Sermons

CALL TO WORSHIP - “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

READING - “The Cure at Troy” by Seamus Haney

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted or endured.
The innocent in jails
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme​.​

SERMON - Where is the Pulse?

It was muddy and cold and I was in heels and a flimsy sweater. I couldn’t get my car hood open for some reason, though I desperately needed to add the windshield wiper fluid I had just purchased into the proper receptacle. A young man sitting in his own car, saw me struggling from 2 spots away and got out of his car and gently told me to go get out of the cold and he proceeded to open the hood with ease and fill the wiper fluid for me.

The school that Lilliana attends recently sent out photos of their service trip to the SPCA in Hancock County where the middleschoolers were donating the funds from their recent bottle drive. In the pictures these salty, sarcastic, newly minted teens who usually act like they are allergic to vulnerability of any kind, are gently cradling an elderly cat who is paralyzed from a car accident and they come home advocating for her immediate adoption.

Thank you and Please…Can I help you? Are you ok? Would you like half my sandwich? Stopping traffic for the mother duck and her ducklings, offering shelter, making meals, choosing paper over plastic…saying sorry and correcting oneself when a mistake is made. Remembering something about someone. Following up after. Letting your eyes light up in joy and welcome whenever someone new walks into the room.

Small kindness feels so big to those who receive it.

And the older I get the more I believe that kindness is just as important in the work for justice, as voting and marching are, because it keeps our hearts soft and open. It helps center us on why we care what the world is like anyway.

The inspiration for this service is a quote I read in our Soul Matters material for February by Paul Hawken, who is a businessman turned environmental thinker and author, he wrote most recently the book titled: Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation.

“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”

You know that famous quote by Frederick Buechner? Often it’s changed to avoid the God reference but this is the original quote:

“The place God calls you to, is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

That’s what I thought of when I read Hawken’s take on pessimism and optimism. And the truth I think, that if you are paying attention to all of it, if you let yourself be fully alive in the good and the bad of what’s happening then not only will you cry out in despair but you will also notice that your heart beats in hope every time you recognize the actions of those who, in their own big and little ways, live restoration, live justice into the world. In the dismal outlook I can often embody, Hawken and Buechner remind me of the places that I feel hope. Nothing makes me more aware of that pulse, nothing makes me more alive and hopeful than seeing all the varied manifestations of kindness that exist in the world between humans and all of creation. There isn’t some new answer we’re waiting for…it’s there in the hard conversations, in the willingness to go out of our way and not stop trying. It’s letting the ordinary small things become big, huge monumental movements that can’t be ignored. It’s refusing to other, to hurt, to deny dignity and worth.

You know the golden rule right? But do you know the platinum rule? A few years ago Lilliana made it clear to me that I needed to explain the golden rule a little differently…so the golden rule, which we find present in some form in every major religion says, Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Well, one day Lilliana got in trouble at school for saying something mean to another student. I don’t even remember the details now. Anyway, as I was processing this with her I reminded her of the golden rule…and she said "yes mom I know! She was mean to me so it must mean she wanted me to mean to her. She did to me so I did to her." The loop hole…

Well, Dave Kerpen, author of the book The Art of People, says that following the Golden Rule is all wrong. Instead, we should follow what he calls the Platinum Rule.

So Kerpen came up with the Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they would want done to them.

Justice and equity are nothing more than the platinum rule in action and the platinum rule is nothing more than divine kindness.

In our recent Wellspring class we were having this conversation about empathy and listening to one another and how important it is to try to understand another’s experiences and point of view. We want to say to those who are different from us or to those whom we disagree with, I understand how you feel. But we came to this place of realization that the truth is, we can’t really understand how other’s feel and we can’t put ourselves in others shoes the way we might like. Sometimes, often the differences are too great, too complicated and any attempt at saying, I get it, I know exactly what you’re going through, ends up being shallow, patronizing or simply wrong. So what’s the answer? I think it’s about trust. When someone tells me what their life is like, how it is different from mine or what they need and I can’t get it…I trust them. I trust that what they are telling me about their experience is true.

When someone says I do not identify as one gender or another, will you please use they/them as my pronouns…I don’t have to do anything except trust them, and do as they want unto them.

When I tell a man that the experience of being a woman is scary and belittling sometimes…I don’t need him to tell me he gets it, he’s been through that too. Or, no that’s not true.  I need him to trust me and work with me to change it.

When a black person shares their stories of racism from our little town in our little corner of the world. I don’t have to have seen it, experienced it, heard it, I don’t have to know it in any way. I have to trust them. I have to work with them to change it.

Justice and Equity are more than creating the world we want. Though those are the easiest words to say, there's a whole lot of assumption in that phrase I use all the time. Justice and equity are about looking around and seeing what kind of world is needed by those on the margins, those hurting the most and then trusting that creating THAT world will be good for all of us.

I feel hope and optimism whenever and wherever there is simple kindness. I see Justice in every moment when someone does something for someone else just because. In a moment of remembering we are all in this together, we care about each other. We need each other. We see value in this sharing of humanity and earth and creation. I see the great I love you…in every held open door and pot of soup and offer of care. In every open smile and invitation. In every human being who is using their great gladness to meet some deep need. Those cleaning birds and sea life of oil after our pollution, those tying themselves to trees in threatened forests, those who stop traffic in the name of peace, those who grow vegetables and share them. Those who raise babies to be participants in life’s great journey in life’s deep healing, not knowing how it all will end despite the grim predictions all around.

So this week I want you to ask yourself, Where does the pulse of aliveness and hope beat in you? What gives you great gladness…What is the deep hunger that God is calling you to? What story is asking for your trust, not your understanding? What kindness have you done or witnessed? What kindness can you offer each day in the journey toward justice?

Because this is a long road and we can’t see very far ahead…for that reason…

Our closing hymn this morning is #168 One More Step, the lyrics were inspired by theologian Frederick Buechner’s “There can be no peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy for you also” The sentiment is good and righteous and motivating, but it’s important to acknowledge the abelist language in the title and first verse. The way we move forward in the world is not always in steps, often it is in inches, in the turning of wheels, it is in our minds and our hearts more than the physical movement of our body. This morning I’d like us to sing together with this in mind. Translate as you need to, and hold an awareness first and foremost that all movement forward in the pursuit of justice and peace and joy and freedom is sacred and necessary.