Our spiritual theme this month has been democracy. And when you get a few layers underneath democracy you quickly come to the theme of power. Democracy is, after all, a form of governance that attempts to create an orderly way to share power among some group of people or a whole country.

In the beginning that group was largely white men who were landowners. There were a whole lot more people left out of the equation. And since then others have been brought into that circle, some more equally than others. Who has power and who doesn’t have power is still very much a live issue.

Now power in and of itself is a neutral word… question is how that power gets used, how it gets applied. And, that said, it is one of those words that feels anything but neutral. In fact, just the mention of the word may make a lot of us squirm.

And there is good reason for that. Goodness knows we have plenty of reason to be wary of power. You don’t have to take in too much news these days to find examples of abuses of power all over the place.

In politics, the use of power—the unapologetic, use all the power I have to get what I want, that is what seems to be in vogue. It is not uncommon for that use of power to come in the form of bullying, and that doesn’t get us very far at all. And yet it seems to work all too often. Indeed, many of us learn early on as kids that bullies are not easy to deal with. And they can cause a lot of grief. And sometimes those bullies grow up to have a lot of power.

And I should note that for us Unitarian Universalists power can be especially loaded. Perhaps it is those puritan roots that live in our tradition. They just wanted their religious freedom and they came all the way to this new land looking for it. So it is no surprise that their motto was pretty much Don’t tread on me.

And that tradition is very much alive for us today. Many of us have come out of traditions where we have a strong reaction to being told what to do. Or in some cases to have power—religiously speaking—held over us.

So there is a lot of history there. And yet sometimes do we get so focused on making sure nobody has too much power that we really don’t end up getting much at all accomplished? Does our fear of power end up making us less powerful ourselves?

This is complicated territory, my friends.

It asks us to be spiritually grounded, to be aware of who we are in the world. It asks us to be mature. To be spiritually mature. To be open to knowing the power and privilege we have and to be open to using it well. Sometimes we step over a line and we learn from it. Sometimes we have to keep learning some lessons over and over again.

So I tread into the topic with care.

Let me start with a lesson from my own life. Years ago in college I was a journalism major. This was back in the dark ages when going into newspaper journalism was seen as a career that was very promising… that was sure to give you a lifetime of security… but that is probably another whole sermon.

I worked on my college newspaper and I covered theater. This meant that I reviewed the plays put on by the theater department of my college. Well I took this role pretty seriously and I found that people actually did seem to pay attention to my reviews. Well I started to take myself pretty seriously. Maybe I figured out that there was some power in the role. Well one day the school put on a play the name of which has since gone from my memory. What I do remember is that I found the performance of the lead actress less than solid and I said so, apparently pretty bluntly, in my review. The newspaper in those days came out on Friday afternoon and on this particular Friday afternoon I happened to pass that very actress in the theater building slumped in tears with my review in front of her. All of a sudden I was aware of my power in a way that I had not been aware of before. All of a sudden—and certainly for any theater review I have written since… I do think about just what the consequences will be. Now I’m not saying that I needed to change my opinion. What I’m saying is the way I did it—the way I used my power—could have probably been done in a much kinder way. In the future I would do a whole lot more to offer my opinion in such a way as to not be any more hurtful than necessary.

That indeed was an early lesson for me. As a parish minister I keep learning just how much power the words I speak can be.

It is important to keep learning in life. It is important to be aware of when we fall short of our aspirations. And it is important to know ourselves and what we bring. We need to be mindful of power’s use and its misuse. We need to hold all of that at once. We have to use our power well.

I think that one of the paradoxes of our times is that there is so much that could have us feeling powerless. That’s where that bullying comes in, that’s where it can be so harmful. It would be easy for our first response to bullying to bully right back. But then all we have is more bullying.

But sometimes that place of feeling powerless also calls us to reach deeper. It calls us to be creative. It calls us to risk. It calls us to look for a new way forward.

There are plenty of examples of that around us as well. Think of some of the images from our own times that we can look to. Times when people are claiming their power in ways they haven’t before.

Think millions of women—and quite a few men too—wearing those bright pink pussy hats. Think of the images of people of color standing up and saying no, this isn’t right. Think of the images of the young people from the high school in Florida where there was a shooting last spring. Think of them saying no as well.

And think of the people—many of them women and people of color—who are running for office who would not have run before. What made them say yes? Some inner call that led then to say, we need to do this.

Indeed, power in the age of social media you can’t always know what is going to happen with any given event when it goes viral.

Think of what happens when someone is caught on video being a bully? Did you hear the story this summer of the woman who didn’t like the fact that an 8-year old black girl was selling water outside her home to help her family pay for a trip to Disneyland? When the woman named Patty threatened to call the police because, she said, the young girl needed a permit to sell that water… well she was recorded on a cell phone as she threated and yelled at the girl… well Permit Patty as she now is widely known, went viral and within a few days all kinds of people were boycotting her pet cannabis business.

The world, it seems, often has a way of catching up with us.

It is in those times when we find ourselves going beyond our comfort zones in all kinds of ways. To get out there… but maybe too to make a space to look at our own stuff, our own predjuices, to be willing to look again at a place where our own privileges keep us from looking before.

We are asked in these times to know ourselves. To be aware of our power. To be aware of our privilege and to move in the world grounded in all of that. I think we are asked to move with a kind of spiritual nimbleness in how we are in the world. We don’t after all, know what might be coming our way.

Another story.

The writer Terry Dobson tells the story of being on a train as it clanked and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo one spring day. The car was comparatively empty – a few housewives with their kids in tow, some old folks going shopping. All of a sudden the doors opened, and the afternoon quiet was shattered by a man bellowing violent, incomprehensible curses. The man staggered into the car. He was big, drunk, and dirty.
Screaming, he swung at a woman holding a baby. The blow sent her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle that she was unharmed. Terrified, the couple jumped up and scrambled toward the other end of the car. The laborer aimed a kick at the retreating back of the old woman but missed as she scuttled to safety. This so enraged the drunk that he grabbed the metal pole in the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. One of his hands was cut and bleeding. The train lurched ahead, the passengers frozen with fear.
Dobson was young and a student of aikido and here he was observing all of this. He notes that as a student of aikido, he was not allowed to fight. “Aikido,” his teacher had said again and again, “is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.” But on this day in that subway car, Dobson recognized that he was looking for a fight and that this was his opportunity. He stands up and the drunk man turns his rage in his direction. Just as the drunk man is about to lunge at him and as Dobson is ready to tear him apart.
But a split second before he could move, someone shouted “Hey!” in a strangely joyous way. There before them was a little old Japanese man, probably in his seventies, sitting there immaculate in his kimono. He beamed delightedly at the drunk man, as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share.
“C’mere,” the old man said, beckoning to the drunk. “C’mere and talk with me.” He waved his hand lightly. The big man followed, as if on a string. He planted his feet belligerently in front of the old gentleman, and roared above the clacking wheels, “Why the hell should I talk to you?”
The old man continued to beam at the laborer.
“What’cha been drinkin’?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with interest.
“I been drinkin’ sake,” the laborer bellowed back, “and it’s none of your business!” Flecks of spittle spattered the old man.
“Ok, that’s wonderful,” the old man said, “absolutely wonderful! You see, I love sake too. Every night, me and my wife (she’s 76, you know), we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden, and we sit on an old wooden bench. We watch the sun go down, and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing. My great-grandfather planted that tree, and we worry about whether it will recover from those ice storms we had last winter. Our tree had done better than I expected, though especially when you consider the poor quality of the soil. It is gratifying to watch when we take our sake and go out to enjoy the evening – even when it rains!” He looked up at the laborer’s eyes twinkling. As he struggled to follow the old man’s conversation, the drunk’s face began to soften. His fists slowly unclenched. “Yeah,” he said. “I love persimmons too…” His voice trailed off.
“Yes,” said the old man, smiling, “and I’m sure you have a wonderful wife.”
“No,” replied the laborer. “My wife died.” Very gently, swaying with the motion of the train, the big man began to sob. “I don’t got no wife, I don’t got no home, I don’t got no job. I am so ashamed of myself.” Tears rolled down his cheeks; a spasm of despair rippled through his body.
Dobson, having observed all this notes himself standing there in well-scrubbed youthful innocence, his make-this-world-safe-for-democracy righteousness, that he suddenly felt dirtier than the drunk man was. When his stop comes up and the train doors open, he hears the old man cluck sympathetically. “My, my,” he said, “that is a difficult predicament, indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it.”
As Dobson leaves he sees the drunk man sprawled on the seat, his head in the old man’s lap, the old man softly stroking the filthy, matted hair.

I wonder if this might be a kind of parable for our times. To ask how it is we are to deal with bullies and to not let our own humanity suffer in the process.

I don’t know about you, but I usually am not all that adept finding the right words at any given moment, especially a stressful one. I don’t always feel as if I can make much difference in the world. It is easy, all too often, to let fear get in the way.

And it can be too easy to want to respond to bullying with more bullying. But indeed, that too, might mean that the bullies, in the end, get their way.

There is a kind a paradox when it comes to power. It can so easily be used to harm. And it so easily can be used for the good. But too often we let fear stand in our way.

Earlier we heard the words of African-American poet Audre Lorde. She also said this, “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

It is first of all important for each of us to have a sense of our own power in the world and to claim that power. It means always asking just what does that mean for us in the given moment. As a people of faith, as a community of hope and remembrance, we are asked to stand with those on the margins, we are asked to see in their story our story. And we are asked to use our powers to make manifest the beloved community. And sometimes that means taking risks. Sometimes that means stepping aside and making space for the voices of those who have not been heard, those who have been silenced for a long time. Sometimes it means stepping up. And sometimes it means asking forgiveness when we make mistakes. But that is part of what it means to be in covenant together—that we find our voices together are greater than our individual selves.

In the church we find community. We see our lives connected to the lives of others. We see our struggles mirrored in the struggles of others. And we also find in the community accountability. Others can help us understand how we are in the world, when we fall short and when we shine. Through it all, hopefully, we see ourselves as part of something larger. We see ourselves as having the opportunity to make a difference. Together in covenant we can take risks, we can begin again in love when we fall short of our aspirations.

This being human is not easy stuff my friends. It asks us to live with our hearts open even when we may not want to do that. But it also offers us an invitation day after day after day—to see ourselves as powerful, to see ourselves as loved, to see ourselves as part of something larger, something bigger, something precious.

May we find ourselves there and may we find all of us, together, there too. Amen.

Prayer. Spirit of life and of love, god of many names and of no name at all, be with us. Be with us in this hour, in all the days of our lives. Be with us when we are afraid. Be with us when we are so full of ourselves we lose sight of our highest aspirations. Be with us when we stumble. Be with us when we celebrate. Through it all remind us that we are beloved, that all your children are beloved. Amen.

Benediction

As you go from this place today, good people, use your power well. Use your gifts, every day you are alive, to bless the world.

Topics: Democracy