"Forgiveness and the Lost Card"
A Sermon by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
September 26, 2010
READINGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN
This ancient reading is attributed to Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred,
let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt,
faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy
The modern reading is by Vivian Pomeroy, who was born in England
in 1883, where he was ordained to the ministry. He immigrated to
the United States where he served as a Unitarian minister until
his death in 1961. He wrote:
Forgive us that often we forgive ourselves so easily and others
so hardly;
Forgive us that we expect perfection from those to whom we show
none;
Forgive us for repelling people by the way we set a good example;
Forgive us the folly of trying to improve a friend;
Forbid that we should use our little idea of goodness as a spear
to wound those who are different;
Forbid that we should feel superior to others when we are only more
shielded;
And may we encourage the secret struggle of every person.
SERMON:
I need to start with an explanation of how this particular sermon
became our theme for this morning. Especially so, since those of
you who were here last week heard a very moving sermon from our
Associate Minister Judy Tomlinson on forgiveness. It's not that
I just want to add my two cents in the wake of the Jewish High Holy
Days and the season of repentance. It is, I think, that I have been
directed by some larger source, call it what you will, to wrestle
with this topic myself.
So what happened was this. Back in August, one of the worship services
I led was my Annual Question Box sermon. For those of you who haven't
been to one, the way it works is that everyone gets a blank 5"
x 8" index card inside their order of service. Early on there
is an invitation to write a question you would like to have addressed
on the card. The questions could be theological, spiritual, about
our Unitarian Universalist traditions or history or whatever folks
wanted them to be. The questions are collected. I barely have time
to even straighten the cards out before it's time to respond to
them. This kind of adds to the electricity and immediacy of the
moment. By the way, I might mention that arranging the cards is
made a bit more difficult because some people find it necessary
to fold their cards up in all sorts of ways.
Anyway, before I begin my responses, I always make a disclaimer
that my attempt is not to answer the questions, but merely to address
them. My promise is that in the moment I will give my most prudent,
though necessarily condensed, reflection on the question asked.
For those of you who have been here for one of these services, you
know it's kind of a surprising process. It's one that I not only
enjoy, but that I learn a lot from, too.
This year's service was no exception. The questions asked were
really good ones. As the end of the scheduled hour drew near, I
asked if people wanted to end on time or if we should continue until
all the questions had been presented. The response was unanimous,
I think, and so we continued through to the last one. If you're
interested in hearing them all, you can go to the website and listen
to the recording.
After the service there was a lot of energy that came through the
receiving line on the way to Coffee Hour. Some of the folks came
through telling me which one had been their question, which is something
that I don't typically ask. After a bit, one woman came along, and
I don't know exactly what I sensed from her, but it was something.
And so I did ask, "Which question was yours?"
"You didn't read mine," she said without the slightest
hint of disappointment or irritation.
"But I read them all," I claimed.
"Well, not mine. And the thing is," she continued, "I'd
been looking forward to asking that question all week. I wanted
to hear what you would say about it"
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know what happened.
I will look for it."
When everyone had passed through the line, I went back over to
my chair and little table there. I searched through all of my papers.
I looked high and low but couldn't find it. I went to Coffee Hour,
visited with people, came back through here and picked up my stuff
on my way up to my office. I tended a few things that needed attention
there; gathered the things I'd be taking home and started to head
out. For some reason, I cannot remember, I had to come back through
the Sanctuary to go to the kitchen so I could pass along some information
or something to someone there. As I walked across the front of the
chancel, I shot a glance over this way again. There on the floor,
set far back, beneath the bottom shelf of my little table, I saw
what I instantly knew was the missing card and the question.
I'm not saying how it got there, but I'm also not saying how it
did not get there, either. I don't know. I only know that I didn't
have the card one moment, and in a later moment I did. How could
I not promise the person who had written it that it would provide
the theme for a full sermon at the earliest opportunity? So before
I read the question that was on that lost card and since I've taken
a lot of time here this morning using this account as an introduction
to the theme of forgiveness, I'd like to raise a few salient points
in the story that might be worth noting:
" Sometimes the spirit moves when you ask it to. I think that's
what happened in this room back in August. People's heartfelt questions
were asked for, received and given witness by the community that
was gathered that morning.
" Sometimes the spirit moves without any invitation at all.
I did everything I could to address every question that morning.
One of the questions was simply not going to be dealt with that
day. It leaves me wondering if maybe there is someone here this
morning, or perhaps a bunch of us, who needed to hear about that
question now. Who knows, maybe the question itself has determined
this time for its articulation.
" One of my favorite quotes is by the 19th Century Unitarian
minister Eleanore Gordon who said, "We are given life to find
its meaning." Maybe what happened with the card that morning
had no intrinsic purpose or meaning of its own. If that's the case
then it is up to us, as it is with all the events of our lives,
to find and entrust meaning in the experience so that we can be
better informed and maybe more greatly blessed by the discovered
meanings of those events.
" Though I'm sure there are many other salient points to the
case of the missing card, I do feel compelled to share just one
more. It's a bit picky-uni I admit, but important to me just the
same. It's this - if you're ever writing something on a card that
someone will have to publicly read, please don't fold that card
up. A folded card is difficult to handle. It can easily be dropped
or cause the person holding it to drop an adjacent card - without
the speaker ever knowing it has happened!
So, to the point of the card itself; it read, "What is the
UU position on forgiveness? Since the Universalist position believes
in universal salvation, does that get us off the hook for forgiving
others? Ourselves?"
I would be remiss of course to claim any particular position on
forgiveness or nearly any other thing as being THE UU position.
That said, I would be just as remiss in failing to recognize that
we do share a set of principles and that I am responsible and accountable
in living up to those principles. So the question I must address,
I think we each must address, is, "As a UU what is my position
on forgiveness?"
I would invite you all to grab a hold of a hymnal and open it to
the Principles and Purpose page; it's just before Hymn #1. They
begin:
We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association,
covenant to affirm and promote:
" The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
" Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
" Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual
growth in our congregations;
" A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
" The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process
within our congregations and in society at large;
" The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice
for all;
" Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which
we are a part.
You might notice that none of the principles particularly mention
the word forgiveness. You might also notice though, that every one
of them is pertinent to the act of forgiveness. In any covenant
there is the aspiration to keep covenant. In any life there is the
capacity to fall short of our aspirations. The only way we can keep
covenant then is to forgive ourselves and each other and to strive
to do better. I think that's the unspoken part of any covenant.
The basis of Universalism is universal salvation. Originally that
meant that a loving creator could not damn her/his creation for
eternity because of wrongdoing by any person. Today the meaning
has expanded to mean that we are all in this "Blue Boat Home"
together. We all sink or sail together. None of us are safe or saved,
unless all of us are safe and saved. The Universalist position does
not let us off the hook. It makes each of us accountable. If there
is no creator that will judge any of us as unworthy beings for our
actions, who are we to make such judgments? We are called by our
principles, by our tradition and by our humanity to forgive both
ourselves and one another.
I think that Judy Tomlinson made an admirable presentation last
week, illustrating what we do to ourselves when we fail to forgive
and what we do for ourselves when we do. I command her sermon to
you. We instinctively know, I think, that we dwarf our spirits when
we fail to forgive. It keeps us wedded to the past, imprisoned by
it, when we give sanctuary to bitterness that anchors us anachronistically
in bygone experience. We promote spiritual growth though, in ourselves
and in others when we dare to live through our pain - when we experience
it; express it and move on.
Don't get me wrong. I struggle with the whole challenge of forgiveness
the same as the next person. But because people oftentimes bring
their struggles to share with me, I sometimes have an opportunity
to catch an objective glance at some things by way of other people's
stories. There are three things that I often see that I think are
worth sharing.
First, very often we think that for some reason our bitterness
is held captive by the other person. It's their unwillingness to
apologize for having injured us. It's not even so much the words
"I'm sorry" that we are so dependant upon. It's the idea
that, if there were just some acknowledgement of the relationship
between the other person's mis-actions and our hurt feelings, we
could let go.
I do this one all the time. I often recognize it even in the midst
of doing it. But I think when I'm being really honest, I know that
my bitterness has more to do with wanting someone else to be more
responsible for my unhappiness than I am myself. If I have to have
an apology to continue to act lovingly toward that other person,
I think the failure is really somewhere in my limited ability to
love. Something along the lines of turning the other cheek.
The second thing is about those really big hurts in our lives,
the ones that go along with divorce or family feuds that go on for
decades, that sort of thing. Some of us might manage to escape these
big ones, but I expect most of us here know what I'm talking about
from personal experience.
I don't think any of us go through these lives we're living without
some very serious misgivings about our own sense of worth in the
grand scheme of things. We weren't given life to find its meaning
because that's such an easy task to accomplish. It's a lifelong
undertaking and there are many missteps along the way. Very often
our missteps are connected to broken pieces from our childhoods
or whatever else might have fed them along the way.
And very often, I think, for reasons that might be clear or unclear,
we connect certain persons to those feelings of deep, deep woundedness.
Because of things that we do or sometimes things that they do, we
find ourselves unable to disconnect that other person from those
struggles. Having been forsaken by a sibling, a mate or a friend
may be a huge challenge to forgive. That challenge becomes impenetrable
when we charge our feelings towards the other person with our own
psychological or spiritual misgivings about ourselves.
The challenge is two-fold: first, to separate the other person,
at least in terms of responsibility, from our own feelings of insufficiency;
then to explore and exorcise those feelings of being less than in
order to be more of who we are and what we are capable of being
and doing.
Finally this. I think sometimes we confuse the idea of forgiveness
with the ideal of painlessness. Forgiveness of someone or ourselves
does not mean that we become immune to the pain that has come from
our experience. It means that we recognize our humanity in that
pain; we recognize each others' humanity in it. And we work towards
forgiving ourselves and each other; we work towards loving ourselves
and each other.
And very finally this. Sometimes, for some reasons, there are people
who want to hurt us. Forgiving does not mean giving permission for
them to have their way with us. Forgiving might mean being sympathetic
to their short comings. Being responsible for our own well being
and theirs definitely means keeping ourselves and those in our care
out of harm's way and away from any continuing abuse.
So, I'd like to end by apologizing to the person whose card was
lost back in August, and to thank her for giving us this greater
opportunity for an even closer exploration into the topic than time
would have allowed on that day. Maybe therein lies yet another lesson
related to forgiveness. Maybe sometimes when we feel we've been
wronged, some graceful passage of time might prove that there's
no need for forgiveness after all, only appreciation and gratitude.
Sometimes we look for Grace and it appears.
Sometimes we look for it and we think it does not.
Sometimes Grace occurs with no bidding at all.
And always, always it is up to each of us to find and make meaning
from the experiences that are the stories of our lives.
Spirit of Life, make each of us an instrument of your piece and
a practitioner of your love.
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