First Unitarian Church

May 2, 1999

It has been almost two weeks since the terrible shootings at the high school in Littleton, Colorado. We’ve seen the coverage on television. We’ve seen the headlines that ask Why? Once again, we’re asked to try to figure out what the violence is all about.

The situation in Littleton, and in other places, including here in Oregon, brings up many emotions: sadness, anger, fear, despair, a sense that we are lost.

When faced with such tragedies, we want to lay blame. The availability of guns. The lack of awareness of the parents of the shooters. Video games and the internet. All of these play a role.

I’ve been struck by some contrasting images these last few days. One is the isolation that is so present for so many people. The sense of alienation the children who did the shooting apparently felt. The lack of communication with their parents. And in a larger sense how disconnected we seem to be with our youth. We come and go with our lives and work and other activities, and don’t really seem to have the time to be with the children in our culture.

And the other image, paradoxically, since the tragedy, is how it has brought people together. Day after day we have seen images of funeral services for the victims attended by thousands of people. We have seen the community come together to care for the youths who survived the tragedy. We have seen an outpouring of emotion.

Yesterday, thousands of people came together to protest the National Rifle Association as it held a shorted annual meeting in Denver.

To come together as a body of people is often what happens in such times. Perhaps when we are faced with something that is so hard to comprehend, we don’t know what else to do, so we come together. We feel lost and alone and want to reach out to others.

At other times, this may not be the case.

We live in a time when we may fear our neighbor more than wanting to reach out to them. We may or may not know them and what is happening in their lives. Too often we are isolated. Too often our focus may be solely on what is best for us and our kids. The rest of the community is not something we think a whole lot about.

A story.

Some years back I was serving breakfast at a homeless shelter in San Francisco. It was in the middle of winter and pretty cold for the city, particularly is you had to sleep outdoors.

I was a little nervous about doing this, but a friend had talked me into it. I had recently come to the Bay Area from the Midwest to attend seminary and had not been in any homeless shelter before, let alone one in a big city. I didn’t quite know what to expect.

I was with a group from my church there. We were in line serving. We were on one side of the table and the men from the shelter were on the other. There was not a lot of contract between us. Things felt a little tense.

All of a sudden, I see a man in line who looks exactly like my college roommate, Ralph. Same narrow face, about the same receding hairline, same glasses, same serious look. The resemblance was so striking that I really thought it might be Ralph.

Now I know that he must be in Minnesota with his family. I know that there’s no way he would be in a homeless shelter in San Francisco.

And yet the resemblance has me startled. I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. What if, I’m thinking.

The man was not Ralph, but the experience changed the face of homeless for me. Suddenly it was closer to home. Somehow if Ralph might be homeless, then I could certainly be. That is a scary prospect. I just didn’t get that before.

Now, when I encounter someone who is marginalized, I try to remember that story. To often I don’t want to face them and their despair, I simply want to walk away from it. The problem seems too big and I want to retreat.

And in doing that, I become isolated from the pain that exists in the world. Yes, it may be I don’t have to deal with it in the short term, but in the long term it is there.

One is the things I’ve learned is that as I cut myself off from that pain around me, perhaps I also don’t allow myself to feel my own sense of grief and anger about injustices in the world.

Somebody has said something about the answer starting in the place of pain and discomfort. I think that is true. I need to be able to bring that pain to a place where I can live with it and also challenge it and address it.

If I am able to stay with the dis-ease around me, it is the beginning of how I might make some difference in the world. But I can’t do that by myself, none of us can.

If we feel alone in the world, there is probably not much we feel that we can do. We have to stick with others.

A story from the African tradition:

An old man is dying, and he calls his people to his side. He gives a short, sturdy stick to each of his many offspring. Break the stick, he instructs them. With some effort, they all snap their sticks in half.

"This is how it is when a soul is alone without anyone. They can be easily broken."

The old man next gives each of his kin another stick, and says, "This is how I would like you to live after I pass. Put your sticks together in bundles of twos and threes. Now, break these bundles in half."

No one can break the sticks when there are two or more in a bundle. The old man smiles. "We are strong when we stand with another soul. When we are with another, we cannot be broken."

We have inherited a religious tradition of standing together. It is a tradition of resistance to oppression. Those who have gone before us vowed to stand together, to make promises to each other and a community.

The Free Church tradition emerged in the 16^th century as part of a reforming movement that resisted corrupt and hierarchical power of the church. In forming church covenants, the people asserted their power to come together and to make decisions about their communities of faith and their practices. They advocated free speech, open debate and dissent.

They organized church life to allow for the free conscience of the individual to be respected, and to work together for the common good. The covenant they created tried to put into practice modeled the world they were trying to create.

Making a covenant is a coming together by making a promise. Our forebears resisted oppression by agreeing to live out their beliefs in the practices of covenanted church life.

It is an attempt to make manifest in the world what our visions are and to try to live them out. Change happened by modeling how it was they were to be in the world.

Betty Reid Soskin, a contemporary Unitarian Universalist, puts it this way: "The way to change to world is to be what you want to see."

Our foremothers and forefathers strived to do this, but they, like us, didn’t always succeed. But they tried to live as if the day of justice had arrived.

This was a radical concept.

Too often we can’t uphold the common good through our covenant. Too often the individual right of conscience has led us to strive for what is best for the individual and not best for the community and the earth we are connected to.

These promises are not easy ones, but ones we constantly try to achieve. But think of the times when you have had awakenings in your life. When good has been done to me, it has helped me to turn around and do that good to others.

I see my neighbor as myself.

If we live mindful of our relationship with others and the world around us, we are reminded that we have obligations to others and the common good. We don’t just act for what is best for us but look at how our actions affect others. We are asked to live in right relatiohship.

We are reminded that we don’t do anything in isolation, but with a community of others. We don’t do it alone, but have the guidance and support along the way.

When faced with evil in our world, whether it be a school shooting, the destruction of the earth or other people, racism that robs us of our full humanness, we often do’t know what to do.

We come together not knowing the answers, but pledging to work together and to resist evil and try to overcome it. We join our voices with others and strive for what we want in the world.

In this we recognize that we are not perfect, that we don’t have all the solutions, but that in walking together, we will discern what it is we need to do.

Together in covenant, we pledge to hold one another accountable for what we do, and to strive for the common good.

In doing this, we look both backwards and forwards. Backwards to see what others have done and how they have succeeded and how they have failed.

We see ourselves in their struggles, and also try to learn from them and to grow from them. In this way we slowly change the world.

In our Universalist tradition, we see people who worked to end the injustices in their midst. The universalists were not so much worried about the afterlife as they were focused on the present. They were working to create heaven on earth, and their reform movements strived to do that. Nothing was going to stand in their way.

Today we particularly remember Norbert Capek. His flower communion has become an important ritual in many of our communities. Capek founded Unitarian groups in his native Czechoslovakia and put his life on the line for what he believed.. He was arrested by the Nazis and put do death in a concentration camp.

From him and others, we have inherited a great deal.

The great catholic worker Dorothy Day called this a great chain of being.

"Our lives are touched by those who lived centuries ago, and we hope that our lives will mean something to people who won’t be alive until centuries from now. I think our job is to do the best we can to hold up our small segment of the chain. Doing our utmost to keep the chain connected, unbroken."

Looking back allows us to see the foundation we are standing upon. We look forward knowing that we are not the first ones and not the last ones.

We come together pledging to put ourselves forward.

Living towards the world we want to see takes courage. What are we willing to sacrifice individually to build the common good. Are we willing to put our lives on the line in the process?

If we can, we may help others and ourselves along the way.

A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk. "Monk," he said, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience, "teach me about heaven and hell!"

The monk looked up at this mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain, "Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn’t teach you about anything. You’re dirty. You smell. Your blade is rusty. You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand you."

The Samurai was furious. He shook, got all red in the face, was speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword and raised it above him, preparing to slay the monk.

"That’s hell," the monk said softly.

The samurai was overwhelmed. The compassion and surrender of this little man who had offered his life to give this teaching to show him hell! He slowly put down his sword, filled with gratitude, and suddenly peaceful.

"And that’s heaven," the monk said softly.

I don’t know that I would have the bravery of the monk. Perhaps I wouldn’t know it until I was in the situation.

The world calls for us to take risks. It calls for us to be involved, to imagine how things might be different, and then to live our lives in service to that vision.

"Without vision, the people persish," the scripture tells us.

May we have the courage to put ourselves out there.

In these times, the world needs each and every one of us.

May it be so. Amen.

Prayer: Spirit of life, we come this day seeking wholeness. We come as individuals and join here in community. As we stand here together, may we find hope, may we face our fears, and may we reach out to serve the common good. May we grow in love and peace, and may we create a world that we want our children to live in. Amen.

Benediction:

May your life unfold like the beauty of a flower. Live your life in beauty and courage. Know that you are connected to something larger. Go in love and go in peace.

Opening words by Julian of Norwich:

Be a gardener.

Dig a ditch,

toil and sweat,

and turn the earth upside down

and seek the deepness

and water the plants in time.

Continue this labor

and make sweet floods to run

and noble and abundant fruits

to spring.

Take this food and drink

and carry it to God

as your true worship.

Copyright 1999, by Rev. Thomas Disrud. All rights reserved.