Sermons

READING ~ The Red and Blue Coat, a traditional African Folktale
 Once there were two boys who were great friends, and they were determined to remain that way forever. When they grew up and got married, they built their houses facing one another. There was a small path that formed a border between their farms.

One day, a trickster from the village decided to play a trick on them. He dressed himself in a two-color coat that was divided down the middle. So, one side of the coat was red, and the other side was blue.

The trickster wore this coat and walked along the narrow path between the houses of the two friends. They were each working opposite each other in their fields. The trickster made enough noise as he passed them to make sure that each of them would look up and see him passing.

At the end of the day, one friend said to the other, “Wasn’t that a beautiful red coat that man was wearing today?”

“No”, the other replied. “It was a blue coat.”

“I saw the man clearly as he walked between us!” said the first, “His coat was red.”

“You are wrong!” said the other man, “I saw it too, and it was blue.”

“I know what I saw!” insisted the first man. “The coat was red!”

“You don’t know anything,” the second man replied angrily. “It was blue!”

They kept arguing about this over and over, insulted each other, and eventually, they began to beat each other and roll around on the ground.

Just then, the trickster returned and faced the two men, who were punching and kicking each other and shouting, “Our friendship is OVER!”

The trickster walked directly in front of them, and showed them his coat. He laughed at their silly fight. The two friends saw that his coat was red on one side and blue on the other.

The two friends stopped fighting and screamed at the trickster saying, “We have lived side by side like brothers all our lives, and it is all your fault that we are fighting. You have started a war between us.”

“Don’t blame me for the battle,” replied the trickster. “I did not make you fight. Both of you are wrong, and both of you are right. Yes, what each one saw was true. You are fighting because you only looked at my coat from your own point of view.”
SERMON – The Department of the Interior

The December before last, our fabulous Andrea Butler, then on the Council organized a silent basket auction. Several committees put together these gorgeous gift baskets and folks in the community bid on them. I put together one and in it offered the “sermon topic of your choice.” It was a risky thing to do…I had been warned by colleagues that when others had done this they had been given topics like: Toadstools and Trickle Down Economics.

Luckily for me, and probably for you all as well. A wonderful couple from my congregation won the sermon topic and in a long and lovely conversation over coffee, the title,  The Department of the Interior was born…not the national governmental office we hope will protect and develop our lands sustainably. But the work of our own inner landscape and how protecting, nurturing, studying and centering in our own core…is the key to world change and lasting justice. If our own interior is not functioning well how could we be the positive impact we hope to be? How in fact does greater self awareness bring about transformative relationships and even profound healing?

 In 2005 The Reverend Don Southworth, then president of the UU Minister’s Association gave a sermon that was also a topic “won by a couple in his congregation” It was titled Red, Blue, Purple. Maybe you can guess what it was about? I’ll give you a hint…those aren’t the colors of an African coat.

Now in 2005…it was a little easier to make an argument toward welcoming all political views. It feels like no matter what the disparities in beliefs might have been then…we could never have imagined just how much greater the divide would become. In the wake of an assassination attempt we are feeling that intensity acutely.

Now, this sermon isn’t about political issues or leanings, not really. But Rev. Southworth opened with words from Hannah Petrie, that inspired something in me. The first two sentences in that reading were these:
Jesus was a political activist, but first he was a Jew. We can be political activists, too, but first we need to be Unitarian Universalists.
Many folks believe that to be a UU is to be a political activist, the two synonomous. But really that’s not true.

Engaging in acts of social justice is sometimes noble and sometimes reflects our religious values—but it is not a religion. If Unitarian Universalism is to flourish it needs to be much bigger than liberal political ideology or a dramatic anti-oppression gesture. We need a larger language.

Did you know that in 1961, sixty-three years ago, when Unitarians and Universalists merged, there was a combined membership and RE enrollment of 229,103. As of the most recent published data that number is 187,689? In a world hungry for connection and meaning…a world desperate for healthy community and disheartened by dogma, creed, and prescriptive required teachings it seems like we ought to be leading the world in engagement and participation.

What are we missing?

Of course there’s no one answer. It’s complicated and multi-faceted AND, I wonder about how we might turn our values inward so that their outward expression becomes more meaningful, more transformative, more of an invitation to those people out there searching.

We are Unitarian Universalists but we must be humans first. And the faith that proclaims love at its center, oneness as its foundation is uniquely equipped to help people become better people…and better people heal the world.  So if we aren’t doing our work to become more self aware, more compassionate, more forgiving, less judgmental, more centered and less reactive, more connected to that love, or spirit or the energy however you define it,  we aren’t really doing the productive work out there that we might think we are. That’s the crux of it. If we aren’t attending to our own department of the interior we will eventually have no healthy place from which to live from. We will assault our neighbors with our righteous perspective.

There’s enough righteousness in the world right now…there’s enough I’m right and you’re wrong. There’s enough numbing, distraction, addiction, anger. There’s enough rolling around punching our neighbors over the color of a coat. I think that’s what UUism could be. An example of how spiritual beliefs and religious practice can create greater bravery, right here, right now…the kind of bravery that celebrates vulnerability, and embraces uncertainty, that values  humility, questioning and calls us to deep deep listening.

Do you remember from the opening words that one of the inspirations for this service was the Rumi quote that states:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
What if that were truly the mission and purpose of Unitarian Universalism or truly the mission and purpose of our own lives? To focus on the Department of the Interior is to ask ourselves: Where are the roadblocks within our interior that keep us from clear seeing, full presence, embodied, practiced love?

So let’s just say you find the barriers and then what? Do we knock them down? Crush them? Climb over them? Sweep them away? That’s our natural inclination, isn’t it. To eradicate anything we don’t like, don’t understand or are afraid of? It is our cultural conditioning when it comes to obstacles. But the energy of crushing and destroying only strengthens the division between ourselves and love.

Maybe you all have heard of Tara Brach a meditation teacher who blends psychology with eastern practices. She teaches that the way we wake up has to be kind or we will create more separation.

So if crushing the barriers isn’t the answer, what do we do?

I need to just take a very quick detour.  Back in 2019 I did a service about Labyrinths and I shared a pretty well known quote from Simone Weil. It begins with a description of entering the labyrinth, being in darkness and alone, hungry and tired but then says…
For if he does not lose courage, if he goes on walking, it is absolutely certain that he will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth. And there God is waiting……
But as I’ve told you before I love to research quotes where they came from the entirety of their context. And so I shared with you that morning in 2019 that the Simone Weil really ends like this:
For if he does not lose courage, if he goes on walking, it is absolutely certain that he will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth. And there God is waiting…… to eat him. Later he will go out again, but he will be changed, he will have become different, after being eaten and digested by God. Afterward he will stay near the entrance so that he can gently push all those who come near into that holy opening.”
It pays to know the whole story. Self reflection is hard and transformative. It dissolves us and recreates us and when we come out of that process…we can’t help but want to push others through too.

So let’s go back to the Rumi quote: And the way that it really ends….
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it…. and embrace them.
Wow. This last part of the quote is essential to understanding Rumi’s teaching. Our task isn’t merely to find the barriers. It’s to find the barriers and embrace them. It is once again to turn kindness into a tranformational power.  Of course. The moment I heard this it made so much sense to me. This concept of embracing what’s in the way also comes up in other conscious work, including work with fear, resistance, and shadow. It’s an approach that goes against the cultural conditioning to “crush fear” and “overcome resistance,” and is antithetical to our tendency to ignore, judge, criticize, blame, or shame the barriers we erect. Embracing the barriers isn’t easy; it’s a process that takes time and patience. So this is our task: seek and find the barriers we have built between ourselves and love, and embrace them.

When we do this with ourselves, then and only then are we truly equipped to do it with others. And the real and only question is: Do you really believe in the power of love? Do you really believe that love transforms and heals and saves? Without condition, without barrier, without judgment? If you can’t answer yes, to that question without a yeah but…or a what about? Then that is the place in your interior department that is crying out for a barrier review.

And here’s one of the things that I’ve learned in my own life and I’ve seen it often enough in others too. One of my barriers to love is my own impatience. Love works but not necessarily on our timetable. And, love is an invitation that people can refuse over and over again. It can only meet us where we allow it. Which is why focusing on our inward development, embracing our barriers into disillusionment, trusting love’s process, and love’s timing, welcoming the invitation is so key.  When I began my ministry in Belfast in August of 2019 the first thing I put on my office door is this quote:
If an egg is broken by outside force, Life ends. If broken by inside force, Life begins. Great things always begin from inside.