Reading:
Rabbi Harold Kushner:
What religion offers me is not fellowship with God, but fellowship
with other human beings who are looking for the same things I am. Loneliness
is today's greatest spiritual problem. People who have no intention
of shopping go to shopping centers because they need to be where other
people are. People come home and turn on the television set, not to
watch the program, but to hear another human voice because they're lonely.
Religion should offer us that sense of community, that sense of "Here
are people who share something important with you." You don't come
to church or temple to find God - you can find God on a mountaintop
or in your bedroom. You come to church or temple to find a congregation,
to find others who need the same things from life that you need. By
coming together, you create the moment where God is present. This is
the one indispensable thing that organized religion offers us, which
our vague individual sense of spirituality cannot.
Sermon
Clinging To…Religion?
Has it really been only seven days since we joyfully gathered to celebrate
the beginning of a new church year and to join together the waters of
our lives? As Rabbi Kushner said in our reading this morning, we are
people who share something important with each other. Today we need
to say yes to life, truth and love - perhaps more than we ever have.
We have prayed both in words and in silence this morning and throughout
the week, Spirit of Life draw near. Has there ever been a time when
we needed each other more? Has there ever been a time when we need something,
someone, to cling to, a life preserver in the wild rapids of terror
and fear that we are living in? If there has been such a time it came
before I was born. My heart is filled with gladness, if I may use the
word gladness in the face or our sorrow, that you have found your way
here this morning.
Where were you when it happened, the day the towers were toppled, lives
were crushed and hearts were broken? How many times have you answered
that question this week? The date - September 11, 2001 will now be chiseled
forever more in the concrete tablets of our memories.
9 - 1 - 1. No longer is it simply a number we program on our speed
dialers or a number we teach our children to remember in the case of
danger. The number now represents a memorial for thousands of lives
that were lost, a tribute to people who risk their lives to save others,
and a date that has changed each one of the world, and us we live in,
for the rest of our days.
This morning the most important thing we can do is to be together.
All over our nation, and the world, people are coming together in communities
of faith to cry, to pray, to be angry and to search for something to
cling to, to hold on to in the face of uncertainty, sadness and fear.
Our solidarity as a people this morning gives me comfort, not only for
those of us gathered in the woods of Northwest Atlanta, but for the
possibility that we can learn again, how to cling to that which holds
us together and not to that which tears us apart.
It has been over 120 hours since the planes crashed, the buildings
burned and the hearts stopped beating. Some people are starting to say
it's time to get back to normal, to show the terrorists that we aren't
beaten - that we are strong, ready to defend our way of life and that
life should begin again anew. While those sentiments have validity -
we do need to get on with life - "normal" will never be quite
the same again, or should it be.
How can life be normal when we listen to the stories of the people's
lives that have ended? The numbers are too staggering to comprehend,
but the stories of those who have perished - and who are left behind
- are both painful and heartbreaking to hear. They remind us that each
number is a life, the life of an innocent human being that ended too
soon. The father of a three-month old who called his wife to say he
loved her before leading a group in overthrowing hijackers and saving
many lives. The mother of a 2-day old baby whose daddy died before he
even got to see her. The 91-year old man who let younger people go down
the stairs because he had lived long enough and wanted others to have
the same chance. The woman, who sent an email saying simply, "thanks
for being such a great friend" - it was the last email she ever
sent. The chaplain who was killed while giving last rites to a fireman.
9 -1 - 1. 9-1-1 indeed. Help!! How can we live with the sadness, the
horror, and the anger of what we have seen this week? Where can we turn
for answers, or at least comfort? Where is God, Spirit of Life, Love,
Reason or safety in this madness? What do we do with our rage and our
compassion? When can we, will we ever be able - to feel whole - alive
- again? What do we cling to?
I suggest religion.
(But first a personal note. You know this isn't how I planned it. We
really don't know each other very well yet. Sure I've cried with some
of you, visited a few of you in the hospital and been in your committee
meetings but if you think about it we committed to each other after
only two dates and a one-week courtship. I had hoped to introduce words
like God, prayer, faith, and religion with lots of discussion about
what they mean to me and to us slowly. These are words that trigger
many emotions and I wanted us to get to know each other before I started
throwing them around. But this week has forced us to get to know each
other fast and for me to use words that strike at the core of our being.
I have held you in my arms and in my heart this week and for better
or worse we have each other. I want you to know I love you and I am
glad we have found each other.)
Back to religion. I cannot remember a week when religion has been so
wonderful and so horrible. Some of you might be asking how can we cling
to religion - religion is what has gotten us into this mess! The fanatics,
who hijacked those planes, aimed them at the Pentagon and World Trade
Center, and killed, it appears, because of religion. They were serving
their God and were doing it with the certainty that they would be rewarded
for their actions. As someone who became a Unitarian Universalist in
part because we honor all faith traditions, and who has found comfort
and inspiration in words from the Muslim faith, I am sickened that religion
could be used as a reason for such hate.
But I am not surprised. For many years of my life I wanted nothing
to do with religion. I am sure many people view the events of this week
as the main problem with religion - people with different Gods killing
each other in the name of that God. Religion, some would say, is for
zealots who force their values on others and then have the gall to be
hypocrites and not really live from those values. Religion can be scary
because people hold their beliefs so deeply that they often want to
cram them down your throats. While I have found most of the religious
services to be uplifting and uniting this week, I have worried over
the common invocation of God in almost all of them. For those of us
who don't have a God, who don't find value in the term, or who believe,
as I do, in a God that is very different from the man in the clouds
that is usually portrayed, we get concerned that God will be used as
wedge to separate us from each other; as it often has.
So why cling to religion? Well for one reason because religion isn't
about God. That's right I said religion isn't about God.
Religion is, in the words of the Rev. Ray Baughn, "our hunger
for life, the need for meaning in our lives, for ultimacy, for intimacy
and for community." That's why we are here today folks - we have
a need, a thirst, to find meaning and intimacy in life, in our universe
and with each other. Can God help with that search? Of course, especially
when we define God the way Forest Church, minister of All Souls Unitarian
in the heart of New York City, has. "God is not God's name but
our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each."
God is not God's name but our name for that which is greater than all
and yet present in each.
I have seen that God this week. The God that has sat in this sanctuary
as we have cried and held each other tight. The God that has been inspiring
the police men and women, the fire men and women, the hospital and ambulance
workers to work day and night in the stench and horror of dead and broken
bodies, hoping beyond hope that one more person might be saved. The
God that sat in the National Cathedral on Friday afternoon, as people
gathered with different beliefs and perspectives, who may have disliked
each other intensely and defined God in different or non-existent ways,
yet cried and worshipped as one. The God that inspired a handful of
normal people, like you and me, who knew they were about to die, to
band together and force a plane down before it killed more people.
We cling to religion, not because of God, but because religion binds
us together. In fact the original Latin meaning of the word was to re-bind.
Our religion, and I will argue with anyone who jokes or claims - especially
this week - that ours is not a religion, binds us together in a search
for meaning, a search for sharing with each other the questions and
struggles in life and a search for doing, and living, right. This morning
we re-bind to each other and to the principles and values that we hold
dear. We cling to each other and we cling to the promise, the hope that
religion - our Unitarian Universalist religion - offers.
Rabbi Kushner, who wrote the classic book When Bad Things Happen To
Good People, after watching his son die, speaks to why we must cling
to religion in times like these. "Only the voice of religion, when
it frees itself from the need to defend and justify God for all that
happens, can say to the afflicted person, "You are a good person
and you deserve better. Let me come and sit with you so that you will
know that you are not alone."
We are not alone. This is the message that religion reminds us of every
time we allow it to. When we come here on Sunday. When we watch buildings
fall, people die, children cry and life, as we know it, change.
Maybe the biggest reason religion is the lifeline we cling to during
times like these is because it challenges us to be better people. The
challenge to be stronger than we are alone. The challenge to not only
live, but affirm and promote principles, when in the midst of sorrow
and rage our hearts and minds don't believe them. How many of us have
struggled with affirming the worth and dignity of the people who hijacked
those planes and caused so much death and destruction? How many have
wondered how we will promote the goal of world community with peace,
liberty and justice for all when people must be punished for murdering
our brothers and sisters?
These are tough questions and I hope you are reflecting on them. We
need to struggle with them together. Religion - any religion, and especially
ours - demands us to do so. If we want to re-bind our hearts and minds
we must not shy away from these questions of meaning and being. Some
times we can avoid these messy questions with the distractions and necessities
of life, this week we cannot escape them - from our children, our ministers
or our consciences.
These are the questions that cry out in our souls and wake us up at
night. In these times the words of Thomas Jefferson ring so true: "It
is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read."
Our challenge is not to speak religiously but to live religiously. We
take pride as Unitarian Universalists that we live our religion; we
practice what we preach. Not all of this pride is the arrogance that
most religious people are prone to. We have done, and always will do,
good work - of course we are not alone, in this.
This week I invite us, I challenge us, to live our religion in two
specific ways. They won't be easy but nobody said religion, or life,
was easy.
My first wish for all of us is to allow ourselves the chance to grieve.
I'm asking that each one of us take the time in the midst of our suffering
to be human. This is not easy for those of us who are primed to act.
I've watched how we have reacted to the events of last Tuesday. How
quick we are to jump to conclusions or look for something or someone
to blame. I wish I could tell you that I have cried all the tears that
need to be cried, felt all the anger and rage at death and the hijackers,
and avoided the denial and isolation that comes with loss, but I can't.
I know that I am not alone. Some of us need to stop running from the
pain and feel it - really feel it. Some of us need to shed tears and
feel sadness and grief at a deeper level than perhaps we ever have before.
Some of us need to give ourselves permission to feel the heat of rage
and anger at the injustice and evil that we have witnessed. And yet
we still need to cook dinner and go to work.
We have so much to grieve. The loss of human life, the loss of our
children's innocence, the loss of security when we board a plane or
go to work, and soon the destruction that comes with war. Don't run
from it. Use your religion; use your community to help you feel it.
I know it's scary. We may lose control. With each other we can make
it through. Come to the grief circle on Monday night. Ask someone you
love to coffee. Talk about it. Call me. Find professional help if you
need it. Grieve and be human. Religion demands it of you.
The second invitation I offer to us is that we practice hope. Somewhere
at the core of every religion we will find hope. Sometimes that hope
comes in promises of eternal life. The people who hijacked those planes
clung to that hope, ironically I suspect many of the passengers who
knew they were going to die probably did too.
Our religion does not promise the hope of an afterlife in paradise
- or at least this minister does not. But we do promise hope.
The hope that comes with believing every person has worth and dignity.
The hope that justice, equity and compassion will roll down like waters
and peace like an ever-flowing stream. The hope that all people - no
matter their color, gender, sexual orientation, religious perspective
or physical capability - can live how they wish and have the same opportunities
as everyone else. The hope that by searching together we will find better
answers to the questions life asks us, than we would ever find alone.
Finding hope in life, in our principles and purposes, maybe even in
our interactions with each other, may be difficult in the weeks to come.
Our religion, our covenant with each other, calls us, implores us to
find hope in life. For those who have seen hope in the coming together
of the country, in the shared candles of love and pain, in the faces
of people straining to help each other this week, share that hope with
another. We need it, our children need it, and our world needs it.
I close with two stories of hope.
Tomorrow night millions of people around the world will celebrate Rosh
Hashanah and the year 5762 on the Jewish calendar. The Days of Awe that
begin tomorrow night are full of the hope and promise of new beginnings.
We can be better next year. I find hope knowing that in those past 5,761
years there have been days as dark as the ones we are living in - and
we have survived.
Yesterday I called five hospitals in the metro Atlanta area. I asked
nurses in each maternity department how many babies had been born since
Tuesday. When I explained I was a minister and was preaching a sermon
this morning, the nurse's resistance to answering my unusual question
melted away. I discovered that 360 babies have been delivered in those
hospitals since Tuesday morning. 360 precious souls that don't know
the anguish and pain we feel today. 360 examples of what love can do.
360 reasons that we must fight fear and hatred with wisdom and compassion.
360 signs that the Spirit of Life has not given up on us yet. I plan
on clinging to that this week, I hope you will too.
May it be so.
