According to tradition, on the night of the historical Buddha’s awakening, as he sat in deep meditation under the Bodhi tree, he was attacked by the tempter, Mara.

Seductive dancing women tried to distract him. And armies of phantom demons were sent to frighten him.

When these failed to unseat the aspiring Buddha, Mara finally challenged his right to sit on “the throne of enlightenment.”

“Who bears witness to your attainment of Buddhahood?” demanded Mara.

Gautama is said to have reached the fingers of his right hand down to touch the ground. “I call the earth as my witness,” he declared.

The earth itself was his voice, his foundation and his witness. In response to this gesture, the demons fled, and when the morning-star rose, Gautauma realized his enlightenment as the Buddha.

The Buddha did not ask for help from heavenly beings. He asked the earth.

The earth witness pose (or mudra) which presents the Buddha with his right hand outstretched downward to the earth has become iconic. (image on screen)

Religious historian Karen Armstrong writes that the earth witness pose does symbolize “Gautama’s rejection of Mara’s sterile [and violent] machismo but [also] makes a profound point that a Buddha does indeed belong to the world…the [person] who seeks enlightenment is in tune with the fundamental structure of the universe.”

There are many interpretations of this story. Some focus on the transcendent character of the Buddha-nature. One legend has the earth quaking. Another says thousands of flower blossoms rained down from heaven. There are other similar triumphant narratives.

Another way to understand that touching of the earth is not as a call to witness to Gautama’s achievement or self-importance, not as triumph, but as a final recognition of where he comes from, where he is and where he is destined. He is a creature of the earth…’adam’ which means earth creature, literally…”Everything is here,” that gesture says. “There is nothing more to say.”

Post colonial theologian Aruna Gnanadason calls this “brown grace”…redemption of and through the life force of the earth itself, as opposed to the “red grace” of violence and exploitation.

We are earth. Our enlightenment is living in that truth. Or better said, living in the truth of our dependence on and relationship as part of earth.

We are earth.

Our Unitarian Universalist 7^th Principle speaks of the “interconnected web of existence of which we are a part.” The language clearly calls us to a grounding in relationship and connection. The interconnected web language points us away from self importance and any claim of unique privilege for any of us…or any subset of us. The language points us to humility. And that language urges us to remember that none of us can be saved until we are all saved…where all means all of creation.

Many of you may not know that the current UUA Ministry for Earth grew up in and out of this congregation. Created in 1989 as the Seventh Principle Project, they soon launched the Green Sanctuary movement, calling UU congregations to attend to their energy footprint. Hundreds of UU congregations eventually were certified as Green Sanctuaries.

And members of this church…Rev. Katherine Jesch, now one of our Affiliated Ministers, was the first Director of Environmental Ministry, Barbara Ford… and many others…led Unitarian Universalist engagement with earth ministry from our buildings, right here.  That leadership continues to this day. Our own Ellen MacClaran serves on the national Board of Ministry for Earth. And Ministry for Earth is one of the most active Social Justice Action Groups at First Unitarian.

On this Earth Day, I want to celebrate that history and that leadership.

And I want to affirm both the wisdom and the challenge of our 7^th Principle and the movement for environmental justice that it calls us to support. That movement has taken…is taking…new shape and it is important for all of us to begin to understand the contours of that new work and what we are now called to do in response.

There are important questions of theology and of practice involved.

I am going to be drawing on the work of Susan Ritchey and on essays from a wonderful just published book entitled Justice on Earth that grew out of a 2014 conference, a Collaboratory they called it, in Detroit. The intention of the gathering, convened by Ministry for Earth, was to bring the best of our anti-racism and justice-making, and the best of our environmental concerns into the same space of caring, to find the connections that had been hard for too many of us to see.

Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti, an Indian American and one of the editors of the book, writes: “…to be in Detroit, standing on the sidewalk as a garbage truck from Grosse Pointe, an affluent community approximately 15 miles away, pulls in to drop off its trash in an African-American and Latinx neighborhood—left my heart in deep pain.”

Environmentalism, for too long, seemed most concerned about preserving nature “unspoiled.” It was perceived as the concern of well-intended but affluent and educated progressive whites.

Rev. Jennifer Nordstrom, the other editor of Justice for Earth: “Contrary to some understandings of environmentalism—including many UU framings—the environment is not simply natural wilderness in need of saving. Indeed, that understanding is grounded in colonialism and white supremacy.”

“the environment is not simply natural wilderness in need of saving.”

Climate change, of course, added dramatic urgency to environmental concerns.

But the move now from environmentalism, that natural wilderness in need of saving…to environmental justice, brings the concerns of marginalized communities into the conversation…marginalized communities that have always been the most impacted by our extractive, profit driven relationship with the earth.

Environmental justice focuses not only on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but also the toxins from that land fill in Detroit that compromise the health of the community of color that lives across the street.

Saturday, a week ago, First Unitarian hosted the “Frontline Communities on Environmental and Climate Justice.” Our involvement was led by the Community for Earth. We are supporters and partners in this effort which is really an attempt to create a Movement of Movements, coming together for a justice which is environmental…yes…but which points toward the Beloved Community.

There were representatives of NAACP, Native American, Latinx and Asian-Pacific Islander communities, mostly young leaders, mostly women… that have come together in the Oregon Just Transition Alliance (OJTA), our plate recipient this month.

The vision they articulated was for a boad and just transition, a Great Turning, to borrow language that is well worth saving…

A turning from an extractive economy that exploits labor in order to concentrate wealth and power…

A turning to a sustainable, regenerative economy, centered in cooperation, with the goal of ecological and social well-being.

The vision is grounded in deep democracy. Not merely more people voting…though that is important…but more meaningful participation for those most impacted in decision-making.

And the vision is held in sacredness…as a spiritual endeavor…because we are spiritual beings not merely economic actors.

A Just Transition. It sounds like movement toward the Beloved Community to me.

At the practical level, this effort embodies intersectionality. I’ve spoken about intersectionality before, but to remind you: intersectionality is the way societal patterns of power and oppression overlap and intersect with one another as they impact particular people and particular communities.

Race and gender is the classic intersection. But sexuality and ability, education and citizenship status…all of these and more can be in play.

You remember this, right?

Have any of you been in conversations that have pitted one social justice priority against another? Any conversations with folks who have argued that racial justice is more important that environmental justice? That gender equity must be addressed  before justice for transgender folks? That class is more important that race or culture?

Are these arguments familiar to any of you? These arguments make justice priorities into competitions. Competitions for limited resources.

Functionally, by using energy for these arguments and fouling relationships, the power and privileges of the status quo are maintained. They mediate against change.

Such competitions are embedded in a culture that privileges individual passion over collective need. This culture is fundamentally hierarchical. It is a culture of scarcity that also places humankind at the apex of importance and privileges some humans at the expense of others and at the expense of the rest of creation.

In Unitarian Universalism today we describe this culture as the culture of white supremacy. And it is importantly about racism. But it is a single and unifying culture that functions to hold all of us down.

Theologician James Cone: “The logic that led to slavery and apartheid in Africa, and the rule of white supremacy throughout the world is the same one that leads to the exploitation of animals and the ravaging of nature.”

Racism and environmental degradation…two faces of a single system.

It is one culture.

The challenge theologically and practically is to maintain a knowing of how interconnected both we and the issues we care about are.

Manish Mishra: “As I look back at my decades of justice activism, I can clearly see how silo-ed and issue-specific my activism has been: gay/lesbian-focused, race-focused, transgender equality-focused. …This silo effect unintentionally separates justice advocates from one another. … We do the good work we are doing…believing perhaps that if those other folk saw the light, they would care about our issue as much as they care about their own.”

The silo effect has one well proven result. It keeps entrenched power and privilege in place. Our separation from one another as justice advocates allows the largest, most thorny intersectional problems to remain largely intact.

The silos sustain the system.

We need to stretch toward a more holistic understanding and a more holistic vision of Beloved Community.

We need to be willing to join our energy with others committed to resistance and resilience.

At one of the planning meetings for the Frontline Communities event, when I promised our support, the organizers asked “For the long haul, right?” “Because we are in this for the long haul.”

For the long haul. Right.

And there is work to do…now.

The Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) was born out of a collaboration of justice-makers, all of whom we support:

The Coalition of Communities of Color, APANO (Asian Pacific Assoc. and Network of Oregon), NAACP, VERDE, Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA), 350PDX, Sierra Club, Audubon Society and Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Their goal is to get the Portland Clean Energy Fund on the ballot in November. This will leverage $30 million to fund projects in Portland neighborhoods proposed by nonprofit groups: projects to weatherize residences, build rooftop solar, provide job training, grow local food production and green infrastructure. Poor and people of color communities will benefit first, rather than being left out of the conversation about use of public funds as they normally are.

The money will come from a 1% surcharge on the licensing fee paid by the largest national retailers who do a billion dollars worth of sales in the US and $500,000 in Portland.

This is organizing in real time. The surcharge may even need to be called a tax.

But even if the entire surcharge was passed on to consumers, which I doubt, I would pay far more than 1% to generate all that neighborhood based sustainability.

We will need 40,000 signatures to get this on this ballot. This will be a challenge and the time will be short. Until the language is finalized, the petition drive can’t begin.

Our partners have identified this as a priority. And I hope that most of you will join me in signing when the petitions are available…soon.

Right now, we are organizing. We need people who will promise to gather 100 signatures in you networks and neighborhoods. And you can sign up to make that commitment today, downstairs at the CFE table.

It is time for us to become a force for a just transition toward the Beloved community. We will exercise the spiritual discipline of followership, listening first and most carefully to marginalized communities…centering their voices…and celebrating the coming together of people in relationships that cross the silos and resist the culture that would keep us locked in an unsustainable cycle that abuses too many of us and the earth.

Let’s get this one done.

Love is central to our theology. There are those who believe that interdependence arises from love. That love somehow pre-exists relationship. That love comes first.

I want to suggest that love arises when we acknowledge the relationships in which we already live…the relationships with each other, with nature and with the holy, however we might understand the holy. Those relationships somehow already constitute our lives.

In turning toward those relationships…in turning toward life…we can restore life.

This is a deep brown grace: in turning toward life, we restore life.

Those fine points of theology…does love come first or follow…well, I am not sure how important they are day to day. And I say that as someone who pays considerable attention to theology.

This is what I know: That love, whether it comes first or last, is involved here. That the passion for each specific justice cause is a manifestation of love. That concern for the earth is a manifestation of love.

And I know this: that ways of being that keep our current culture in place press down on us all.

And here is what I believe. That we can build the capacity to sing more than one melody and see using more than one lens. That we can allow love to be felt in abundance, not in scarcity.

That the vision of the Beloved Community and a Just Transition toward it can be a channel for love abundant

And that it is love abundant that can give us hope.

 

 

Topics: Redemption