"It's Not Rocket Science"
A sermon by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
July 20, 2008
READINGS ANCIENT AND MODERN:
Our ancient reading this morning is from the Tao te Ching by
Lao Tzu; translated by Stanley Rosenthal: Chapter 49. "THE
VIRTUE OF RECEPTIVITY:"
"The sage is not mindful for himself,
but is receptive to others' needs.
Knowing that virtue requires great faith,
he has that faith, and is good to all;
irrespective of others' deeds,
he treats them according to their needs.
He has humility and is shy,
thus confusing other men.
They see him as they might a child,
and sometimes listen to his words."
Our modern reading is from the introduction, A Citizen's Response
to the National Security Strategy of the United States of America,
by Wendell Berry. The book is Barry's attempt, through a series
of essays, to provide a theological, moral and ethical alternative
response to the national policy upholding the War on Terror, which
finds its basis in greed and is promoted by fear.
"…the proposition that anything so multiple and large
as a nation can be "good" is an in-sult to common sense.
It is also dangerous, because it precludes any attempt at self
criti-cism or self correction; it precludes public dialogue. It
leads us far indeed from the tradi-tions of religion and democracy
that are intended to measure and so to sustain our efforts to
be good. Christ said. "He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at her." And Thomas Jefferson
justified general education by the obligation of citizens to be
critical of their government: "for nothing can keep it right
but their own vigilant and dis-trustful superintendence."
An inescapable requirement of true patriotism, love for one's
land, is a vigilant distrust of any determinative power, elected
or unelected, that may pre-side over it."
SERMON:
Three weeks ago today, I was in beautiful and sunny Fort Lauderdale,
FL. It was for the annual gathering of the clans of Unitarian Universalism
known alphabetically as GA, and more formally as General Assembly.
Why Fort Lauderdale in June you might ask? It's not, as our Universalist
heritage would imply, because of a preference for hot places. Although,
we do seem to meet more often in the Sun Belt than anywhere else.
My understanding is that it has something to do with economics and
second-tier cities. But you wouldn't necessarily guess that from
the cost of meals and lodging.
At any rate, we were there for our Association's annual meeting
of business and the surrounding festival of liberal religious workshops
and social justice activities. You'll be hearing much more about
GA in a few weeks when Judy Tomlinson and our delegation who were
in attendance pre-sent a Sunday worship service based on their experience
there. GA is truly an amazing experi-ence, if for no other reason
than to spend a week in community with thousands of UU's from across
the country and around the world. And there are literally thousands
of other good reasons for going. It's something that I hope everyone
here will have the opportunity to attend at least once.
I wanted to tell you this morning though, about an experience I
had while leaving the convention center following the Opening Ceremony,
a rather spectacular event in itself. The Opening Ceremony is something
of a combination of an enormous greeting, a worship service, a business
meeting, a music festival and a grand parade. The parade part is
a wonderful winding display of colorful, artistic banners brought
by congregations, districts and other UU organizations. To the beat
of island music, they snaked their way through the enormous assembly
hall, greeted by cheering and applause all along the way.
There were many speakers to welcome us, including the moderator
of the UUA, Gini Courter. A recent GA Opening Ceremony tradition
is an encouraging reminder from Gini that we are there, not only
to work, have fun and to learn a lot, but to form, for one week,
a religious community based in Unitarian Universalist values. We
were there, she told us, to be respectful of one another, to affirm
and promote the inherent worth and dignity of each other, and to
affirm and pro-mote the interdependent web of existence, among ourselves,
of which we were a part. And we were encouraged to hold ourselves
and one another accountable to these principles.
By the end of the Opening Ceremony, there was no doubt that we
were off to a great start. The spirit was high with gratitude and
great expectation. Happily, we filed out of the center and got on
line to board one of the many large shuttle buses that had been
hired for the week to transport us between our many hotels and the
convention center. The lines for the buses were somewhat undefined,
but even for this anal retentive, German Virgo it didn't matter.
The scrums had some degree of flow towards a boarding point and
folks were so inspirited by the ceremony they'd just participated
in that it was a little like, "After you, Gaston." "No,
no, please, after you, Alphonse!"
Eventually, the bus my group would be getting on pulled up. I'm
not sure what else was going on for the driver. He might have been
on the phone with his dispatcher or any number of things. At any
rate, he pulled up to the stop, but the bus door didn't open right
away. About 30 seconds into our wait, a man standing not far from
me yelled loudly and not too pleasantly toward the bus, "It's
not rocket science! C'mon, open the door."
Here it was, my first opportunity to deal lovingly with one of
my co-religionists, who had just acted like a self-centered, pompous
idiot. I call him that lovingly, even now because I know full well
what it means to sometimes be a self-centered, pompous idiot myself.
"We can do better than that," I hollered back over the
tops of the heads of the people between us. His mouth sort of went
slack-jawed in response. "The guy could at least open the door,"
the man said incredulously.
"And we really can do better. We don't need to be rude to
the folks who are here working for us," I said. "There's
no reason to treat the driver any differently than we would want
to treat each other, or that we'd want to be treated ourselves.
He'll open the door when it's okay for us to get on." Ever
the minister, I was hoping that I was providing good modeling for
the people around us. And I was hoping the Latino driver hadn't
heard the guy's disrespect, because I sus-pected his response to
the comment would have been - I have to put with these jerks, these
arro-gant, bossy snobs for a week?!
The door opened a few seconds later and we boarded. That was the
end of the interchange. But that experience has stayed with me since
then. How often in our day to day lives do we demand that the universe
and anyone in it, especially those we don't know, direct their activities
to serv-ing us, to meeting our needs, wants and expectations.
We most often don't want to think of ourselves in such a light.
I doubt if the guy who was impa-tient for the bus door to open thought
that he was behaving that way. His slack-jawed amaze-ment at my
response to his "rocket science" comment seemed to say
- "Oh no! You don't under-stand. I'm being funny and cute and
I'm entertaining all these people who are probably frus-trated like
me."
What is it that allows us as individuals to exempt ourselves far
too often from the common cour-tesies and decency that we expect
of others? "We don't do that," I'll say rhetorically on
your behalf! But I think the truth of it is, all too often we do.
So, for those of you who are here, for whom this is not true, I
apologize in anticipation of wasting your time. For the rest of
us though, here are some of assumptions I begin with:
-
most of us want to be and try to be decent human beings, engaged
in creating a loving world, most of the time;
-
most of us fall down on this objective regularly if not often
(one of my own particular areas of greatest offense in this
regard occurs behind the steering wheel of my car when I am
at a loss to figure out why the world is not flowing in the
same rhythm and time that I am);
-
most of us tend to be unaware of when we are missing the mark;
-
most of us believe that we are decent human beings, engaged
in creating a loving world, most of the time;
It's not like we don't come by this belief honestly. We live in
a culture that's based in a mythol-ogy that we are life's greatest
gift of all. The mythology tells us that we are somehow special
in all the world. It tells us that we are chosen to be the recipients,
above all others, of the best blessings the world had to offer.
We are groomed by our consumerist orientation - from birth to death,
from getting up in the morning till going to bed at night - groomed
to believe that we de-serve whatever we can get or take from the
environment, from third world countries, from oil deposits and water
and food resources, no matter who might legitimately own them, nor
however unsustainable our demands on them might be.
We live in a country that has to some significant extent forsaken
its democratic core principles. You may think that overly strong,
but I don't. We have not elected a president in nearly twelve years;
one has been put before us. And our influence in the world for many
more years than that, has not been about protection of the earth
and the pursuit of human rights for all. But it has been maintaining
our privilege through the establishment of the hegemony of an American
Empire.
To what end have we forsaken our original values? To the end, I
fear, that we might live comfortably, anesthetized to the broken
connections that would hold us in relationship - spiritually with
ourselves, accountably with one another, and justly within our societies
and in our world.
After all, how can the stupid bus driver not know that we are standing
out here in the heat and that we are ready to get on the bus, when
we shouldn't have to wait for anything? I suspect we have bought
into the theology, the mythology that encourages us to believe that
we are God's chosen people. And we have forsaken a larger theology,
a mythology that reminds us that the universe has been broken into
a billion little pieces, and that our task is to hold dearly as
many of those pieces as we are capable of holding.
If we are interested in growing our souls, our focus cannot be
our own navels. We are part of a larger enterprise than merely ourselves.
We are a part of the interconnected web of existence. To grow our
own souls, I believe we need to be intentionally and intricately
connected to the souls of our co-inhabitants on this planet, and
to the living spirit which is the life of the planet itself. And
we need to be for'm, not agin'm.
We do that by being in relationships of accountability with "the
other." We do that by recogniz-ing our fallibilities, not denying
them. And then, we do that by atoning with and to those we have
wronged.
Speaking of fallibility, I was taken aback just this past week
with what appeared to be another illustration of the theology of
arrogance being expressed over the theology of connection. Pope
Benedict XVI (who inadvertently has asserted himself as a significant
factor in the growth of Unitarian Universalism, as well as other
non-Catholic religious traditions) has been traveling in Australia.
To a group of young people who gathered from all around the world,
he said that the pilgrims should not be convinced by arguments that
a society without religion would be "neutral, impartial and
inclusive of everyone." I have to wonder if his definition
of religion would even include or embrace our own humanistic centered
religion.
"If God is irrelevant to public life," he said, "then
society will be shaped in a godless image, and debate and policy
concerning the public good will be driven more by consequences than
by prin-ciples grounded in truth." Again, I have to wonder
about the definition of God that's being assumed and in fact imposed.
In our democratic, religious tradition, we recognize that we can
be (and often are) wrong about things but that our best chance in
appreciating the largest common good is to approach it through public
debate and deliberation.
I don't want to be overly critical of the pope; that would be quite
contrary to my point. But as a fellow clergyperson I'd want to hold
him as accountable I did the man at the bus stop at GA, as I, myself,
would want to be held accountable by anyone observing that my actions
might not be in synch with my values.
And so, I'd want to ask him, was he pointing his finger at secular
and spiritual humanists who are among the most ethical and moral
folks I know, instead of those who are raping and pillaging the
earth and its inhabitants? How could he not hold accountable those
who invoke the name of God, with special knowledge of and communication
with God, as a facade in order to further their own agendas of seeking
power and promoting hegemony over others? It wasn't until yes-terday,
well into the visit that he even addressed the church's role in
clergy sex scandals in Aus-tralia, a sad chapter there as it is
in the U.S. I would want to ask him, how do you expect people to
hear your words about morality at all, until you have atoned for
the immorality for which your own institution is responsible?
Power and privilege vs. connection and relational responsibility.
From the individual to the cul-ture, to the country, to the world,
these are the dynamics - fed by our mythologies - that are at issue
in the sustainability of our planet. And these are the dynamics
that are at issue in the integ-rity of our souls.
Though I sometimes think it's too convenient an excuse, it's often
difficult to imagine how we can act in global ways to change the
world. Still, we can refuse to accept the status quo in our personal
lives. We don't have to accept as valid the mythology that tells
us we are somehow special. We are no more special than any other
of God's children. And we need to be vigilant for our behaviors
which might indicate otherwise. When we behave as though we are
somehow special, we deny that which in us is most special - the
capacity to be divinely human, the capac-ity to connect, to love,
to hold a multitude of the billion shattered pieces that clamor
to held in together unity.
There's a story, which was sent to me by a member of the congregation
this past week, about a man who cut up a map of the world that was
taken out of a magazine. He gave it to his child to put together
as a puzzle. The child assembled it and taped it together with surprising
speed. When the Dad asked, "How did you do that?" The
child replied, "There was a person on the other side of the
page. When I put the person together, the world came together, too."
"When I put the person together, the world came together,
too." We can put our world together - person by person - when
we are willing to question the proposition that our world, our country,
our religion (as liberal and wonderful as it is,) our lives (as
spiritual and wholesome as they might be), we can put our world
together when we are willing to question the proposition that we
are not perfect. We live within the mythology of the Big Boom, a
universe broken into a billion pieces. Rocket science may help us
to get from one piece to another, but it can't help us hold on to
the fundamental unity that connects those pieces. Only our aspirations
of harmony and appreciation of goodness can do that. Only our determination
to honor the many pieces we encounter give us entrée to that
holy work. And it's important that we question - ourselves and one
an-other - about our assumptions of perfection at every step along
the path.
There are many lures that tempt us in the direction of power and
privilege, many lures that help us not to notice our power and prestige.
These are about our egos and our arrogance. They can only be short-lived.
There are many other good reasons to direct our attentions and our
behav-iors towards connections and relationship. These are about
our spirits, our souls and about that which roots us in this divinely,
earthly experience. These ways can nurture and sustain us.
There are bus drivers, and grocery store clerks, and gardeners,
and drivers in the car in front of us, there are Wall Street brokers,
real-estate tycoons and small business owners, and so many others
who are waiting to see if we are able to connect the dots from us
to them. There is a whole planet waiting to see if we are able to
find the dots that connect us to the sustainability of our earth
that our grand children and our great, great grandchildren will
depend upon. To believe that we are saved does not save them. To
appreciate our connections is to sustain them.
It's not rocket science. It's way more important, more complicated,
more simple than that!
The sage is not mindful for them-self, but is receptive to others'
needs. Know that virtue re-quires great faith, the sage has that
faith, and is good to all.
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