1976

To speak ill of the world
Needs courage,
But fortunately or unfortunately
Everybody has that courage.

To love the world
As one's own,
Very own,
Needs courage.
Unfortunately, most of us are wanting
In that courage.

The courage of the heart,
The courage of the soul
We badly need,
And not the courage
Of the unruly,
Aggressive,
Impure,
Demanding vital.

SERMON

I have three words for you this morning and I want you to try to hold on to these words.  Courage.   Compassion.   Conviction.

Naturally, we start with courage.

James Russell Lowell, born in1819, was the son of a New England Unitarian minister and though he considered following his father’s career path, that was not to be.  Like his contemporary and sometimes friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the ministry did not suit his passions or his temperament. He became a writer and a poet.  He was not ignorant of the harsh realities of life.  His long poem, The Present Crisis, is a political statement in opposition to the Mexican-American War which, he feared, sought to annex the Texas territory in order to expand slavery farther into the south and west.  He was 26 years old in 1845 when this poem was published.  At age 26, he was the age of the soldiers who were called upon to fight and die in a war that he considered immoral. He was sure of his cause, full of courage and conviction. This poem rapidly became an anthem of the antislavery movement.

I remember quite clearly singing the hymn whose words come from Lowell’s poem in church as a kid.  I was struck then, and am still struck now, by the power of the poetry.  The charge is unambiguous.  Once to every soul and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side:

The moment comes, the moment comes ready or not, to decide.
Will I side with truth and good?   Or
Will I side with falsehood and evil?
Choose – this is a moment when we must decide because not deciding is, in fact, deciding.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet ‘tis truth a lone is strong.

The words of this hymn are at once a protest and a call to the faithful to mobilize and stay firm in the resolve to support truth in the presence of popular falsehood.  Whew.  The time was that dangerous and politically fractured period in American history leading up to the Civil War.

Courage. It is the brave one who chooses to side with truth while the coward stands aside – not wanting to commit to anything difficult or unpopular. The challenge of these words to choose truth over falsehood rings within us now every bit as much as it did when 26-year-old James Lowell wrote them.

Courage. To side with truth no matter the cost because in order to remain true to ourselves, we cannot choose falsehood.

We know about this kind of courage.

It’s the kind of courage required to search for and align with truth among so many half-truths, half-falsehoods and downright intentional lies intended to silence the voice of truth and confuse the sight of wisdom.

Oh yes, we know about this kind of courage.

To each of us comes not just one moment, but many, many moments when we must decide whether or not we will take an active, public and possibly dangerous role in protesting falsehood and advocating truth.

Yes, we know about the courage required to side with truth and resist evil.  And I will sing this hymn to remind myself that it is not just me and it not just now that people and nations are faced with such a stark division between which way we as a society, a culture, a nation, will go.

Yes, it takes courage to pursue the cause of truth and justice when the forces against truth are strong. And yes, we must do our best to choose truth anyway.

You have heard it said that we must maintain the courage of our convictions. Yes, and yet …. There is both reward and risk.

Now.  Pause.  Breathe.

Let’s take a deep breath together because I am about to invite you to consider a quiet but essential nuance to the unyielding self-righteous enthusiasm that so often comes with the courage to stick to our convictions.

Let me suggest to you this morning that courage and conviction are often necessary and seldom sufficient.  We need the third leg of our stool to maintain a healthy balance for the long run.  We need compassion.

We need compassion for many reasons, but it seems to me that two reasons are essential for us in order to retain our faith and our humanity while siding with truth against falsehood.

Firstly, we need compassion to remind us that those who oppose what we know to be truth are every bit as human as we are and are held by the same everlasting unfailing Love that holds us.  We need compassion to guide us toward a courage of our convictions that is not mean or spiteful or vengeful;
that does not use vulgar or hateful language to describe others;
that does not demean the humanity of our adversaries.

Without compassion, how can we possibly love our enemy?

Without compassion, how can we possibly affirm and promote – with heart, mind and spirit – the inherent worth and dignity of every being?

Without compassion, how can we possibly affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all?

Without compassion, how can we possibly affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations?

Without compassion, how can we possibly be the Love we seek to manifest in our world?

Without compassion, our tendencies toward rigid and unforgiving self-righteousness may run amok.  And then, my dear spiritual companions, we have sacrificed truth on the altar of ego.

And so, we need compassion to balance our courage to act and our conviction that we are rightly engaged in the pursuit of truth.

Secondly, we need compassion for others and for ourselves because without compassion we will not be able to recognize, admit, and adjust when we are wrong.  I know.  This is so not easy.  In the pursuit of truth, justice and equity, it is theoretically possible that we just might be wrong about something.  We are not intentionally wrong – or please gods and goddesses I hope we are not intentionally wrong or intentionally pursuing falsehood.  But, sometimes with experience, reflection, changing circumstances, a different perspective, or the wisdom that comes with age, we may find that what we were so thoroughly convinced was truth and the right way to do things is now no so clear-cut.  It takes a great deal of compassion to even allow most of us to see and admit that we need to adjust our convictions.  Sometimes, we need to ask for forgiveness.

We are coming to the end of the Jewish High Holy Days, the Days of Awe.  This is the time when Jews reflect on the past year and seek forgiveness for any wrong they have done or hurt they have caused.  This is deeply spiritual work, and it is important work that must be done before Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – when, according to tradition, God decides each person’s fate.  Perhaps we can learn from our Jewish family and friends that sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is to realize our mistake, change to make things better, and ask for forgiveness.

And so, we need compassion for ourselves and for others in order to accomplish this deep spiritual work.

Courage, compassion conviction – these three together can provide the strength and balance we need to thrive and grow in these challenging times.  We are faced – almost daily – with the onslaught of messaging that confuses and confounds even the most diligent truth-seekers.  We are sometimes confronted with our own insensitivity.  And, sometimes we find ourselves in need of a helping hand.  We all too often lack the compassion and courage to ask for what we know we need.

Our faith, our principles, call us to side with truth, justice and equity.  Our faith, our principles, call us even more insistently to side with Love.  Love is not always easy, but it is always worth the effort.

To be prideful or bombastic serves no one.

Sri Chinmoy, an Indian mystic and meditation practitioner, in Poem #26, Courage, tells us that it only takes a common sort of courage to speak ill of the world – everyone has this kind of lazy and mean courage.  To Love the world, well, that takes compassionate courage.  Listen again to these words:

To love the world
    As one's own,
    Very own,
    Needs courage.
Unfortunately, most of us are wanting
    In that courage.

The courage of the heart,
The courage of the soul
    We badly need,
And not the courage
    Of the unruly,
    Aggressive,
    Impure,
    Demanding vital.

My Dear Spiritual Companions, may we have courage of the heart and courage of the soul.

May we pursue, with humility rather than with pride, the courage of our convictions.

May we know and share compassion as our most steadfast guide as we side with truth and reject falsehood.

May we rest in the assurance that whatever we do, wherever we go, whatever we know to be true, we are not alone.

Blessed Be.   I Love You.   Amen.