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(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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When each of my two daughters were in High School, they went through a phase that many people experience at some point in life. They rebelled. They defied the cocoon of suburban morality and safety that their mom and I had tried to create for them. At an early point in their high school years they each began to hang out with the allegedly bad kids, the different kids, the ones who did not fit into the well-scrubbed, preppie, rich, blonde and beautiful group. My daughter Amy’s new friends were comprised of the outcasts – the ones who dressed in black, the artistic and theatrical kids, the rebels, the not so beautiful, the ones who smoked behind the gym, even one brave young man who had come out as gay.

 

For me, a Pastor in a local church, this was alarming stuff. And their mom was concerned too. We saw little evidence that our girls were doing anything significantly bad. There was no evidence of drugs, no hint of early sexual activity, no school skipping. But they did sneak out of the house a few times. They admitted to some smoking and some drinking. They got angry at our rules and my expectation that they attend my church’s weekly youth group. There were the normal parent-teen fights. Overall, it was their new friends that alarmed us. It was guilt by association. Our girls would be supposedly bad girls just because of the kids they hung out with.
I talked to Amy this past week – first asking permission to talk about her today and second asking about that period in her life. During her junior high years, Amy experienced a medical condition which caused much of her hair to fall out. For a young teenager, nothing worse could have happened. She wore hats and we arranged for hair pieces to try and cover up the condition. But, her appearance was still very different. Amy became anxious, upset and shy. Sadly, as she now tells me, many kids at school were horribly cruel to her because of her strange appearance. Some of her former friends – those in the so-called “in crowd”, immediately turned on her. To those kids, she was no longer the vivacious, happy and pretty girl. She was different, sullen, and someone who wore hats and wigs.
As Amy told me this past week, it was the outcast kids, the Gothic ones, the rebels, the smokers, the geeks who embraced her and befriended her despite her appearance. The so-called bad kids were the nice ones. And Amy found something wonderful and surprising in them……as bad as they seemed on the exterior, they were the most generous to her, the most willing to understand and help, the ones who accepted differences in others more willingly. They weren’t saints and they had their issues of anger, intolerance and self-destructive behavior. But for Amy, these were kids who did not care about her hair, her clothes, or her parent’s lack of high status. Unknown to her mom or me, Amy was learning from this group of kids the values which make her a kind and compassionate person today. We’re all different in our own ways. We all occasionally break rules of good behavior. We all want many of the same things in life – love, happiness, security. But the greatest gift we can offer others is the gift of acceptance, appreciation and respect.
Most of us know the Good Friday and Easter stories. We see reminders of it outside many churches. Three crosses are lined up, the middle one usually a bit larger and draped with a purple cloth, to symbolize royalty. These symbols remind us of Jesus’ crucifixion as they also remind us that, according to the story in the Gospel of Luke, he was not crucified alone. He was executed in the company of two condemned thieves, two low-lifes, two of the baddest of the bad. This indicates that Jesus’ execution was not a particularly special event. The Romans crucified people almost every day – doing so along roadways in order to show the population who was in control. Jesus was just another outcast whom the Romans wanted to eliminate.

 

Luke tells us that as Jesus hung on the cross, as he neared death, one of the criminals began to derisively harangue him. “If you are so great and so powerful Jesus, why are you here? Why don’t you save yourself!” Importantly, however, the other thief tells his cohort to shut up. Jesus, this man said, was being executed for what he taught and not for any real crimes. He should be honored and not condemned.

 

Jesus praised the man for his words, implicitly thanking him for his words of support. And then Jesus acknowledged him as a person of goodness, as one whose heart was sincere and full of compassion. They would meet again that day in Paradise, Jesus said. This criminal, this low-life had understood Jesus and what he taught. And Jesus befriended him.

 

 

 

This last act of grace by Jesus has been long discussed. For many, it indicates that even a death-bed confession of sincere faith will be enough to get one into heaven. God judges the heart and not necessarily a lifetime of actions which may or may not be good. What is also striking is that Jesus would, at a moment of great pain and distress, reach out to one who was beneath him in stature and reputation. It is typical of how he apparently conducted most of his life. As the Bible explicitly states, Jesus was a friend of those who were deemed sinners and bad people. He was a friend and frequent companion of low-lifes, thieves, prostitutes, tax-collectors, cheats, and drunkards. And the Easter story of how he offered kindness to a dying criminal, proves it.

 

Many Christians, if they must admit it, do not like the Bible verse in the Gospel of Matthew saying Jesus was a friend of sinners. They take pains to re-interpret it and claim that he spent time with bad people only in an effort to change them. They point out that the Bible never describes Jesus as himself indulging in anything they would consider sinful.
But common sense and a basic understanding of human nature tells us that Jesus likely did drink and enjoy alcohol, that he likely enjoyed the attention of women, and that he clearly enjoyed parties in the company of people with bad reputations. He was more than their friend. He was one of them in that he grew up in a backwater town, hung out with outcasts, and he lived among street people – those who used any means to survive. Indeed, he too had bad reputation – a man who was followed by gossip that he was bastard child. Jesus is described as a man who frequently attended raucous parties – events where wine and very flirtatious women were present. His first miracle, as the Gospel stories report, was to turn several large vats of water at a party into wine – a story that indicates alcohol was important to him. Befriending a common criminal was therefore something typical of how Jesus lived and acted.

 

But what does this nuanced understanding of Jesus mean for us on Easter? What does it mean for us as an example of how we might live and act?

 

One of Eugene O’Neill’s more obscure plays is entitled “Lazarus Laughed”. It’s described as a philosophical piece – one that is intended to teach a clear lesson, much like the morality plays of medieval times. As many of us know the Bible story of Lazarus, he was the first human to have supposedly returned from the dead. He was resurrected by Jesus in a miracle said by interpreters to foreshadow the Easter resurrection. The Bible story has Jesus coming to Lazarus’ tomb after he had been buried for four days. In an amusing exchange between Jesus and Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, they warn him not to enter the tomb. “He stinketh”, they say – in the King James Version of the Bible – a translation I find amusing.

 

At any rate, O’Neill describes a Lazarus who emerges from his tomb laughing uproariously. As crowds of people clamor to ask him what death is like, he reports that there is no death – only God’s eternal laughter. Over and over he is tested in his faith and questioned about his death experiences. But O’Neill’s Lazarus simply laughs all the harder in a joy filled way – one that shows he was not only happy to be alive but that he was exulting in its pleasures. No matter how much he is tested, tortured and put through miserable experiences – much like the Bible character Job – Lazarus does not wilt, but continues to laugh and be joyful. Brought before the Roman emperor Tiberius who cannot tolerate a message that tells people not to fear death, the play comes to its dramatic end. As Lazarus is threatened in the play with a horrible death of being burned alive at the stake, he repeats his mantra – “There is no death, only laughter and joy!” The curtain falls as flames hiss and burn a laughing and happy Lazarus.

 

O’Neill clearly wants his audience to reflect on the meaning of life and death. And such reflections lead us to what we might learn from the Easter story and from Jesus’ embrace of so-called sinners, raucous parties and joyful living. It’s not Jesus’ literal resurrection from the dead on Easter that has meaning and importance for us. Whether or not we accept his resurrection in deep faith or not, that’s not what ought to be important. Death might be the physical end of life but the fear of it can also be a symbolic diminishing of our life experiences. We can be physically alive but dead in spirit, dead in joy, dead in laughter, dead in kindness, compassion, service and love. As Eugene O’Neill shows us in his play, Lazarus refused to be dead in spirit due to a fear of death.

 

The important lesson of Easter for me is that Jesus was resurrected in the hearts and minds of his followers. His way of life, his teachings, his ethics, his modeling of friendship with supposedly bad people – these are the things that did not die. And his followers would not let them die but instead sought to retell them and spread the news of them as far and as wide as possible. This was a man, they implicitly said, who understood the heart of God, who understood the joyful and fulfilling way of life. It’s not about outward appearance, hypocritical moral piety, and a dour existence denying life’s many pleasures. Laugh! Love! Create! Serve! Embrace this gift of living and make sure to spread it and insure it for as many people as possible.

 

What my daughter Amy learned when, like Jesus, she began to hang out with people of bad reputations is that they often hold the keys to life that many of us never find. Too many of us are obsessed with how we appear, with acquiring things that show off our success, with serving the demands of our petty egos, and with looking down on or ignoring the outcasts in life – the poor, the addicts, the gays, the differently appearing, the unwashed, the ugly, the criminals, the homeless ones born on the wrong side of the tracks.

 

Such people understand what it is to be humble, to live without plenty, to be someone who is considered different, to be called a sinner. They have no masks. They have no appearances to keep up. More often than not, they understand what it means to accept others, to rely on faith, to give, to serve, to enjoy simple pleasures of friendship, parties, drink and fun. The earthy, dirty, and profane ones are often those who hold the keys to love and life.

 

Jesus did not call us to as much serve these people. He called us to join them and to BE one of them: to live without the small worries of property, to throw off the hypocritical standards of pious living, to let go of ego, to reject life diminishing fears of pain and death. The kingdom of God is here right now folks. Make it better. Enjoy it. Share it with others. Embrace it.

 

We had a party of sorts here last Sunday. It was a Passover Seder celebration and meal. I was acting my usual Martha self – trying to make sure all of the details were nice. Even so, I had fun too. I really enjoyed a service in which I could also listen to others, eat, laugh, party. What touched me at the time was how this congregation reacted to the guests in our midst. A new couple walked in a bit late, expecting a church service and instead found themselves quickly sitting at a dinner table – one they chose to sit at all alone. A homeless and wheelchair bound man came in too – wanting some food and to share our good times. So too did Adam, the homeless young man who has attended in the past. In the middle of our Seder event, members got up and purposefully went over to sit with and befriend the new couple sitting by themselves. Others helped the man in the wheelchair, got him his food and listened to his story of being an Iraq war veteran down on his luck. Others sat next to and welcomed Adam, once again into our midst.
These were small acts. But they were Jesus acts. Welcome new ones. Good to see you homeless guys. We’re having a party. Join us! I love and deeply admire this little, humble Gathering that does so much.

 

My friends, what was horribly displayed on that first Good Friday 2000 years ago at the three crosses was hate and death. Hate for the one who is different. Hate for one who advocates for the dispossessed. Hate for the criminal. Hate for those who break religious rules of so-called good behavior. Hate for one who hangs out with and is a friend of alleged sinners and bad people. Death, in all its manifestations of body and spirit, was on display.

 

What was resurrected three days later on Easter morning was love. Love for others no matter how different. Love for people with all their flaws, sins, diseases and issues. Love for life and its pleasures. Love for reaching out and serving family, friend and stranger. Love for peace and non-violence. Love for humility and generosity.

 

The death we must fear is not the end of our physical bodies. The death we should fear, instead, is the hate that can infect us and others: the hate that fears those who are different; the hate that wags its hypocritical tongue at the alleged sins of others – all while ignoring more profound sins in the heart, the hate that purposefully looks away from those who suffer in poverty, hunger and hopelessness.

 

May we, this day of all days, reflect on what it means to celebrate an Easter of laughter, an Easter of joy, an Easter of love and friendship with any and all people – no matter how coarse, sinful or dirty they might appear. For you see, my dear friends, there is no death, only eternal laughter and joy and building a new and better earth. Happy Easter everyone.

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering, UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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Just after Jesus spoke his famous parable of the Good Samaritan to his disciples and followers – a parable where he taught that people should show compassion and service to others no matter how lowly or different they might be – he taught a new lesson by his actions, instead of by story. Jesus and his disciples, as reported in the Gospel of Luke, arrived at a small village outside of Jerusalem – one called Bethany which sat on a hilltop overlooking the famous city. As was his practice, he found shelter in the home of one of his supporters – in this case two sisters named Mary and Martha. In the hours before dinner, Martha was busy doing all of the work necessary to be a good host to someone of Jesus’ stature. Gracious hospitality was and still is a common middle eastern ethic – but it is one whose tasks fall largely on the shoulders of women. The male host typically makes a grand show of offering lavish hospitality to a guest – even as it is understood that the women of the household do all of work to prepare sleeping quarters and cook a suitably nice meal.

In this case, Jesus was shown great honor as a famous rabbi and itinerant sage. The work to host him should have been shared by the two sisters equally but, instead, it was Martha who did all of the work. Mary, on the other hand, appears to have been the idle one who sat at Jesus’ feet to talk to him, listen to him and learn from him. Obviously annoyed by her sister’s unwillingness to help, Martha scolds Mary and demands that she help too. Jesus, however, assures Martha that what Mary was doing was good – she wanted to learn and be present in the moment. Martha, Jesus implied, was the busy do-gooder who was blind to the real purpose of hospitality – to show companionship with another person. This account is typically used as an object lesson for the Martha’s of the world – of which I tend to be one. It’s not the quantity, expense or abundance of food, drink and sleeping quarters that are of primary importance in gracious hospitality, it’s the depth and quality of human connection that are a priority. Jesus seems to teach that it was Mary who understood this principle. Martha did not.

While this lesson is one to be learned, there is another lesson in the story that is often overlooked. Martha was performing the typically female role. Even today, it is often women who do the majority of hospitality functions. Men serve as the social host – the one who makes the personal connection with a guest. In this episode, Mary was acting as a man would. She was the one sitting with Jesus, learning from him and conversing with him. Such actions, however, were not acceptable in that culture. Women were to know their place in the social strata – as persons inferior to men, as persons who served and performed the functions of less intellectual or social importance. Martha was angry that Mary had stepped outside the cultural standard. Jesus – as a man – should have supported Martha. Serve me, feed me Mary, but do not speak with me. You are a woman and not my equal.

Instead, he taught the exact opposite. Mary and Martha, he suggested, should both sit with him, converse with him and enjoy his company. They should not concern themselves with typical cultural roles for women but instead enjoy the purely human impulse for camaraderie, friendship, and understanding. That is not an exclusively male privilege. Everyone should enjoy that right.

Very emphatically, by his eagerness to visit and speak with women, by his teaching to Martha that she too can enjoy socializing with a rabbi or anyone else for that matter, Jesus gave evidence that he not only believed in the equality of women, but that he was willing to advocate for it and practice it. He was a spiritual radical as much then, as he would be today. He was a feminist at a time when extreme male chauvinism was not only normal but the supposed right way to think.
This outreach to women – a class of outcasts in his time – is one reason why women were the last at the Cross of Jesus’ crucifixion and the first at his tomb. They mourned his death the longest, they were the ones willing to remain associated with him as a condemned criminal, unlike his male followers, and they were the most eager to honor his life by assuring a dignified burial. Women were acting out of appreciation for, and solidarity with, Jesus – a friend of all marginalized persons. As the British writer Dorothy Sayers writes in her book Are Women Human? : “Perhaps it is no wonder that women were last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this man – there never has been such another. He was a prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never patronized them, never made arch jokes about them, who took their questions and arguments seriously.”

Even so, women are often overlooked participants in the Good Friday and Easter stories. We tend to focus on the actions of Jesus himself, his male disciples and his male enemies. My message today seeks to correct that oversight as it emphasizes Jesus’ historic words and actions as one of the first male feminists.

Most current scholars assert that to be a feminist, one must not only profess the equality of women, one must also never act or speak in a way that demeans women or accepts a cultural norm of male domination. In all four gospels, Jesus lived up to this standard. Indeed, in other non-Biblical accounts of his life, the Gospel of Peter for instance, his stature as a supporter of women is even stronger. That he was a vocal feminist appears to be an historical fact.

While Jesus’ actions may not seem remarkable today when there are many women and men who advocate for gender equality, in the context of his time and culture his teachings and actions were revolutionary. Time and again he scorned religious laws that a man should never associate with or touch anyone considered religiously unclean and unworthy – like the handicapped, lepers, those with skin disorders, the mentally ill, people of other faiths, the sick, the poor and so called sinners like thieves, adulterers, or tax collectors. Prominently added to that list of outcast persons were women.

Indeed, the religious fundamentalists of Jesus’ day were called “black and blue Pharisees” because they literally practiced the rule that men were to in no way associate with women, except for one’s wife in the privacy of the home. Fundamentalist men of the time therefore walked in public with their eyes shut tight because they might see a female – even a little girl. They kept their eyes shut even as they would then bump into buildings, get run over by a cart in the street or trip and fall down – all to avoid glancing at a female. To bear multiple bruises was a sign of male piety – better to get hurt than to demean oneself by looking at a woman.

We need only imagine the psychic damage such attitudes did to women. Most men did not care. A common daily prayer of the time was, “Praised be God that I was not born a Gentile, praised be God that I was not born a dog, praised be God that I was not born a woman.” Teaching females how to read, write or understand the Torah was also prohibited. One first century rabbi said, “Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her lasciviousness.” Educating a girl was therefore the equivalent of raising her to be a whore.

This perception of women as the ones most likely to engage in sexual sin came from the belief that Eve tempted Adam with sex to eat the apple. Indeed, the four Gospels indicate that women bore all the blame for sexual sin – it was the adulterous woman who was to be stoned, not the man. It was the woman who had been married and divorced multiple times who was a sinner – not her husbands. It was prostitutes who were to be shunned and not the men who purchased their services. It was women, as luridly described in the Book of Leviticus, who were religiously unclean during their monthly periods and for seven days thereafter. A husband and all other males, including any boy over 13, were to be informed of her period in order that they avoid any contact with her.

The famous Jerusalem Temple was divided into a series of walled courtyards which limited access to areas closest to the Holy of Holies, where the male God resided. The outermost courtyard, outside of that reserved for Gentile men, the farthest from God, was the court for women. No female could be member of a synagogue, they could not pray in public and they were separated from men in all religious functions. The Proverbs of the Fathers, a common book of Jewish sayings, contains this injunction: “Whoever speaks much with a woman draws down misfortune on himself, neglects the words of the law, and finally earns hell.”

A man at the time could, according to popular rabbinic teaching, divorce his wife for any reason – even for the mistake of burning his food. A husband merely had to to hand his wife a signed statement that he divorced her and she was sent away. In a culture where wives did not co-own marital property, where women could not be educated, and where any non-virgin female was to be shunned, the financial prospects for divorced women were bleak. The insecurity wives must have felt cannot be imagined.

All of these apartheid practices towards women contrast sharply with the words and actions of Jesus. He not only befriended women, he refused to act as a supposedly normal man by treating them as his inferiors. He associated with women in full public view – refusing to practice the insulting ritual of closing his eyes in their presence. A substantial number of women were his constant followers and financial supporters. He welcomed their attention, allowed himself to be touched by them and advocated for their protection. His famous divorce teaching that excluded any reason for divorce with the exception of adultery was not designed to uphold the religious sanctity of marriage but rather to purposefully protect women and their rights. His divorce teachings were directed at men who routinely abandoned their wives as he pointedly disagreed with famous rabbis on this and other issues.

He disregarded rules about associating with menstruating women in his encounter with a woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. She reached out to touch him, hoping to thereby be cured. By every standard of the time, Jesus could have demanded she be stoned to death for making him ritually unclean. Instead, he publicly praised her for her faith as he also declared her healed of her condition. By his actions, he restored her dignity and value.

Time and again he promoted equal and generous treatment of women – telling Peter’s mother-in-law to remain in her sick bed and not get up to serve him as she was expected to do, he praised a prostitute for her tenderness and faith when she cleaned his feet with her hair, and he promoted decency toward widows who, like divorced women, were often left without any way to support themselves. Overall, he considered women to be fully equal with men as he forgave them, assured them of God’s love, taught them, praised them, consulted them, accepted their help, ate with them, and enjoyed their company as much as he did his male followers. Secure in his own masculinity, his actions were unheard of, radical, scandalous but nevertheless deeply feminist. We do the historic Jesus no credit if we forget this, if we choose to interpret him as a political revolutionary instead of as a leading prophet and example of outreach to persons on the margins of a male dominant and elitist culture. Jesus was a radical feminist for his time and ours. Easter confirms it.

At his arrest on Passover Eve, Jesus’ band of followers were thrown into disarray. Peter attempted a worthlessly showy effort to fight back against Roman soldiers even as he then quickly hid his identity and his association with Jesus in order to save himself. Almost all of Jesus’ other male followers did the same – retreating to a secret hiding place where they fearfully waited.

In contrast to them, most of Jesus’ female followers remained with him on that first Good Friday as he was publicly tried and condemned, whipped, stripped naked, paraded through Jerusalem, nailed to a cross, and slowly suffered a humiliating death. His mother, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha, Joanna, Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee and many more women stayed with him until he died – their anguished cries for a man who had treated them as equals – heartbreaking. Jesus was not just a rabbi to them, not just a great man, not just a local celebrity. He was their advocate, their feminist messiah.

Upon his death, these women quickly wrapped his body in a burial cloth and helped inter him in a dignified grave. Since it was Sabbath eve, they like all other Jews quickly finished their work before sunset. They would return at the end of the Sabbath and at first daylight – what is now known as Easter Sunday morning. Arriving at the tomb, they intended to open the grave and anoint his body with oils and herbs to preserve it. Even after his death, they would show Jesus their love and appreciation for his support.

Whether or not the story of Easter is true, the accounts that women discovered his empty tomb, saw a vision of an angel and saw the resurrected Jesus, it is clear that the prominence of women in the Easter drama should not be overlooked. Indeed, Easter’s story is based on the testimony of women – that they, and not men, were eyewitnesses to what Christians assert is the single greatest event in history.

According to the Easter story, because of their love for Jesus, women discovered the resurrection and thereby helped, at least allegorically, redeem humanity; they helped tell the world that the realm of God’s love is at hand, that the perfection of earth is possible, that people need only look to Jesus to know how to live, speak and act. At a time when women could not testify in any court of law – their testimony being considered unreliable, women were nevertheless key players in the Easter story. Their devotion and their appreciation of Jesus as a feminist advocate kept them at the Cross until the bitter end, led them to his tomb, and helped establish him as one of history’s great prophets. Even as male writers of the Gospels altered facts about Jesus’ life, they could not and did not alter the fact that it was his female followers who refused to abandon him.

As with many other areas in life, if we seek wisdom about equality for women, if we want to fully honor the decency, goodness, compassion, and wisdom of women in general, we can look to the words and actions of Jesus. Too many Christians ignore the example of Jesus in their attitudes toward and treatment of women. It has been religion that has subjugated women and thereby encouraged larger society to also demean them. Genuine spirituality, as taught and practiced by Jesus, does the opposite.

Women must be paid equally. They must be able to be spiritual leaders – Pastors, Priests and Popes. They must enjoy the same right to reproductive freedom as men. They must be freed from outrageous claims that they are responsible for their own rape or abuse. They must be able to work in a career of their choice – from tending the home to being a business executive to becoming President. These are not true because I say so. They are true because of the universal equality of genders as clearly taught by Jesus.

As key participants in the Easter drama, women deserve far more credit for the role they played in his life and ministry. They were instrumental in the founding of the Jesus movement. Their support of his legacy helped spread news of his spiritually revolutionary message – a message that soon captivated all civilization. Even as that message was later distorted and exaggerated by men in order to create male structured religion, we can sift through all of the distortions to find the true Jesus – a feminist, an advocate for equality, a champion for the poor and the marginalized, a threat to the powerful and arrogant. I hope that this Easter we might see the holiday as a celebration of all Jesus’ teachings – and most especially his support for women as the equal of any man, including himself.
I wish each of you peace, joy and the empowerment to be your true self.

For talk back time, I pose this question:
What role has religion or spirituality played in framing your outlook on gender equality? What can we specifically do to make things better for women?

 

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(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering, UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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Will you donate $5, $10 or $20 in appreciation for this message? Your online tax-deductible donation will help us continue our charitable outreach work to homeless children and provide future online messages.  Please click the “Give Online” button located above. Thank you!

 

Jonathon Zagami is an Iraqi war veteran. At the age of 18, he signed up to join the army and eagerly went to war believing he could help change that nation for the better. He was an affable, outgoing guy who made friends with anyone. Two years later, in 2005, he returned to the U.S as an angry, profane and sullen man. He kept to himself, turned away friends, cursed others, and retreated into his own world.
As a combat engineer in Iraq, he helped to clear mine fields and demolish buildings suspected of being enemy bases. He was kicked in the head and knocked unconscious for several hours while doing Iraqi crowd control. Later, he was twice knocked unconscious as a result of being near mortar fire. He’s been diagnosed as having lasting brain injuries as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. He has suffered several strokes since his return and his future health prognosis is uncertain.

Today, however, he is a college graduate and a salesman for a national Insurance company. He’s also the founder of a veteran’s advocacy group called “No Man Left Behind” which raises money to support persons suffering from PTSD in particular. He also helped found a group on many college campuses that assists returning soldiers adjust to student life.

Jonathan’s life today is remarkable considering his serious injuries and how he acted when he returned. Much of his success is due to his hard work and determination. But a huge amount of credit also goes to his sister Jaime who has been his guardian angel and fierce advocate since he first went to war. While in Iraq, she communicated with him every day. She sent 50 pound weekly care packages to him and his army buddies – full of food, music CD’s, newspapers, magazines, and even items for female soldiers in Jonathan’s unit. Jaime never forgot her brother and made it her mission to stay in constant touch – listening to him talk about his experiences, lifting him up with jokes, and supporting him as needed.

When Jonathan returned, it was Jaime who worked to console him and help him re-adjust. Even so, he was profoundly disabled. A year after his return, she convinced him to enroll with her at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was his constant supporter and advocate in college – helping him register for classes, reminding him of important tests and assignments, acting as a go-between when he got angry or acted strangely. Jonathan found it difficult to tolerate the typical college life of care-free students – the drunken parties, filthy dorm rooms, skipped classes and self-focused lives. He fought with many fellow students – acting out the anger and frustration that can come with PTSD. But his sister smoothed his rough edges, encouraged him, supported him, and cheered him on in his studies. Four years after enrolling, Jonathan and Jaime stood together on the graduation stage – their arms entwined. Jonathan calls his sister his hero. Jaime says it is the other way around. Nevertheless, Jonathan says he could never have attended, much less graduated, from college had it not been for his sister.

Today, they both regularly volunteer for the organization they founded – “No Man Left Behind”. It recently raised almost as much money for injured veterans as did a well known Boston Red Sox veterans charity. Along with two other siblings, Jonathan and Jamie will soon compete in the Boston marathon together – Jaime being the one to set the pace and to constantly inspire her big brother onward.

Who has inspired you in your life? Who has been someone who influenced you and encouraged you? To inspire another person is to influence, move or guide them to a newly perceived truth about themselves, their actions or life in general. The apostle Paul, writing in his first letter to the Corinthian church, said inspiration is a spiritual domain that is not of the rational mind. When we are inspired, he seemed to imply, we have reached a higher plane of awareness that is beyond thought. Our minds and consciousness are elevated and in tune with something transcendent and beautiful. It is like hearing a great piece of music or viewing a cloudscape over a set of towering mountains. We can neither articulate or analyze our feelings of awe, wonder and emotion. We are simply inspired.

Henry David Thoreau wrote that when we are inspired, we are transformed in our thinking, through both reason and emotion, to perceive something anew in a fresh and passionate manner. However it worked, the young man Jonathan that I just spoke about was obviously inspired to a new outlook on life, and himself, through the encouragement, example and support of his sister. Much like what the apostle Paul alluded to, she tapped into something spiritual in her love and support of her brother. We often do not recognize our actions as such but to inspire someone goes beyond using mere words. Indeed, to be inspired is to be touched by something other worldly, profound and deeply meaningful. Such a feeling initiates a desire to do something creative and purposeful. Inspiration is therefore not contemplative but is, instead, action oriented. It is easy to tell another what to do or how to act. It is quite another to inspire someone to act – to cast a vision of wonder and goodness that leads them to act in new and wonderful ways.

With my message series this month, I believe that one amazing gift we can offer others is the gift of inspiration. As much as we have benefitted from those people who have inspired us – perhaps a parent, a teacher, a coach, a friend, an artist, a social activist, or maybe a lowly Pastor – our calling is to pay their inspiration forward. We have the potential in each of us to cast a vision that prompts others to move beyond themselves to do good and great things. In this way, as I’ve often said, it is not a supernatural god that inspires the world to become its it’s Edenic ideal. People do that. It is we who are gods and goddesses who inspire miracles. We are the ones with the ability and potential to figuratively move mountains, cure diseases, heal broken hearts, feed the multitudes, transform hatred into love, bigotry into celebration and hopelessness into opportunity.

History is populated with ordinary, otherwise unknown women and men who have inspired millions – Rosa Parks, Todd Beamer of 9/11 heroics, the anonymous man who stood in front of tanks at Tianamen Square, Ryan White the young AIDS victim and humble advocate, 84 year old Edith Windsor whose lawsuit ended the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, Mohammed Bouazizi – the Tunisian man who set himself afire to protest injustice and thereby sparked the Arab Spring revolutions.

While such persons literally inspired others to change history, we have that same power to change lives – to be people who don’t merely speak of social justice, who don’t occasionally perform acts of charity, but who act and speak in ways that inspire those in our spheres of influence to passionately embrace change for the better. We inspire others by being people of action – people who are living examples of serving and caring. It is said that St. Francis of Assisi uttered the famous words that people should spread the teachings of Jesus as often as possible – and only when necessary to use words. We inspire others less with what we say than with what we do.

Inspiring people first and foremost show others that they care. They are passionate about what they do and passionate about serving and elevating those around them. The old adage also applies here in terms of actions versus words – other people don’t care how much you know, they care how much you care. If I even hope to inspire someone, he or she must intuitively know that I am invested in their well-being, that I have shown through my actions that I want them to thrive and that I am concerned about their well being.

Second, inspiring people encourage others with praise. They see the good in others and they are not shy in saying so. They are cheerleaders who lift up and never tear down. In order for any of us to be able to go out into the world to love and serve others, we must first love ourselves. Therefore, to inspire others, we must help people love themselves in such a way that encourages their self-confidence and action.

Third, inspiring people cast wonderful and beautiful visions of what can be achieved. An inspirational person is an effective vision caster. He or she sets challenging but realistic goals that others want to attain. When we inspire others, we figuratively paint a picture of possible greatness that people passionately want to achieve. While it is often said that inspiring people are eloquent and capable communicators, that is a fallacy. We can be inspired by persons who love what they do, who are excited and eager to create change, who model the kinds of behaviors and demeanors that are kind, generous, purposeful and humble. Beautiful words are helpful. Beautiful actions are essential.

Fourth, those who inspire others are not arm-chair generals who rest behind the front lines and merely tell others what to do. Such people are never willing to ask others to tackle a challenging task that they are not also willing to tackle themselves. They have the courage to stand in front and beckon others onward. Indeed, the symbolic analogy is one of a leader who points to a mountain and asks others to join him or her to climb it and plant a symbolic flag on its summit. People are inspired by such a person, and his or her passion, to then also climb that mountain no matter the cost. This task, this mythic mountain – is for humans to be builders of a new creation, a new and better Earth.

What grand visions have animated this congregation? We began as a group of people determined to be a place of respite and care for those who support and embrace diversity – who defy the bigots of the world. That vision became one where we sanctified our ideals by establishing a new and progressive version of what a church should look like. Since then, we have continued to evolve that vision of ourselves. We are no longer content to simply talk about changing the world but instead seek to be a church that is actively doing something to create it. We see ourselves as a place where members sacrificially join together to improve the lives of homeless youth and break the cycle of poverty. It’s a vision where we commit to self-improvement by listening to and following messages of change so that we are practitioners of peace, diversity, humility, and empathy.

And this vision does not rest. Our vision is one with a lofty goal – to firmly establish the Gathering as a progressive change agent in our community for decades to come – one that is growing, vibrant and active. Our task is not to gather into a holy huddle, to comfort ourselves with smug assertions of how good we are, to turn into a place that excludes others, to become another man-made spiritual bureaucracy that is tired, outdated and worthless. Jesus condemned people who symbolically lose their saltiness – who become bland. Instead, he inspired us and others to be defiantly non-religious, defiantly diverse, defiantly anti-bureaucratic, defiantly willing to change, defiantly affirming of any person – especially those on the margins of life and society.

To keep ourselves inspired and evolving, we will continue to set annual goals – to expand how we learn and serve. This past year we added to our outreach efforts by tutoring in our neighborhood elementary school, working with Habitat for Humanity and serving a community Thanksgiving meal. We will work to expand those efforts in the next year while dreaming of and adopting new ways to stir up change. We will not rest, we will not stagnate, we will not console ourselves with what we have already done. Instead, we will be an inspirational place and one that progressively looks to the future. We will continue to ponder and explore questions about ourselves and our world that expands our spiritual awareness of how to act, speak and care for others. We will grow in how we practice with one another the ethics of empathy, understanding, and service. We will grow as models of humility and gentleness. We will each be doers and not just talkers. We will not grow weary when our work seems fruitless, when we are low in funds, when our impact seems small. We will be people who inspire those around us – our families, our colleagues, our circle of friends – sharing with them visions of what motivates us.

Each of us has valuable visions of what the world should look like. We can either spread the gospel of our personal visions by talking about them. Or, we can instead spread them by our example. We can be people who collectively come together to both inspire one another as we work to inspire our community.

The amazing gift we have at the Gathering, the amazing gift we have in ourselves, is the spark of inspiration that not only dreams of a better world but actively works to create it. This spark of inspiration is a gift we want to give away. That spark ought to ignite us every Sunday to go out and do the work we are called to do. To paraphrase the apostle James – one who I believe spoke the true heart of Jesus – let us not be hearers of the word only, or speakers of the word only, but doers of the word – people who actively give away the gift of inspiration with our love…and our work.
I wish you all much peace and joy.

 

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering, UCC, All Rights Reserved

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Mother Teresa is well on her posthumous way to becoming a Saint – a figure of supernatural powers to whom the faithful can pray and look to as an example. Her life long work as the founder of the Sisters of Charity, which established 519 homes throughout the world to serve the poorest of the poor, is well known. She appears to be a person driven to tend and care for thousands of otherwise forgotten and neglected persons – orphans, lepers, terminally ill street people, AIDS victims and many others. She and her fellow sisters received no pay as they worked long and difficult hours. Understandably, she is seen as a semi-divine figure who represented all of the best qualities of selflessness.

But Mother Teresa, her work and her life have also been subject to critical review. Christopher Hitchens, the well known Atheist, wrote a book about her work entitled, of all things, Missionary Position, in which he questions her motivations and the true nature of her charity. She accepted vast amounts of money from the convicted financier Charles Keating and even wrote a letter to his trial judge pleading for mercy in his behalf. She met often with the wife of the Haitian despot Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and appears to have accepted large donations from Duvalier ill gotten wealth. She often encouraged suffering by the poor, saying they are needed as living symbols of Christ’s suffering. Hitchens claims she believed that her duty to the poor was to soothe their distress and pray for them but not to address the causes of their poverty. In that regard, her homes are said to offer kindness and basic needs but they do not offer substantive medical treatment or pain suppressing drugs. Further, Hitchens says she was motivated only to evangelize and expand the Catholic Church. Charity to the poor was a highly visible way to attract converts. Perhaps even more damning is the claim that Teresa lacked any real faith in God as evidenced by personal letters she wrote questioning divine existence. Hitchens is uncharitable is his depiction of Teresa. She was a fraud, he writes.

What we find with Mother Teresa is that she was, like all of us, a complex person with the same kind of inconsistencies and paradoxes we all tend to have. Reviewing her life work can be a lesson to us, therefore, in how we discern – but not judge – other people. We owe her not blind reverence – or angry condemnation, but the honor of her true self. Her actions should be examined in light of her motivations as well as the good she created. The world’s rush to declare her a saint may be sincere but does it reflect the truth? Did she really help others and was her charity really selfless?

And that same scrutiny should be applied to her flaws. Even if she did accept money from shady characters to fund her work, is that so bad if it helped the poor? Even if she did not set out to cure disease or poverty, is that so bad if she offered tenderness, love, and dignity to the unwashed and unwanted? Even if she had doubts about the existence of God, is that any less human than the doubts of Jesus, the Biblical character Job or any other human?

The truth of Mother Teresa is complicated. It demands that we refuse to either sanctify her or declare her a fraud. Our response to her must be nuanced and balanced. We must offer her the gift of her personal truth – she was who she was – as we also offer the gift of our open minds. Neither saint nor sinner, she was above all a human being – one who could embrace a dirty and infectious street person from the slums of Calcutta, even as she courted ruthless millionaires. But living a life of paradox can describe any person. It can certainly describe me. Who are we to close our minds about who another is? Who are we to judge? Who are we to deny another soul the dignity of their truth?

My introduction this morning, I hope, sets up my theme this month on amazing gifts we can offer others. I’ve initiated this message series because I believe one goal of all forms of spirituality is to promote lives and actions of grace – to encourage people to be ones who give away open minded understanding, compassion and inspiration. Grace, as we all know, is a gift without strings – a thing, act or gesture that is freely and unconditionally offered to another. To be people of grace, therefore, is to continuously be ones who change things for the better – from small, everyday acts of kindness, to large acts of serving, to how we think about and treat people.

Because of our cancelled service last Sunday, I’ve combined two of my suggested amazing gifts we can offer others – into one message. You get this morning a twofer! The topics are related though. I suggest we can first offer others the gift to be themselves. When we do, we will have done so because we have also offered the gift of our open minds. As simple as these seem, they are extraordinary gifts many of us do not always extend. But when we do extend the grace of respecting and celebrating another person for who they are or were, we have offered a profound spiritual gift – a gift that confers dignity for his or her deep rooted soul. That soul is an amalgam of a person’s life, good and bad – their birth, genetics, personality, life experiences, successes, failures and eccentricities. To be a person of true grace, our gift of allowing others to be themselves must be total – not based on any factor other than their humanity.

But such a gift to allow others the honor of being themselves can only come if we have also offered the gift of our open mind. Too often, we judge others based on limited facts and prejudiced thinking. We approach people, issues and situations in life with fanatical convictions and stereotypes – opinions we have formed which we often refuse to change. Few of us are completely free from such rigid thinking – my thoughts, my opinions, my views of other people – are right. I do not need to change. They do.

An open mind, however, is a spiritual quality to which we might aspire. This does not mean we abandon the right to form an opinion. Instead, an open mind is flexible, evolving and questioning. Thoughts and opinions are constantly examined, re-examined and changed – all the better to search for truth. We open our minds by reading and listening to other ideas not as a way to challenge them, but as a way to grow. We don’t isolate ourselves with people who think and act like us but, instead, embrace people with diverse lifestyles, beliefs and cultures. Those who are different from us are not enemies to be feared but ones who expand and enlighten us.

Very few people or issues in life are black and white, good or bad. Much like Mother Teresa, people and issues are complicated and full of seeming contradictions. Are all conservatives heartless? Are all liberals naive hypocrites? Are all gays and lesbians deviants who choose to be supposedly unnatural just for sexual pleasure? Are religious fundamentalists ignorant and fear filled fanatics? Are Atheists amoral and blind to evidence of a higher power? Such questions demand open minds for the persons described – as much as they demand of us a refusal to judge and condemn.

Sadly, we have become people with little grace in that regard. We are often too judgmental, with closed minds and we fail to allow others the respect to be themselves, to enjoy the possibility that their way is as valid as our way, to the fact that they may have wisdom to offer us. We often speak of spiritual ethics like unconditional love and living at peace but we fail to remember them and practice them. I met someone a few months ago with whom I was initially suspicious – all on the basis of my own fears and not based on anything he or she had done. I was soon proven totally incorrect in my initial thinking. What I had done, until I opened my mind to learn more, was deny the person the respect of accepting them as they presented. I robbed the person of their soul as I robbed myself of any claim to grace. I can do this all too easily every day – a homeless person I encounter on the street is a drug addict, lazy, dirty, scary. Someone from my previous conservative church, who I recently ran into, is a bigot, hateful and a homophobe. Why do I presume to judge? Why is my mind so fixed? Who appointed me God?

Too often we can either shun a person who is different, wag our tongues in judgment or seek to change them. We adopt the arrogant attitude that our way of thinking, acting, loving is best and the other must conform to our standards. We do this in our relationships, our families and with our friends. We nag them about characteristics we do not like as we encourage them to be something they are not. The message we implicitly tell them is “I don’t accept you as you are and I would love you more if…” We spiritually kill their souls – denying them the beauty and joy of being true to who they are.

Struggling and broken relationships are littered with people who cannot or will not extend to their partner or friend the gift of being themselves. That gift may not mean we stay with another, agree with another or initiate a relationship – but it does offer dignity and respect without trying to change them, without judging them. It recognizes the beauty of differences. It understands that none of us are perfect and that the other is not only entitled to his or her ways and beliefs, but that he or she may be right. Ideally, in all our human relationships, we can learn to embrace and honor diversity – good and bad – as a part of the colorful fabric that makes up humanity.

A recent article in Psychology Today asserts that people who are constantly trying to change others, who are judgmental and critical of others, they are ones unable or unwilling to control themselves. Failing to control their own emotions, behaviors or attitudes, they seek to control others – they fixate, as Jesus famously opined, on the speck in another person’s eye while ignoring the log in their own. Such people, Psychology Today asserts, are the emotionally immature who project their self loathing on others by being critical and judgmental of them. Such people are the jealous and insecure who demand control over another’s behavior to salve their own issues. They are those people unable to control their own anger or temper and so they try to control and change others.

Healthy people, the article suggests, are those who practice emotional autonomy. They recognize and accept that the only person over which they have practical and legitimate control is themselves and so their outward focus is open minded and rarely judgmental. These are people of grace – they listen more than speak, they never humiliate another, they put the interests and feelings of others above their own, conversations are rarely focused on their concerns but on those of the other, they are gentle, peaceable, kind and encouraging, they have inquisitive and generous minds.

Even more, they intuitively practice a form of Buddhist mindfulness which promotes simple awareness. Observations of other people, what they do and how they act are mentally noted but not analyzed. Open minds, therefore, are not empty minds devoid of thought. Rather, they discern but do not judge, they observe but do not criticize. As Buddhists note, this allows one to find greater inner peace and greater love for others. We let go of the fruitless effort to change other people. Absent critical judgement of others, we can then focus on our own growth as well as on the good that binds people together.

We need not change our ways, therefore, just to be agreeable with others. Indeed, we can disagree with others – our friends, our colleagues, our partners, our political opponents – without being disagreeable. In this time when our nation is so divided, we can remember the intrinsic personhood of political or religious opponents. Their beliefs almost always come honestly and even as we might disagree with them, we can treat them, speak to them and talk about them with grace – even if they do not extend the same. We give them the gift of being and believing as they feel called. We listen to them and seek to understand and even learn from them. We come together as one people who are mature enough to disagree in a manner that uplifts instead of tears down.

Malcolm Muggeridge, a BBC reporter, was one of the first western journalists who reported on the work of Mother Teresa. He is largely responsible for her subsequent fame. Before she was well-known, he wrote of encountering her at the first home she had established in Calcutta that served the so-called untouchables – the lowest class of Indians. Teresa was tending a very old and terminally ill man, one whose body was full of a cancer that was literally eating him alive. He had no family and even the nurses and doctors had deemed his condition hopeless as they focused on helping others. The man’s many open wounds were infected and full of worms. The smell, reports Muggeridge, was almost unbearable. But Teresa slowly and gently applied a potassium mixture to his wounds that would cleanse them and kill the parasites. This took several hours. At one point, the man opened his eyes and peered up at Teresa. He murmured a Hindu phrase which meant “Glory to you, woman.” Muggeridge reports that Teresa replied to him, “No sir, glory to you.” The man died two days later.

The contemporary well known poet Maya Angelou once said, in regard to how we treat others, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I related the story of Mother Teresa not to try and discount any of the critical reviews of her work. Sincere people have legitimately removed the gauzy veil of sainthood that surrounds her. But what is clear is that Teresa, with all her faults, was a woman of grace – one who exuded a kind of peace, humility and gentleness toward others that made them feel loved and respected. When we are people of grace, we focus on how we make others feel. We concern ourselves less with how we feel than with how embracing, listening, and empathetic we can be. We walk and speak humbly and in a way that implicitly tells the world that peace comes with us, that gentleness is present. No matter the cause, no matter the provocation, no matter the differences, people of grace accept others as they are – full of complexities and flaws – but true to their own souls. That is an ethic we aspire to at the Gathering – to welcome all into our midst even as we are also conscious of our safety. To the homeless folk who walk in here, to the addicts determined to get some money from us, to the seemingly unappreciative homeless youth we often serve, to the gays or lesbians who timidly visit, to our partners, family members and friends with all their big and small flaws, to all of the eccentric and diverse ones we meet, let us not with words – but with our open minds and respect – say to them, “Glory to you.”

 

 

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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Ayesha is an 18 year Pakistani woman. At the age of 8, while visiting her uncle’s home, she was raped by another man. Her screams, cries and bleeding revealed to her family what had happened. Nevertheless, to them she had become damaged, unclean and unworthy of later marriage. In Ayesha’s patriarchal culture, women and girls who are not virgins, no matter the cause, are not wanted as wives, which, unfortunately, is the only path to respectability for most women. Her rapist, while caught, was forced to apologize but then released. He’s now free, married and with children.

As a result of her rape, Ayesha soon became the victim of regular sexual abuse by her father – a convenient source for his pleasure since she was already ruined. The shame she now still feels is debilitating – a condition not of her doing but one she acutely feels – “I’m dirty. I’m a whore.”

And, while biblical scholars cannot be sure, it is surmised that the woman who tearfully anointed Jesus with costly oils and fragrances in a sign of love and appreciation was the same adulterous woman Jesus saved from stoning by a mob of self-righteous men. This woman’s tears and gratitude to Jesus are signs of a woman deeply affected by him – a woman who was restored, honored and made whole by him. She’s a woman who likely still remembered the shame of her sexual misdeed but one who was profoundly grateful for the acceptance and tenderness Jesus showed her.

A more recent story is the one of Tyler Clementi who, in 2010, jumped to his death from the George Washington bridge after a secretly recorded video of his sexual encounter with another man was played online by a homophobic roommate. It does not take much imagination to consider the shame and humiliation young Tyler felt at his public exposure and outing. His was a modern form of stoning – one that pushed him to his lonely, tragic suicide – one where just before he jumped he posted a Facebook note apologizing to friends and family for his disgrace.

Shame is a debilitating emotion. It is a feeling of being totally unworthy, inadequate, fundamentally bad and worthless. For many, shame is caused by religion which often focuses on purity as a virtue while supposed sexual sin, in particular, is worthy of eternal punishment. While one might intellectually discount Biblical verses declaring homosexuality, fornication or lust as abominations, when such declarations are repeatedly taught, over and over, by shame based religions – especially to impressionable youth, it is quite easy to understand the inner torment many feel all their lives about supposed sexual sin. Indeed, shame tears at the very fabric of one’s sense of self, one’s ability to love the self, one’s intuitive belief that he or she has value.

In my review this month of three Oscar nominated Best Picture films of 2014, we look today at the beautifully told movie “Philomena.” Based on a book entitled The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, the movie details the search by a woman for the son she bore over fifty years ago – a result of being impregnated as a very young, unmarried teen. Shunned by her Irish father, the young Philomena was abandoned to a Catholic home for unwed mothers – run by a group of moralizing nuns. Forced to face, upon her arrival, an inquisition panel of judgmental nuns, Philomena was luridly interrogated about the details of her alleged sin – “Did he pull down your knickers? Did you enjoy it? How long did it last?” Such questions were supposed to be Philomena’s confession of sin but, in reality, seemed more as a way to satisfy the interests of sexually frustrated nuns. In return for their care, the teenage girls were forced to work long hours doing laundry by hand. Their labor and birth were not salved by anesthesia, Philomena’s breech condition was not treated, and many, many girls died in childbirth. Their pain and deaths were seen as well deserved. The girls who did survive were allowed to see their child one hour a day. Life in the home, as ruled by the nuns, was harsh, disciplined and designed to regularly remind the girls of their so-called sin.

When Philomena’s son was three, he was offered for adoption to a wealthy American-Catholic couple. While adoptive parents did not pay for the children, they were tacitly encouraged to make a substantial donation to the convent. Over 450 children were adopted out of the convent – some to American celebrities like Joan Crawford and Jane Russell. Philomena, like the other girls, was never able to say goodbye or thereafter know anything about her son. At what would be her son’s fiftieth birthday, Philomena finally confessed to her daughter what she had done and her desire to know what happened to him.

Philomena and her daughter enlisted the help of a disgraced journalist who, in seeking to resurrect his career, was intrigued by this human interest story. The tabloid he worked for, attracted to tales of sex, religion and the selling of babies, financed efforts to locate Philomena’s son – an effort that eventually led the journalist and Philomena to the US. There they discovered what became of her son. In the interest of not ruining the story for those who have not seen the movie, I won’t give away any more details. Needless to say, the film describes a tale of almost unbelievable plot twists – except the entire story is true.

What I can detail is the film’s very evident condemnation of religions, the human created and deeply flawed institutions and their so called moral laws. It does not, in any way, condemn personal faith and, indeed, highlights Philomena’s abiding spirituality that she expresses through her prayers, basic humility, kindness to strangers and ability to forgive.

But shame based religions, usually fundamentalist in nature, are clearly put on trial by the movie. It is an indictment of the terrible toll such religions inflict on many people. The tortured pain Philomena still feels, decades after her alleged sin, is written across the subtly expressive face of actress Judi Dench – herself nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. Philomena’s journey to find her son is both to learn about him but also a cathartic effort she undertakes to purge herself of the persistent, nagging, scornful shame she has been taught to feel. When she does finally find him, it is clear that Philomena has not been totally cured of her shame but has found, in her Jesus-like love and forgiveness of others, a certain peace and understanding of the pain that inner guilt can cause.

But for the nuns of the convent, who essentially abused the young girls, sold their children and deceived both Philomena and her son, there is no repentance or any recognition of their sins against humanity. Theirs is the arrogant assertion by all shame based religions that they alone hold the keys to purity and the path to heaven. Theirs is the smug belief they are always right and that it is a sinful and evil society – one ruled by Satan himself – that ruins humankind. Theirs is a toxic system founded on denial of honest emotions and genuine humanity – a belief that to be morally pure, one cannot express doubt, fear, desire, or physical enjoyment of the bodies we have been given. As one nun in the film pridefully declares, she had honored her vows of chastity, her denial of the flesh was a means to be near God, and the girls, who had failed in saving their purity, they got what they deserved in their pain and humiliation.

But such assertions are not godly. They do not represent the Jesus as described in the Bible. They do not speak for the billions of faithful followers of genuine spirituality – no matter the religion – who love and treat others as they want to be loved and treated. The nuns who lied to Philomena do not practice the one eternal and universal principle of spirituality – the Golden Rule.

Indeed, the very foundations of Christianity teach against shame based religion. Jesus’ death is seen as the sacrifice necessary for humans to be totally forgiven. His atonement for human misdeeds enabled God to no longer see failure in people. At its root, Christianity is a religion of redemption and restoration. Despite some interpretations to the contrary, I assert that Jesus was a radically unique prophet – one who preached the good news of the power of love.

Such is not a syrupy, so-called Sunday school version of Jesus or his love. What Jesus taught and stood for is one of radical inclusiveness, humility, empathy and forgiveness. Love your enemy in a way that is transformative. Forgive those who hurt you in a way that promotes peace and healing. Humble yourself in a way that promotes and serves others more than the self. Understand the differences and experiences of others in a way that does not judge but instead offers respect and full acceptance.

That is the kind of love that Jesus pointed to as representative of the divine. That is the kind of love that he practiced – choosing to understand and befriend thieves, prostitutes and so-called sinners of his day. It’s a love that refused to judge alleged sexual sinners – the woman caught in adultery, the Samaritan woman who had married and divorced six times, the prodigal son who spent his inheritance on wine, women and other pleasures of the flesh. It’s a love that never once, as documented in the four gospels, commented on or condemned same sex relationships. It’s a love that was not afraid to draw close to other men – allowing his beloved disciple John to rest his head on his shoulder.

That kind of love is one Philomena sought to practice in her own life. As a simple woman in the company of a more urbane and Cambridge educated journalist, she was the one who showed him how to be kind to strangers, how to empathize with and understand other alleged sexual sinners, how to forgive and love the nuns who had abused and lied to her.

For Philomena, faith was her way to try and heal her shame. Hers was not an intellectual, theological or Biblically literate faith. It was and is a faith she believes is truly Catholic but which is, in reality, one that any Hindu, Jew, Muslim or Atheist might identify with. That faith was simple and direct: there is a universal power of love that calls us to care for, serve and forgive everyone.

I have attended many evangelical Christian services where the congregation is implored, at moments of high emotion, to come forward to the altar and literally nail a piece of paper onto a wooden Cross. On the paper one is to write a particular past misdeed or so-called sin which still haunts the individual. Such teaching moments are designed to convey the idea that one need not carry a burden of sin and shame. Nail it to the Cross in the same way that Jesus himself became sin personified and was crucified in our behalf. I did that exercise many times – tearfully writing down my “sin” of gay feelings – and nailing them to a Cross in the fervent hope that God would help me eliminate such thoughts. Of course, that did not and could not work, as much as I prayed it might.

The truth of such sin focused teaching is that people are asked to believe their own particular misdeed was and is the cause of Jesus’ death. Indeed, that is actually what is taught in most Christian fundamentalist churches. These sin focused teachings do not take away shame. They enhance it, promote it and encourage it – all the better for believers to feel, as I did, a perpetual sense of diminished value and goodness. But God does not take away shame. We must do that ourselves.

The mission of Jesus the man was not, however, to promote shame by preaching and teaching a long list of “Thou Shall Not’s”. His goal was to promote the very simple “Thou Shall Do’s”, that I listed earlier and that I continually talk about in my messages. Serve others. Forgive others. Understand others. Love others. Refuse to judge others. Humble yourself before others. Focus on correcting your own issues instead of on those of others.

That’s the historical Jesus I find in the Bible. That’s the historical prophet who remains a figure of interest, admiration and awe two-thousand years later. Who, but the greatest of persons, is able to forgive someone who has deeply hurt you, someone who has sworn to be your enemy? Who but the most saintly of persons is able to regularly serve, wash and love the dirty, smelly, ignorant, criminal or diseased? Who but the most empathetic are able to understand, without judging or condemning, the addict, prostitute, gay man, lesbian woman, drag queen, pregnant teen, pornographer, transgender person, stripper, sexual adventurer or anyone else in their so-called sins?

The path to healing shame and guilt is not to preach against all of the alleged carnal sins we can practice or imagine. It’s not to declare that a Savior or Messiah has or will die for us. It’s not to require a list of rules and regulations that reward only those who strictly follow them. It’s not to teach about a vengeful God willing to accept only those who are perfect. We all know that nobody is perfect. There is nobody without sin who can cast stones at others.
The path to healing shame in ourselves and in our world is the path that Philomena took – to admit the truth about oneself, to refuse to hide in the shadows, to love others as you wish to be loved. In doing so, one will find a love for the self that cleans away guilt and shame. If I am able to believe and practice the Golden Rule, I can then apply it to how I treat myself. I can forgive myself of any real or alleged misdeed. As long as I have loved and served others in the same way that I wish to be loved and served, then I have done nothing wrong. I have walked in the footsteps of Jesus and other prophets. I have turned away from those religions and people who judge, condemn and encourage shame. I have reached for the face of god and found pure and total love.
I wish you all much peace and joy.

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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Amy Chua, the contemporary author best known for writing the controversial book, Tiger Mom, has written a new book, Triple Package, in which she offers her views on why various ethnic groups succeed in the US, and certain ones do not. In her view, three traits enable success in our nation – a superiority complex, a sense of insecurity and impulse control. Asians, Mormons, Nigerians, Jews, Indians and Iranians mostly have this so-called triple package. African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and modern White Anglo-Saxon Protestants – WASPs – do not. For many people, her book has the resonance of anecdotal truth. As many Indian-Americans delight in pointing out, 38% of current US doctors are Indian, 36% of NASA employees are Indian, as are 34% of Microsoft employees. Our post-racial, post election of Barack Obama US culture is no longer a bigoted society, many people claim. People of color succeed all across the country. The reason, Chua and others claim, lies in the inherent traits within one’s ethnic culture.

While many arm chair experts and political commentators love Chua’s new book and excitedly repeat her claims, academics and social scientists of all races and ethnicities deride her book as thinly disguised racism. She explains away the poverty of African-Americans and Latinos in our nation by praising the cultural traits of ethnic groups that are succeeding. She thereby implicitly stereotypes groups that are not currently succeeding by blaming the permissiveness of contemporary white society, the lack of impulse control in many African-Americans, and the absence of self confidence in many Latinos. Drug abuse, teen pregnancy, poverty, low emphasis on education – these are all symptoms of deficient cultures – not racial groups – according to Chu. Black Nigerians, she points out, are wonderfully represented in Ivy League schools and are rapidly advancing. For me, her theories are simply uninformed.

What Chua has failed to document, perhaps due to her own myopic understanding of America, is how cultural and family history play a huge role in the success, or lack thereof, for any particular individual. People are largely products of their ancestral history. As social scientists point out, most immigrants to the US have come from situations far different from that of African-Americans. Immigrants self-select themselves out of their nation and culture. Most immigrants are relatively well educated and stable in their native lands. They are primed to succeed in the US. Indian immigrants, for instance, are the educated and middle class of India. The poor, underclass, uneducated Indians cannot possibly emigrate as it is too far and too expensive to do so.

Most immigrants also arrive as completely free individuals often with large family support networks to assist them. As the elites of their former nation, they already possess the self-confidence, education, skill levels and support systems required to succeed. If group culture is a determinant of success, why is the success of Indians in this nation in direct contrast to the difficulties of India, the nation, where extreme poverty and rigid discrimination are still evident? The same holds true for Nigerian, Iranian, Cuban and many Asian immigrants – all of whom Chua praises. Immigrant success in the US is not due to superiority of culture. It is due, as it is for all Americans, to the relative success and stability of past ancestors.

Chua thus fails to understand or explain the role American history has played in shaping the problems facing African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans. She fails to note or offer credit to them and their struggle for hard won affirmative action and anti-discrimination policies – how such advances now also help immigrants. Indeed, contemporary whites and immigrants benefit from American historical racism while that legacy still profoundly hurts African-Americans. We must reverse and correct that.

As one social scientist notes, the one institution in America that is mostly color blind is the US Army. Mandated by government decree, officer ranks are well represented by African and Latino Americans. It is the one institution where large numbers of whites serve under the command of African-Americans. Such a fact emphatically supports the notion that political and government policies can help reverse the past harm of racism by offering favorable opportunities to advance.
And the recent movie “12 Years a Slave” directly supports my assertion that slavery and racism still have deeply harmful effects on blacks. As I continue my look at three Academy Award nominated films for 2014, I am highlighting movies that hit viewers in their proverbial guts. They impact our thinking and, hopefully, our actions. The movie “Gravity”, which I discussed last Sunday, is an in your face assault on one’s senses with its destruction and death in outer space. Such calamity forces the viewer to confront spiritual issues of life, death, meaning and the question of God’s existence. If you missed that message, you can listen to it online.

The same assault on viewer senses and thinking is true for the film “12 Years a Slave”. Based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a free African-American who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, the movie is NOT pleasant to watch. It is not a heroic film in the sense that one feels uplifted and joyful. From beginning to end, the film assaults the viewer with scenes of violence. That was precisely the director Steve McQueen’s intent. Slavery was not an institution that could be shaded with anything light and happy. It was dark, horrific and profoundly harmful to the human spirit. The movie purposefully slaps viewers in the face with reasons why our nation struggles 150 years later with issues of race – contrary to Amy Chua’s naive assertions. It also implicitly begs the question of how America can atone for and redeem its ugly racial history.

If we are to understand why many African-Americans still struggle in poverty, we need only examine the nature of slavery and how it was practiced. “12 Years a Slave” depicts many of those underlying practices which still affect African-Americans. When Solomon Northup arrived in Georgia after his kidnapping, he was sold as a slave. The auctioneer began to call him by the name “Platt” which Northup corrected. He was immediately slapped across the face. “No, your name is Platt’”. And that effort to erase Northup’s individual identity and pride is a recurring theme in the film. Any sense of self, any personal awareness of ability, any notion of himself as an autonomous person were systematically destroyed and intentionally wiped away. A slave is a thing – a blunt, unthinking, ignorant tool to be used and discarded at will.

Such an effort to degrade personhood was common for all slaves. And it was common in the decades after slavery as blacks became sharecroppers in what was a form of slavery in everything but name. So too was it expressed in Jim Crow laws designed to take away natural human rights – the right of self, the right to be treated with dignity and value. That stripping away of personhood is a profound legacy of slavery and past racism. Their effects still linger and persist – deeply rooted in the psyches of many African-Americans – feelings of inferiority, helplessness and pessimism.

I do not in any way compare my upbringing to the African-American experience. I offer my family history only as a possible example of how family attitudes are passed one generation to the next. My great grandfather on my father’s side was a hard driving workaholic. He had nine children but he was not one to nurture them. Life was a struggle and he taught his children the same. My grandfather learned that ethic from his father and he too was driven. Compassion, understanding and empathy were soft qualities – especially in men. Discipline and manly virtues of fighting and athletic competition made a man a man. My father learned those things well. Sent to military schools, captain of his football team, pushed hard and taught to scorn anything feminine – including his own mother – that was my dad. And I was raised to be the same. Only, such attitudes ran counter to who I am and they deeply affected me. For whatever reasons, I am studious, non-athletic, introspective, and anything but the guys guy my father wanted. The legacy of my past family attitudes about masculinity still haunt me – in the disappointment and even derision I’ve felt from my dad. I’ve worked to get over them but that is not easy. And, I imagine, I have passed on some of my hurts to my daughters in the form of their diminished self esteem.

I recount my family history as an example of how attitude legacies are passed down. Family histories – like those which benefitted many immigrants – can help or harm. My history was affected by my paternal ancestors. Imagine if such negative attitudes had been passed to me by both my paternal AND maternal ancestors? – as is the case for most African-Americans. The dehumanizing effect of loss of personhood for blacks has been passed from parent to child – on and on – through over 150 years. Sociologically, it explains one reason why many African-American men can lack the inner pride and self confidence that leads to success. They’ve been indirectly taught by a past slave auctioneer – “Your name is not what you think. You’re a boy, a tool to be used and thrown away.” Today’s problems of low reading and math scores, single mom families, and African-American male incarceration are likely a result.

One contemporary commentator on racism in the US puts it this way: Imagine that all people had been asked to run a race for the past 300 years. For 180 of those years, however, blacks were forbidden the opportunity to run in the race. For the next 80 years they were told they could run the race but various tricks were employed to prevent them. Only for the last 40 years were they finally allowed to run. Over the entire 300 years, however, whites and others were freely able to run the race. How long will it take for blacks to catch up and run as equally skilled with whites and other races? It is naive, cruel and arrogant to expect any group could do so in only 40 years.
Another instructive scene in “12 Years a Slave” is when Northup is nearly lynched by a gang of whites – one of whom he had insulted. He is strung up, but the executioners are chased away. Northup, however, is left hanging just enough so that he is choked but able to barely survive by pushing up with his tiptoes. The scene is harrowing. There is no music, no sound to soothe the viewer – only the desperate scraping of his feet and his gasps and chokes as he tries to breathe. But the most soul searing part of the scene is that we see other slaves near him carry out their regular duties and lives – all while Northup is left hanging. No slave rushes to help him or dares to cut him down even when no whites are present. The seeming indifference to fellow suffering – all in the name of self-preservation – is a telling legacy. This too is a recurring theme. To survive, one cannot think of anyone but oneself.

How has this legacy affected contemporary African-American culture? We see all around blacks who deeply care for others but issues of learned helplessness, stoicism and seeming indifference are too common. The attitude of self-preservation over the interests of the community still lingers. Attitudes of strong support for the group over the individual – ones learned by many Asians, whites, Nigerians and Jews because of past stable families – these have to be fostered and learned over many generations. Its not race that causes these attitudes.

For African-Americans, slavery was and is the cause.
In other scenes, Northup is kidnapped from his family. A mother has her children ripped from her arms and sold to another owner living far away. Parenthood and family were systematically destroyed under slavery. Mothers and dads were conditioned not to grow too close to children – all the better to guard one’s heart. Aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents were often distant or unknown figures. This legacy of family break-up is still evident today. Such a fact does not define all African-Americans. Indeed, many African-American families are models of strong cohesion. But, the high rates of out of wedlock births, single mom families and absentee dads in the African-American community are not ones of racial or ethnic inferiority. They are the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, racism and past family histories that destroyed family units. They are the fault of my white ancestors and of many of yours.

The movie “12 Years a Slave”, as I said earlier, is not entertainment. I personally turned away at many violent scenes. I hate seeing suffering and violence. But such depictions are not gratuitous. They are not portrayed to satisfy bloodlust. Rather, the director McQueen uses the unrelenting harshness of the movie for a purpose – to shock viewers into changing attitudes about current conditions in the African-American community. The viewer, particularly the non-black viewer, is asked to ponder questions of guilt and responsibility. Simply the act of watching the movie, in all of its horribleness, is an act of penance – a way to personally acknowledge not just an academic awareness of racism and slavery – but the gut wrenching, dirty, painful, horrific aspects of it that nobody enjoys seeing – but seeing we must do in order that we do not forget. I believe this film should be seen by all Americans.

In this sense, the movie asks non-black viewers to not only think about the consequences of slavery that still linger today but also the more important spiritual questions of how to atone for them and correct them. One of my January messages addressed how to practice the art of genuine apology. To do so, one must first acknowledge a wrong, deeply and sincerely apologize for it and then work to correct it. While nobody currently living is directly responsible for slavery, most whites and immigrants are the beneficiaries of it. Slavery and racism helped advance the industrial revolution which enriched many whites. It allowed white small farmers the advantages of land ownership and success. It was the foundation on which much of white wealth was made – in business, agriculture and education. Most of us have the remnants of slave associated money in our bank accounts – whether from ancestors or else from businesses and industries founded on slave or Jim Crow labor.

African-Americans are not passive victims to be pitied. Any individual is responsible for their own change and many, many African-Americans are succeeding in ways that improve our world. But it is ignorant to suggest that the problem of a black underclass today is not the fault of racist history that spent centuries demeaning and dehumanizing African-Americans. To reverse the legacies of such a history, it is not enough to simply no longer practice racism. Direct policies that offer opportunity to advance and to break out of a negative family cycle of dysfunction are critical. Affirmative action policies are not hand outs – they are hand ups enabling one the opportunity to get an education and job.

Changing white and immigrant attitudes about problems in the black community are essential. Spiritual empathy demands that we enlighten ourselves to the real causes. We cannot expect to receive forgiveness nor redemption unless and until legacies of slavery and racism are mostly eliminated. That will take time as well as proactive policies to reconcile past wrongs. If there is to be any hope of claiming a color blind, equal opportunity, productive and well educated population, we must understand that problems today are not due to deficiency of morality, character, culture or race. Indeed, if the ancestors of whites and immigrants had suffered as did African-Americans, if we were born into and raised in neighborhoods like Over-the-Rhine, we too would face the same struggles. “12 Years a Slave” asks us each to examine our attitudes about the black underclass, reasons for its problems and our spiritual responsibility to redeem our ugly and violent past.

I pray for us all – peace, enlightenment and repentance.

 

 

 

 

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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My intent this month is to look at and use three 2014 Academy Award nominated movies as the basis for a message. As we each know, all art forms tell a story in sound or sight that reflect a point of view. Movies are no different. Great films not only entertain, they inspire and enlighten. I’ve chosen three Oscar nominated films that I believe offer us spiritual insight into the human condition and thus help us grow as more aware and informed people. As much as possible, I will try not to tell too much of each story that might spoil your desire to see these films – which I hope you do. Ultimately, great movies subtly change us in ways that alter how we think and act – and for the movies I have chosen to review, I hope that is for our good.

The movie “Gravity” is, in many respects, a bait and switch film. It lures many people to watch it by its heart thumping action and technological wizardry that make the viewer feel as if he or she is literally in outer space. On its surface, “Gravity” is a tour de force in merging computer generated images with real human acting. Over 80% of the movie was computer generated in a way that is unbelievably realistic. Indeed, former NASA astronauts claim the film is a masterful rendition of how it looks and sounds in the vacuum of space – all achieved without anyone ever leaving the ground. Similar to past cinematic technological advances like the addition of color or sound, the use of computers – when used effectively – adds to the overall movie experience. The makers of “Gravity” achieved that goal with stunning success.
But all of the technical achievements of this film serve a greater purpose – to draw one into pondering existential truths. In this way it is a much deeper and thought provoking movie than its action packed veneer suggests. Many have likened it to the classic film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Personally, I was drawn to its space realism qualities because I’ve often dreamed of one day being a space tourist. But in watching “Gravity” I soon found my feet and head not in star dust clouds of inter-stellar space but instead firmly rooted on earth. The film confronted me with the kinds of questions that have interested humans since the dawn of civilization: Why are we here? Why do we live? Why do we die? What is universal Truth? What controls the cosmos and, therefore, our human destinies?
On these questions, the film is surprisingly spiritual – not in a religious sense but, instead, by asking the kinds of spirit centered questions that grasp for ultimate meaning. So too does the film implicitly ask questions about the natural and supernatural. Can perfectly natural but all powerful cosmic forces like gravity, evolution and thermodynamics have their own transcendent power and beauty and thus be considered “God”?
The movie employs a common thematic set-up much like stories with a shipwreck or disaster situation. In this case, the two characters in the film must find a way to survive the destruction of the space shuttle and space station and return to the safety of earth. The plot is therefore quite simple. The film champions ethics of persistence, innovation and determination in the face of dire calamity. A cold and lonely death, cut off from contact with earth, seems inevitable for the characters and yet the human will to survive takes over.
With this survival theme, however, comes parallel spiritual themes related to life and death as well as the existence or non-existence of a supernatural power that determines not only human existence but all creation. Is there a god and, if so, what comprises god? Is god a theological being upon whom we can personally call? Is god perhaps a distant being who has left us and the universe alone? Or, is there no theological god but, instead, a natural universe of fantastic beauty and intricate complexity that essentially functions as god?
Our answer to those questions will likely differ for each viewer of the film. Nevertheless, it seems the prevailing answer found in the film is that we exist and are governed by many gods in the form of natural laws and physical forces like gravity – Newton’s third law of motion. The title of the film points us in that direction. The characters in the film are continuously reminded of the law of gravity. No theological god can override it. And the same holds true for other laws of physics and the universe.
The ultimate law that the characters face is the second law of thermodynamics which says that the energy found in any mass within the universe continuously experiences entropy or decrease. In simple terms, and I am certainly not a physicist, this means that all creation is subject to decay. While energy is transformed into other forms, entropy is an immutable fact of existence. This thermodynamics law explicitly states that a “perpetual motion machine”, object or form of life cannot exist in its same condition forever. That is a physical impossibility. No god, no supreme force can alter that fact.
In other words, death and decay – or entropy – are inevitable. As I stand before you this very second, entropy is acting upon me. I’m slowly dying and decaying before your eyes. The wrinkles on my forehead and the bags under my eyes will enlarge as you watch! Entropy and death are brutal truths and ones we implicitly accept but choose to put into the back of our minds. But the law of entropy and transferred energy, like gravity, is one that the characters in this film must immediately confront. Death is so near they can see its face and know that it is very, very near.
Indeed, the Sandra Bullock character at one point finds herself with no apparent options to survive. She is stranded in a tiny capsule with no fuel and limited oxygen. Death and the grim reaper have arrived. She gives in to this inevitability by giving up. But the human impulse to live soon rises up in her and she then fights all the harder to survive. She experiences, in symbolic form, the birth, death and re-birth that all creation undergoes. Her old, depressed, defeatist attitudes die and she is reborn as a newer, wiser, and more determined person. The immutable and merciless laws of nature – like entropy – act against us but we must not lie down in defeat before them.
And that idea is clearly portrayed in the movie. We must hold onto and cherish the gift of life for as long as possible. Indeed, that innate will to live and survive is also a type of god. The films shows us not an outside theological god acting to save the Sandra Bullock character. No prayer, no religion, no Savior rescues her. As a strong, resourceful and intelligent woman, she quickly learns to fight and think and strategize her own survival. She saves herself. Ultimately, as a child of the universe, she acts as her own god.
Such a view has long been echoed in human thought. It was eloquently stated by Dylan Thomas in his famous poem…
Wild ones who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave ones, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We cannot alter the truth of entropy and death. We will fall to its inevitability. But what Thomas implores of humans and, more personally, his father, is that the fact of death does not mean we simply surrender before it. Since every baby begins to die after its first breath, does that mean it should accept its ultimate fate and give up? Of course not. Does it mean any person – at any age in life – should actively or quietly let entropy win its final battle? Dylan begs us to say no to that question. The movie “Gravity” tells us the same. Death may be inevitable but let it not conquer so easily.
Physical forces acting in the universe are gods. We cannot change them. We can admire and stand in awe at their intricate complexity and fantastic beauty. But human life – much like all creation – is a part of all natural laws. Our lives came about through natural forces like evolution, gravity and thermodynamics. We exist, therefore, as a part of the much larger cosmic whole. Stars and galaxies billions of miles away exist and function according to the same laws that allow us to live and breathe. All around us are beauty and complexity and wonder. And we are intricately a part of that truth. We are the universe and it is us. The whole universe is god and, as a part of the universal order, so are we.

To live fully, purposefully and beautifully is an act of worship and obedience to universal laws that govern and define our existence. Yes, we will all die but first we must truly live. First we must hold onto life with all our strength. We must do so in ways that give us meaning and purpose. A star does not exist simply to plant itself in a corner of space and sit there for no reason. It exists to give light, to generate and give away energy, to add to the complex running of the universe.
In the same way, each human exists with a purpose and function – to serve and advance other life and insure there is a continual creation and re-creation of humanity and other creatures. Every creation in the universe has a function according to natural laws. Humans are no different. We do not live just for ourselves – to suck up energy and resources only for our individual existence. We have a role to fulfill as a part of the intricate mutuality of all things. Life and existence is not ours to throw away.

In this way, the film “Gravity” reminds us to see the universe with profound gratitude. Yes, it’s merciless forces might destroy us, but so too do they sustain us. Gravity and entropy both bless and take away. They are simply the rules of existence and we can futilely fight them or else embrace and accept them. Indeed, without the forces of gravity, thermodynamics and evolution, we would not exist. As I said before, they are the face of God to us.

David Brooks wrote in his New York Times column last Tuesday that the problem with almost all contemporary religions is that they have lost the transcendent wonder upon which they were initially founded. In his mind, the ultimate form of spirituality is to feel and experience peace, wonder, awe and ecstatic joy at being a part of and experiencing the wider universe. All of existence is a great cathedral of wondrous beauty in which we are called to worship and serve.

Religion, however, turns our hearts and minds away from the sublime. Religion tells humans to dwell on the mundane and trivial acts of legalism and so-called morality as a way to honor and obey god or goddesses. Instead of manifesting love and rapturous awe at the powerful forces and diversity of created things, religion commands that we think small, that we focus on ourselves as the pinnacle of everything. Instead of embracing and worshipping an awesome universe and our place within it, we become consumed with saving just ourselves. No god that claims to be the master of the universe would think so small as to be preoccupied only with humans. We are but one very small and very insignificant part of a much greater and much more fantastic realm of existence.

And the movie “Gravity” ironically confirms this truth. The earth and all of creation are gifts to us – much like life itself. They are to be worshipped and deeply honored. The George Clooney character at one point marvels at the glory of a sunset reflected on the river Ganges – a spiritual moment he experiences while looking down from outer space – much like we imagine god doing.

Natural laws created life such that we were not destined to be specks of dust drifting in the cold of space but that we could be born and grow to consciously experience the universe and it’s profound beauty. Physical laws birthed us and we must honor those laws by fulfilling our purpose for as long as possible. To do so, we must act as our own saviors, as our own gods. We are masters of our destiny – for good or bad. But our true destiny is to live out our allotted time in useful ways – to serve our function – to love, sustain, nurture and care for other life – other humans – as a part of the wider and interconnected universe. Let us see ourselves, our universe and the natural laws that govern it with awe and reverence worthy of being called God.

I wish you all many moments of ecstatic peace and joy.

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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In 1932, the United States Department of Health began a study in Tuskegee, Alabama.  It was to examine and note the affects of untreated syphillis on the human body.  The study recruited 600 African-American men to participate – most of them from rural areas where they had never before seen a doctor.  399 of the men were found to have syphillis but they were told instead that they had “bad blood”.  They were purposefully lied to in order that the study produce desired data – symptoms of untreated syphillis.  Even after penicillin became the standard treatment of the diseased in the early 1940’s, the men were not told either of their diagnosis or of a way to cure it.  Over a hundred of the men died of syphillis.  Many more went insane because of it.  Over forty wives and 19 children were infected also as a result.

The scientists involved demanded that participants remain in the study until its final conclusion – in other words, until death and final autopsy.  It was not until 1967, when a Department of Health employee learned of the study and protested to his superiors, that any question was made about its morality.  The employee was told to keep quiet.  The study continued since several infected men were still alive.  But the employee finally shared his knowledge with the New York Times which published the shocking story and brought about its conclusion.  A 1.8 billion dollar class action lawsuit was filed in behalf of the remaining survivors but it was quietly settled for 10 million dollars.  The story was soon forgotten.

It was not until 1997 that any official US apology was offered.  President Clinton assembled the five remaining survivors, the press and all of the Congressional Black Caucus at the White House.  He made the following apology:

“The United States government did something that was wrong — deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens.

To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish. What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry.

The American people are sorry — for the loss, for the years of hurt. You did nothing wrong, but you were grievously wronged. I apologize and I am sorry that this apology has been so long in coming.

To Macon County, to Tuskegee, to the doctors who have been wrongly associated with the events there, you have our apology, as well. To our African American citizens, I am sorry that your federal government orchestrated a study so clearly racist. That can never be allowed to happen again..”

          Immediately after his statement, Clinton appropriated funds to establish a memorial to the men in the study as well as money to build the Center for Bioethics in Research at Tuskegee University.  The governemnt then established a Department of Health and Human Services bioethics fellowship for minority medical students.  Clinton finally substantially strengthened and amended the charter of the National Bioethics Advisory Committee which examines the morality and ethics of all federally funded research.  Not content with mere words of apology, Clinton tried to insure that the government could never, ever sponsor such a study again.

This story certainly exemplifies one of the horrors perpetrated by our nation on African-Americans.  But, it also highlights one of our nation’s redeeming moments – President Clinton’s apology.  Whatever one thinks of Clinton politically, it is clear that he was and is a master at showing and expressing empathy.  Using blunt words and phrases like “racist, morally wrong, and shameful”, his apology is a case study in how sorrow ought to be expressed by a nation, organization or individual.  It was perfectly done.

Just this past October, the apparel manufacturer Lululemon showed how an apology must not be done.  After millions of pairs of its women’s yoga pants had to be recalled because they became see-through while women wore them, the company founder and CEO, Chip Wilson, issued a YouTube apology.  While saying his company was sorry its customers were angry, he noted that many women’s bodies “do not work well” with stretch pants and went on to imply that women were buying and wearing pants too small for their figure and this was the cause for the defect.  He only apologized to the company’s employees who would lose wages because of the problem.  What he never did was to accept blame for poor design and manufacture of the garment.  Nor did he apologize to the real victims – the humiliated customers who paid almost $100 for the pants.  His corrective solution was not re-design the defective fabric but to add extra material to certain areas of the pants while still charging the same high price.  Just this past week, earnings reports for Lululemon showed a dramatic decline.  It’s stock price plummeted.

This is my third and final message on uncommon New Year’s resolutions that we might adopt for 2014.  Much as I did last year, I’ve tried to choose resolutions that, in my opinion, are rarely undertaken but nevertheless represent significant issues in our culture.  Failing to genuinely apologize to those we have hurt or wronged is one such issue.

In an op-ed piece published in the New York Times this past December, the English writer Henry Hutchings bemoaned the extreme overuse of the word “sorry” by many Englanders.  He recounts being rudely bashed by a backpack worn by a careless teenager who quickly muttered “sorry” as he rushed by.  A mother steered a baby carriage over his foot and she too said “sorry” without stopping – and Henry found himself saying “sorry” to her as well.  He spilled a cup of tea at a restaurant as the waiter rushed over and said “sorry” – for an act clearly not his fault.  A British newspaper wrote recently that it believed the average middle class Brit says “sorry” eight times a day while Hutchings believed that figure far too low.

The cause, he writes, is that the English use the word as a way to defuse and deflect guilt. Saying “sorry” absolves one of guilt even as it is uttered in such an offhand manner as to lose all meaning.  This same trend is noted in Japan where expressing sorrow is a culturual norm.  Even so, many Japanese now routinely say “I’m sorry” before they intentionally do something rude like cutting someone off in traffic.

As much as we might say this is a problem unique to other cultures, the failure to express genuine apology is endemic in the US too.  From politicians to businesses to everyday citizens, people often fail to either apologize or they do so in a way that is not sincere.  This phenomenon is a product of ego and glorification of the self.  Not only do many fail to recognize they have hurt others, others are almost pathological in not caring if they do.  To error is clearly human but to admit error, apologize for it and then work to change the behavior is something that is nealry superhuman.  Bad apologies blame shift by making someone else the wrongdoer.  There is no humility in a bad apology.  Excuses and self-defense are often the focus of a bad apology when it should, instead, be direct, simple and blunt in admission of total wrong.  Indeed, as much as failing to apologize is bad, it is much worse to offer a false apology that only makes feelings worse.

Most of you are familiar with the hymn “Though I May Speak with Bravest Fire” which we often sing in here.  The song paraphrases the Biblical Paul’s famous words in his first letter to the ancient Corinthian church.  If I speak words of great courage, but do not love, I am like a clanging cymbal.  If I have tremendous knowledge, or spiritual faith that can move mountains – but do not love others, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor – but am not motivated by love, I have offered nothing.

A similar condemnation of hypocrisy was echoed by Jesus.  Don’t pray in public or act as if you are a good and pious person if you harbor inner jealousies, anger, hate or bitterness.  Jesus’ brother James wrote much the same – if one professes to be a Christian, show it with deeds of love, humility, gentleness and compassion.

As a Pastor, I fully support such declarations.  They should define each and every church congregation.  Don’t just sit in your Sunday pews, warm and comfortable, and listen to the Pastor speak what you like to hear, as he or she preaches to the symbolic choir.  Don’t just speak of social justice, compassion and love for others.  Show it.  Act on it.  Do it.  Get your hands dirty.

These declarations implicitly support my topic for today – that apologies for the mistakes we make, the hurts we cause – they should be honest, heart felt and backed up not just by words, but by actions that give evidence of a desire to change.  Though I may speak words of apology for mistakes I make, but feel no real sorrow, I am a callous hypocrite.  Though I may claim to be a good and decent person, but fail to apologize for how I have hurt others, I am haughty, arrogant and indifferent.

As with many other spiritual disciplines, practicing genuine apology demands basic humility.  It demands the foundational ethic people should live by – that life is not about the self.  In that sense, an honest apology begins with oneself and one’s full admission of a mistake.  There can be no self-justification in admitting a wrong: “I am sorry for speaking in anger but he is such an irritating person.”  No!  Accepting blame for causing a hurt does not justify it in any way.  A wrong is still wrong no matter what.

In our mistakes, we must admit that truth and feel it.  We must increase our empathy cues so that we are able to intuitively sense and know when we have hurt another.  Too many people have callous or indifferent hearts that fail to perceive how they have hurt another.  Instead, we must be able to examine how we have acted from the Golden Rule perspective: Is my behavior how I would like someone to treat me?

After admitting to ourselves that we have made a mistake, we must then directly apologize to the injured perso – and do so in person if at all possible.  Again, there can be no excuses or blame shifiting in the words we use.  An honest apology should be simple and direct.  I was wrong.  I hurt you.  I will work to see that it never happens again.

Employing our empathy muscles, one should state in a genuine apology an awareness of the hurt that was caused.  This involves understanding the feelings of the other – how words or actions caused the other to suffer.  I understand how my anger made you feel frightened and demeaned.  I understand how my language was not respectful of you as a person.

Next, one should briefly detail steps one will take to insure the mistake won’t be repeated.  Honest sorrow for a mistake involves a desire that it never happen again – why would I want to again inflict pain on you?  After the verbal apology, concrete steps should then be taken to prevent further mistakes.  In this way, we make our words of apology have real meaning – my sorrow at having been verbally abusive of you is translated into learning anger management strategies and gentle speaking techniques.  Words are meaningless in love, in faith, in charity, in social justice AND in apologies – unless they are backed up by action.

Finally, one must be prepared for an awkward conclusion after an apology.  The offended person may not immediately offer forgiveness.  It takes time to process hurt feelings as well as the apology.  To forgive is a wonderful spiritual practice but it is rarely instantaneous.  Our apologies should be clear, direct and relatively short.  We should know when to shut up and allow the other to simply think.  An apology is, after all, not about us but about the person who was hurt.

In sum, we recognize three important steps for any apology.  Fully and completely admit wrongdoing.  Second, deeply and empathetically apologize without excuse or blame shifting.  Third, take steps to prevent a repeat mistake.

To truly say we are sorry is the ultimate form of humility.  Instead of living by the false adage that one should never say “I’m sorry”, believing that to do so is to show weakness, we must learn that being honest and authentic is the greatest form of strength.  It takes courage to give up the control of our offensive words or actions and admit we were wrong.  It takes strength to give control to the one we wounded – to allow them the power to forgive us.  We refuse to deeply and sincerely apologize because we don’t want to appear weak or soft but, the opposite is true.  Arrogantly holding on to false pride by refusing to accept blame is cowardly. To say I’m sorry is, instead, very brave.

I ask us to imagine a world at peace with no conflict, no wars, no hate.  To achieve that, we can begin by imagining our better selves – people who may not be perfect but who are willing to acknowledge and correct our imperfections.  Practicing genuine apology is a way to bathe the world in a soothing balm.  It is a way to diffuse anger and hurt.  It is a way to humbly accept that we are flawed but that our work in life is to improve ourselves so we can better improve the world.  Being able to apologize is about self-awareness, empathy and humility.  These are foundational spiritual practices that we too often deride as soft, un-manly and weak.  Let us, however, give evidence of our true strength and power by resolving to practice the art of genuine apology.