"The Sweet Taste of Forgiveness"
A Sermon for Jewish High Holy Days by Rev. Judy Tomlinson
September 19, 2010
READINGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN
Our Ancient Reading is Psalm 51:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according
to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly
from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified in
your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. . . .Create
in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within
me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your
holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and
sustain in me a willing spirit.
Our Modern Reading is "When My Anger's Over" by Raymond
John Baughan:
When my anger's over
may the world be young again
as after rain-
the cool clean promise
and the dance
of branches glistening green.
SERMON:
"Le shana tovah tikatevu." "May you be inscribed
for a good year in the Book of Life." This is the traditional
Jewish greeting during Rosh Ha-Shona, the Jewish New Year, which
began a week ago Wednesday, and ran though Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement, which ended yesterday at sunset. These are the High Holy
Days and mark the beginning of the year 5771 of the Jewish calendar.
During this time, Jewish people around the world observe and celebrate
the season with fasting, penitence and atonement. Many of us in
this congregation come directly out of the Jewish tradition; some
are related by blood, or by marriage. And some of us are not quite
so directly related to Judaism at all.
In our Principles and Purposes of Unitarian Universalism, we especially
claim our heritage from Jewish, Christian, Humanist and Earth-Centered
sources. It's our practice in the liberal religious tradition to
celebrate these foundations because they have fed our own tradition,
and because we recognize the universal values and truths inherent
in them. And, while that's certainly a good thing, I believe there
can be a danger in drawing from other traditions, for in doing so
we risk misappropriating elements of those traditions.
Our goal should not be to act as if we're all Jews for a day, or
for the week. Instead, we can recognize that the High Holy Days
are of major significance in the Jewish year, and that they carry
valuable messages about atonement, right-relationship, and about
renewal and integrity for the long haul.
And so today, as we do each year, we turn to the teachings of the
High Holy Days to find lessons that relate to us in this congregation,
in this time and place.In that context, there is a quote from Leviticus
that speaks to us across the ages.
It says, "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against
any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
During this season of atonement I've been thinking a great deal
about those words and about the entire subject of forgiveness.
In general I think I'm a pretty forgiving person.
Yet maybe the hardest thing I've had to forgive relates to my first
husband, Richard. He and I were married for two decades. He was
the person who introduced me to Unitarian Universalism. If not for
him, I would not be standing here today. I would have had a very
different life; I would be a very different person.
During the 20 years of our marriage, Richard had two relationships
that broke the bonds between us. We were somehow able to heal from
the first one. The second one permanently severed us in every way.
For a long time after that the thought of him brought me nothing
but pain. In the heat of my anger, I thought about sneaking over
to his house at night wearing dark clothes and putting nails beneath
his car tires. I entertained this and other, equally nasty and satisfying,
fantasies.
The ending of our relationship is without a doubt the single thing
that has caused me to shed the most tears and caused me the most
humiliation in my life. Yet - yet - as I said before, my life would
not be what it is today, if we had not married. He expanded the
possibilities for my religious life. His children got me started
in Unitarian Universalist religious education. His sons are the
children I claim as my own.
Since May of 1994, I have hardly spoken with him or acknowledged
his presence in any way. Even now old friends will sometimes tell
me of a health issue he is facing or where he has moved. And I don't
know what to do with that information. Yet one time I was walking
the convention halls of the General Assembly - Many of you know
how much I love General Assembly. The halls always seem to be full
of laughter and hugging and greeting people from around the country;
people I am so fond of, but I only get to see once a year. My eyes
are on constant alert when I'm there to see the people I know and
love.
And then one year not too long ago, Richard and his new wife came
walking down the hall in my direction. For a fleeting moment our
eyes met - and here's the surprise - with a big smile on my face,
I greeted them both so warmly as we passed. Don't ask me why that
happened. I was astonished myself. No, I have not forgotten the
tears and have not completely let go of the self pity, but I have
a new life now. I am happily married and have so much to be grateful
for. And when I look at things from this vantage point it really
makes no sense at all to hold on to the place from which I wished
him ill. In fact I tell myself, "It would be better to wish
him well and repair the rift if that will mean that his sons will
have a good father and their children have access to a loving grandfather".
There are always so many good reasons for healing.
There is the story of a Sufi Dervish. This holy man and one of
his students were walking down a long, quiet road. Suddenly they
saw dust rising in the distance. A fine carriage pulled by six horses
approached at full gallop. The men soon realized that this carriage
was not going to slow down or veer to avoid them. In fact it was
coming upon them at such a speed that they had to throw themselves
from the road, landing unceremoniously in a ditch. The two men go
up as quickly as they could and looked back at the vehicle as it
sped by.
The student was about to hurl curses after the fleeing carriage,
but before he could do so, the holy man ran after it, shouting:
"May all of your deepest desires be satisfied!"
The student was stunned. "Why would you wish something so
good for those men?" he asked. "They just forced us into
the ditch, we could have been hurt."
The teacher just smiled. "Do you really think," replied
the teacher, "that if their deepest desires were satisfied,
they would go around treating others as they treated us?"
Anne Lamont, one of my favorite philosophers and theologians, wrote
that she was "not one of those Christian who is heavily into
forgiveness." That is, she wasn't until she began to feel punished
by her own unwillingness to forgive. I love what she says about
this. She writes, "It was like trying to become a marathon
runner in middle age; everything inside me either recoiled, as from
a hot flame, or laughed a little too hysterically."
She began trying to forgive all sorts of people, including those
who had done some real harm. But then she read from C.S. Lewis,
"If we really want to learn how to forgive, perhaps we had
better start with something easier than the Gestapo." She took
that advice to heart and began instead with the mother of a child
in her son Sam's class of whom she was jealous. It didn't happen
over night, though once the insight was there, it did happen all
at once. What Anne realized was that she was taking all the hurt
inside her, twisting it, and projecting out onto this woman who
had done her no wrong, but was in fact trying to help her and her
son. May our deepest desires be satisfied that we do not inflict
harm on others, nor they upon us.
There are two aspects of forgiveness. One is to excuse the other
person from fault or offense. The second is more internal - and
that is to stop feeling anger for or resentment against the other
person's wrongdoing. I can't say that my General Assembly encounter
with Richard was the end of my feelings of resentment and bitterness,
but perhaps it was the beginning.
I don't expect a show of hands! But, have any of you ever done
a 4th Step in a 12 Step recovery program? But I will tell you that,
as I have family and friends with addictions, my life, self concept
and behavior have been affected by those people, and that makes
me eligible for an Al Anon membership. If that is true for you,
you too are eligible. I've been going regularly to Al Anon for about
14 years. I think I have the first three steps down pretty well.
They include admitting my powerlessness over people and things outside
of myself, believing in a power greater than myself and, turning
my life over to the Spirit of Life. But then I kind of skip steps
4 though 9, the ones having to do with documenting and cleaning
up the messes I've made and, taking care to clean others up as I
go along. Well, after all, that would be a lot of hard and humbling
work, wouldn't it? No, I'd rather go straight to step 12 having
a spiritual awakening.
Back in April, when I read for the several hundredth time, "Made
a searching and fearless moral inventory", which is the 4th
step, it finally dawned on me that fearless did not mean ruthless.
It meant I could do it without fear. Somehow, I realized I could
be fearless.
But just because I could be fearless, that didn't mean I could
do it alone. I had tried that. I needed someone to keep me accountable.
So I found a buddy, someone at Al Anon who seemed to be in the same
boat, and asked her if she would partner with me in this difficult
journey.
We have been meeting for a few months now over coffee, and with
the help of san Al Anon resource, Blue Print for Progress, examining
our lives and sharing our stories, laughing at our misguided thinking
and generally being astonished by the similarities of our lives.
And in this process, I found out that I was right. I don't have
to be afraid.
I think about God as love and the spirit that draws me into the
goodness of life. The law of God is the law of love, and when this
is broken it must be fixed as soon as possible. Hence the step that
says, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Allowing others to simply confess their wrongdoing is an act of
kindness. My Al Anon friend and I are doing each other that kindness.
There is wisdom in the words of Jose Hobday, who said, "No
one, no memory, should have the power to hold us down, to deny us
peace. Forgiving is the real power."
Even though there is power and freedom in making amends, the fact
is that forgiveness is not easy. Far from it. All the religions
of the world have much to say about forgiveness and reconciliation.
If it were easy we wouldn't have to mindfully set aside a season
of repentance.
But maybe we can just lean toward it. Maybe we can take just one
step toward it. If we act "as if" then all these forces
will come to our aid that we had not even sensed were there. In
the midrash interpretation of Moses parting the waters of the Red
Sea, it says that until Moses took the first step, the waters remained.
But when he took that step the waters parted and Moses was able
to lead his people to freedom and into their future as a people.
The forces of the universe were there for the Israelites and they
are there for us.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who led the Truth and Reconciliation hearings
in South Africa and has consulted with Belfast, and the Middle East
says, "There is no future without forgiveness."
Without forgiveness we are weighted down with our grudges, we can't
see each other's humanity. Perhaps the Archbishop is saying the
same thing as Raymond Helmick and Rodney Petersen in Forgiveness
and Reconciliation: Religion, Public Policy and Conflict Transformation.
They write that "forgiveness is a word that makes for freedom."
Why? Because "forgiveness makes it possible to remember the
past without being held hostage to it. Without forgiveness there
is no progress, no linear history, only a return to conflict
and cycles of conflict."
For many of us, forgiveness is all tied up with anger. We are angry
at someone for what they have done to us, how they have injured
us, how they have made our life more difficult. When we are angry,
how can we forgive?
And every time we begin to try to forgive, that spike of anger rises
up and seems to make forgiveness impossible. I'll admit it. Every
time I think about Richard and his wife, that spike still rises
up in me. Yet I remember General Assembly and try to imagine what
could be.
And for some, that spike of anger really feels like being angry
at God. Being angry at God for the ills of the world, for our own
ills and illnesses. How could God let the floods in Pakistan happen?
How could God allow this ill or illness? How could God allow all
the poverty and suffering? How could God let such a thing happen
- fill in the blank here - to me!
Anger is a real and sometimes useful human emotion. We would not
be honest with ourselves if we did not admit those times of passion.
But to let them rule us, to get stuck there, is destructive to us
and to those around us and it limits our options in responding to
Life's call.
Maybe those aren't the best questions for us to ask. Maybe we need
something different from those questions. Physical exercise and
positive self talk got me through until I was capable of more. After
emotional intensity perhaps there is room for awareness. Then we
can begin to lean into acceptance and one day perhaps even gratitude.
The Dahli Lama uses a meditation he calls giving and taking. He
says, "I do visualization: I send my positive emotions like
happiness and affection to others. Then visualization. I visualize
receiving their sufferings, their negative emotions. I do this every
day. I pay special attention to the Chinese . . . especially those
doing terrible things to the Tibetans. So, as I meditate, I breathe
in all their poisons, hatred, fear, cruelty.
Then I breathe out. And I let all the good things come out, things
like compassion, forgiveness. I take inside my body all these bad
things. Then I replace poisons with fresh air. Giving and taking
I take care not to blame.
I don't blame the Chinese and I don't blame myself. This meditation
is very effective, useful to reduce hatred, useful to cultivate
forgiveness."
|
