SERMONS 

Yom Kippur

Politics aside, what do you think will happen with Arnold? Apparently, in addition to transgressions not unfamiliar to many men running for public office, he said, some years ago, that he admired Hitler’s rise to power from humble roots. We will all react differently, I suppose, but it is an interesting question to explore: does it matter that Arnold was inappropriate with women (as he says) thirty years ago? How about last year? And his Hitler comment—is there a statute of limitations, will it make him forever ineligible (in the view of some) for political office? How should his transgressions affect our treatment of him as a political figure; how about as a person? These are two very different questions. And there are many more we could ask.

I love the way Rabbi Harold Kushner asks the primary question that I’m trying to get at. “How good do we have to be?” How good do our political leaders have to be? How good do our religious leaders have to be? How good do our sportscasters have to be? Or even our athletes?

In the case of sportscasters (or angry conservatives, like Rush Limbaugh, masquerading as sportscasters) I’d have to say that common sense is not too much to demand. Is ability adequate for athletes? What about for ourselves? How good is good enough? And when it is not good enough—what will we do about it?

This is the question of the Days of Awe, the holiest time in the Jewish year. Beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the new year, Jews spend this time in prayers of repentance and in making amends with people they have wronged. At Yom Kippur, which begins tonight, there is fasting and a service commemorating the closing of the Book of Life for another year. Observant Jews have spent these days in prayer and repentance. Now, their prayer is that their names will be inscribed in the Book of Life once more by virtue of their repentance and their commitment to strive yet again for goodness and righteousness in their lives.

So this really isn’t a time to concern ourselves too much with whether or not we forgive Arnold Schwartzenager, or what form that forgiveness might take. We can get to that, I believe, after we’ve dealt with how we handle our own misdeeds. Our own shortcomings. Our own sin. In fact, how we deal with Arnold or anyone else is muddied until we have come to a place of understanding at least, and peace at best, about who we really are. I believe our judgments about others are suspect until, all pretense gone, we reveal ourselves to ourselves.

Religious traditions call on us to take courage and look deeply at ourselves. Many provide special times in the year especially for this purpose. Some provide weekly opportunities for confession. We need these nudges. I do anyway. Looking deeply at myself is scary. It’s not that I don’t know what I’ll find. It’s that I do. I dare say all of us don’t have to scratch very far below the surface to uncover truths about ourselves that are difficult to accept.

Like the way we avoid telling the whole truth because it might make us uncomfortable. Or when we “innocently” take something that really doesn’t belong to us. Or when we speak unkindly of someone else? Or when we remain silent, when our voice is needed. Or when we lash out angrily at someone who gets in the way of our frustration. Or when we are so greedy we do not recognize that someone around us needs our help. Or when we are unkind or insensitive because of fear or ignorance or inattention. Or when we abuse ourselves with too much drinking or too much work or too much buying or too much eating—or some other addictive and self-destructive behavior.

For me, at least, it doesn’t take much looking to uncover these hidden regrets. And then if I look even deeper, the regret kicks me in the stomach. When I look even deeper I discover the regrets that are difficult to name. The hurt that still festers. The broken relationship which may never heal. The thoughtlessness that caused more harm than I imagined. My willingness to turn away from the suffering around me, whether far or near.

The burden of our humanness is great. The blessing of forgiveness is elusive. I believe these two things are connected. The blessing escapes us when we try to avoid the burden. This is the other side of looking deeply. When we look, all pretense gone, and reveal our hidden selves—we will also see the spark of divine light that burns within. We will, if we are truly open, uncover potential that lives within us as surely as anything else.

This process requires a deep trust in two things. Our power and our lack of power. People who are in recovery do this well within the context of the Twelve Steps. They proclaim their powerlessness (that’s the first step). And then, as they work the steps, they go through a careful process of taking stock and holding themselves accountable for their actions and committing to new behavior in the future. It’s a beautiful acknowledgement of the paradox of our humanness. We are powerless and we are accountable. We can take charge of our lives only when we surrender some of our willfulness.

If we look deeply we will see how desperately we need to rely on faith, on something beyond ourselves, to realize all that we can be. In other words we will see how relentless is our propensity to make the same mistakes over and over again. If we look deeply we will also see that we have the potential to be more than we are. And that we are not on our own in this work. We are supported in countless ways.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard writes of two forms of willfulness—these capture the barriers to our seeing ourselves deeply. First is the willfulness that comes from the desire for self-sufficiency. This is a pride that alienates us from any greater power: from God, from the power of love, from the power of life. In pride we deny that there is a greater power than ourselves.

The second kind of willfulness Kierkegaard describes is the other side of that kind of pride—despair. “Despair is a self-hating pride.” (Church) This is a pride that alienates us as well. In despair we also deny the possibility of a greater power than ourselves.

In recovery talk, the first kind of pride might be the effect of alcohol—boldness, fearlessness, self-reliance. The second kind of pride might be the voice that assures us we will not survive without a drink. Or, for those of us with other addictions and weaknesses: The first kind of pride is our stubborn refusal to ask for help when we need it, and the second is our self-destructive denial of our own inherent worth and dignity.

This week I started Desmond Tutu’s book No Future Without Forgiveness. I will tell you more about it next week’s sermon. But one line particularly caught my attention. “The completely self-sufficient person would be subhuman.” You might have expected instead, “the completely self-sufficient person would be superhuman.” That’s how we would likely say that in the West. Not for Tutu. He has a distinctively African take on this. He explains that it comes from the African worldview.

In the Nguni group of languages the word for this is ubuntu. Tutu explains:

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. it speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we say, “Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu.” Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.” We belong in a bundle of life. We say, “A person is a person through other persons.” It is not “I think therefore I am.” It says rather: “I am human because I belong. I participate, I share.” A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.

The very source and strength of myself comes because of the very source and strength of you. I am not alone. There is a power greater than my own, a possibility of love that transcends any ability within me. In this understanding, the burden of my flawed humanity and the potential for forgiveness and transformation both have room to dwell.

Desmond Tutu has powerful authority to speak of the possibility of forgiveness. He has helped lead South Africa toward healing after unthinkable atrocities. He is careful to say that forgiveness is not sentimental (p. 271). But, as the title of his book conveys, there is no future without forgiveness. The act of forgiveness is an act of faith in the future of a relationship and in our human capacity to make a new beginning (p. 273).

This is true with nations, and it is true for us in our little lives. This is the essence of the message of our own Unitarian Universalist heritage. And in that heritage we can even get a hint of the paradox. There’s an old joke about the difference between Unitarians and Universalists. The Unitarians, it is said, believe that humankind is too good to be condemned to hell; the Universalists believe that God is too good to condemn humankind to hell.

In those seeds of our faith is the potential for the two kinds of pride I described earlier. Arrogance about our own self-sufficiency (we’re plenty good enough, thank you very much) and despair about our own unworthiness (nothing can help us to be good enough). In both, we deny the power of Life and Love that is greater than we are.

In those seeds of our faith we also find the potential for a framework within which we can find healing and peace. The Unitarian message reminds us that within each of us is a spark of divinity, the great potential to grow closer to the power of Life and Love. The Universalist message offers assurance that even when we fall short, we can turn to sources beyond us for acceptance. We are blessed to have these seeds of heritage to nurture.

All of this theology may well leave you cold. Theology and religious heritage and all that only goes as far as it goes. Finally, we have to sit alone and find the courage to look within. Finally, we must face ourselves, all pretense gone. Finally, we need to search out some source of assurance that we are forgiven, that we are accepted.

One of the most moving experiences I’ve had of Yom Kippur came when I participated in a tashlich ritual. This is a very old ritual where Jews go together to a flowing body of water and empty the crumbs from their pockets as a way of letting go of sins. When I did this, we chanted, “Wash over me, carry my prayers to a God that hears, wash over me, send me an answer to my tears. I throw out my worries, I throw out my fears, I throw out my worries, I throw out my fears.”

Ritual can be a great help with work that is this difficult. Again this year you have been given a stone. (If you don’t have one and would like one, you may come forward and get one after the service.) Use this stone, if you’d like, as a way to carry the burden of your humanness. Hold it, rub it, feel the warmth from your hands radiate back from it. Recognize in your rock all the burdens it has already carried. Whether it is smooth or rough, its shape is the result of faithful patience. It has already carried the burden of wind and water. Symbolically, it can also carry your burden.

Keep your stone as long as you need to. But in time, you might want to take it to some flowing water or some mountain top and let it go. Do this in faith. In the faith that there is a force of love greater than we can imagine. In the faith that we are acceptable as we are. In the faith that each of us has the potential to be more than we are. In the faith that we are because of each other, we are connected, in mystery and miracle, to the universe, to this community, and to each other. Amen.