Worship

“Though you’ve Broken Your Vows a Thousand Times…
On Radical Forgiveness”

A sermon for the Jewish High Holy Days
by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman
September 24, 2006

OPENING WORDS

“Le shana tovah tikatevu.” “May you be inscribed for a good year in the Book of Life.” This is the traditional Jewish greeting from Rosh Ha-Shona, the New Year, which began this past Friday evening and runs through Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which starts at sunset this coming Sunday evening. During this time, Jewish people from around the world observe and celebrate the season of fasting, penitence and atonement at this, the beginning of the Jewish New Year, 5767. These are the High Holy Days.

Many of us in this congregation come directly out of the Jewish tradition; some are related by blood, or by marriage, or some of us merely by some gastronomic affinity; some of us are not quite so directly related to Judaism at all. In our Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association, our living tradition which we share draws from many sources.

We especially claim our heritage from Jewish, Christian, Humanist and Earth-Centered foundations. It’s our practice in the liberal religious tradition to celebrate these sources that have fed our own tradition, and to recognize the universal values and truths inherent in them. And so, today we turn to the Jewish tradition and the message of the High Holy Days to consider the value of its theme as it relates to us in our time and place in the course of the world.

A danger in drawing from other traditions is the risk of tastelessly appropriating elements of those traditions. It's not our attempt here to pretend that we’re all Jewish for the day. It is the attempt though, to recognize that these High Holy Days are of major significance in the Jewish year, that they carry valuable lessons for us all about Atonement; right relationship, forgiveness and renewal.

READINGS

We have three brief readings this morning.

The first reading is from the Medieval, Sufi Mystic poet, Rumi:

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
come even though you have
broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Our second reading is from modern theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Our third and final reading is from the ancient Rabbi, Hillel:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am not for others, what am I?
And if not now, when?

SERMON

Part I: Though you’ve broken your vows a thousand times…

Each year, as I begin to prepare my High Holy Day service, I remember a conversation I had in the receiving line, following one of these holiday services several years ago. A member came up to me and asked “Aren’t you making some rather negative assumptions about us? What if I don’t have anything to be sorry for? What if I haven’t done anything wrong that I think I need to atone for?”

“I guess I am making some assumptions,” I said. “I’ve never met anyone who has claimed that they have never fallen short of the mark nor did something for which they were sorry. If you’re telling me that’s how you feel, I’d love to hear how you do it, because that’s how I want to do things, too.”

Just so you know, I stand in front of you this morning with the same assumption I had those many years ago. And I don’t suspect that we’re errant just sometimes. I suspect it’s a pretty regular occurrence. That’s not to say that I don’t think this is an incredible group of people who do an amazing amount of good in the world. You are and you do. It is to say that there’s more to us than that though, and today we’re called to take a look at parts of ourselves that might not give us as much cause for celebration.

I don’t know anyone who starts out their day with the thought – today, I’m really going to go out there and cause some damage; I’m going to hurt somebody real good; I’m going to help evil to triumph over goodness. Although I’m sure there are a few, I don’t think there are many people out there like that. I don’t know any.

I do know lots of folks who cause harm to others inadvertently, through naiveté or apathy or just plain not paying attention. I know folks who get scared and lash out – sometimes even first before anything’s been done to them – in order to avoid being hurt themselves. And then I know folks who recognize what they want and are willing to risk the feelings, wellbeing or property of others in order to get whatever it might be that they want. In fact, most people I know, myself included, engage in one, or more, or maybe even all of these sins and a lot of others, too.

Lord knows that it’s not easy for a lot of Unitarian Universalist to admit to being wrong. Again, myself included. We live in a culture that praises rightness and loathes wrongness. If you are wrong, you’d better CYA and deny any wrong doing at all. And if you do that well enough, well the payoff can be pretty good. Ask Carl Rove about Valerie Plame. And if you don’t do it well enough, well that price can be pretty steep. Just ask Jeffrey Skilling, formerly of ENRON. I know these are high profile illustrations, but the idea of having to be right is rife in our culture.

It’s as though our value as a person, as a human being, is diminished, if we’re not right. It pays not to notice when we’re wrong and so I think that often, we just don’t notice. And so we end up in this situation with competing values. We know on some level that we err regularly and often. And on a conscious level, we don’t want to deal with that, and so quite often we live in denial and don’t do anything. Our lives are always filled with opportunities for forgiveness and yet so often we limit our own access to it.

I think we can see evidence of this disconnect in our personal experiences, and all the way to our national and international experiences. Tensions continue to mount because there is little release of pressure, and so more tension, more pressure are created to protect us from our earlier foibles. The loop could be endless if we’re always waiting for the “other” to back down. But our own souls can never be healed by the confession of another. Only our own confession – the seeking of forgiveness – can provide that kind of salvation. Demanding an apology or a confession from others can never provide us the growth we need to move toward healing.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t bother to confront wrong-doing. Injustice will never be stopped, if it’s allowed to continue unnamed. And it’s not to say that someone living in an abusive situation should learn to adjust to that situation. Abuse ought never to be tolerated. It is to say that we can never be really whole until we look at the part we play in wrong doing, until we own that part and act towards addressing the wrongs we have committed.

The truth is we have all broken our vows a thousand times. We see goodness; we yearn for goodness. And we fall short. Despite any cultural messages to the contrary, it is when we admit that we have broken our promises, and have failed in our aspirations, that we have a chance to forgive ourselves. And I believe, if there is ever going to be any hope for learning to forgive others, it will come from first learning to forgive ourselves. To forgive ourselves we must first own that we have been wrong.

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
Come even though you have
Broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Part II: On Radical Forgiveness…

Many of you are aware that my sister died earlier this month. I am truly humbled by the incredible outpouring of support and kindnesses that have been shown me by the members of this congregation. I am truly grateful for you and blessed by you.

Many of you may not be aware, or may not remember that it was in my High Holy Day sermon just last year that I told you a bit about my sister, Mary Kay. She and her husband had been very eager, as their children began to marry, to become grandparents. They couldn’t wait. And when their grandchildren started to be born, about 15 years ago, they couldn’t have been happier. If you’d looked up “doting grandparents” in the encyclopedia, you’d have found their picture there.

And then about five or six years ago something happened. There was some kind of rift. Communication between my sister and brother-in-law and their four children came to a halt; just stopped. I don’t know why, only that it was very painful for everyone and that there was a great deal of bitterness on all sides – not between grandparents and grandchildren, but those relationships were lost in the fray.

In my sermon a year ago I told you how I had learned just a few months earlier about Mary Kay’s liver cancer diagnosis. And what I said a year ago was:

“… I can’t help thinking about her shattered relationships with her children and the estrangement from the grandchildren that she had so eagerly anticipated. The situation is so tragic because neither the parents nor their children seem to be very well prepared in the arts of empathy, forgiveness and reconciliation. Her time left in this life is short and I pray that somehow they will all make the time to achieve the reconciliation that may provide her peace at the end of her life, and for the rest of them comfort in the time to come.”

My prayer really was answered, although the answer didn’t come easily for any of them. In the end – and I mean the very end, Mary Kay was literally on her deathbed – her three sons went to Florida and were with her when she died. Her daughter, still with great trepidation, was able to call her and to talk with her mother over the phone before her passing. It’s not like any full reconciliation was achieved. But at least a beginning was made. My brother-in-law and his children have committed themselves to finding a way to be back together.

Very often an open grave provides an open door. But why would we want to wait for such a time as that. The High Holy Days tell us that now can be such a time for turning. We can make choices to do otherwise by allowing our love to be larger than our hurt. In this world everyone is hurt. Everyone. It’s part of the deal, part of being human. With faith and with grace we can learn to live with that hurt, to transcend it, even to transform it into that larger way of loving. Seeking and offering forgiveness is a means into greater loving. Not by covering our rears, not by doing the minimum, but by being really radical – by doing the most that we can. Carrying bitterness is a terrible burden and, more often than not, it is one that can be let go of. We can let ourselves be free of it. Pride often stands in the way, but still, love stays waiting even on the other side of pride. I saw that a couple of weeks ago with my sister’s family down in Florida.

To sin, to err, is very human. To forgive, to seek forgiveness and to offer it, now that is something very humane. And it is something we are all quite capable of doing. Indeed the remaining time we all have in our lives is finite. I pray that we might all create the opportunities made necessary by our own short comings to seek and to offer empathy, forgiveness and reconciliation. Atonement becomes a necessary part of the human condition because we are, because we have always been, because we will always be, broken.

I would feel incredibly remiss if I failed to notice how these themes have played out on the world stage during the past few days. Last week the Pope made a speech about Islam and quoted a 14th century Byzantine Emperor who said:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of this Pope. Although I do think his tenure will end up possibly serving Unitarian Universalism very well. And I have to concede the possibility that he might have used this quote in an effort to engage in constructive religious dialogue, as he claims. For the love of God though, he could have chosen some other avenue of engagement. But my point here is that when he learned about the offense that his statement engendered – although many in the American press would have you believe otherwise – he did not apologize.

Instead, he fanned the fires (quite literally) of indignation by saying he was sorry for the way some Moslems responded to his use of the quotation. His apology was not for what he said, for his behavior, but for their behavior. This was not an apology; it was a further offense.

And I would be quick to add the behavior of those radical Moslems who rioted, murdered, rampaged and pillaged left much to be apologized for. There is room for something radical in all of this, but I don’t think it’s radical sectarianism. I think there’s much room for radical forgiveness. On the global scale or the personal scale it needs to begin with self-examination; the recognition that we have broken our own vows; then, self-forgiveness; finally, the seeking of forgiveness from those whom we have hurt and the offering of forgiveness in return. It only sounds radical because sometimes we are so reluctant to do it, even though our own well-being – and the wellbeing of the planet – always hangs in the balance.