"When the Going Gets Tough"
A Sermon by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
November 7, 2010
READINGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN
Our ancient reading is a slightly adapted version of Psalm 4
of the Hebrew Scriptures:
Answer me when I call to you,
O God who declares me innocent.
Free me from my troubles.
Have mercy on me and hear my prayer.
How long will people ruin my reputation?
How long will they make groundless accusations?
How long will they continue their lies?
You can be sure of this:
The Highest set apart the godly for himself.
Will the Highest answer when I call.
Do not sin by letting anger control you.
Think about it overnight and remain silent.
Many people say, "Who will show us better times?"
Let your face smile on us, O LORD OF LIFE.
You have given me greater joy
than those who have abundant harvests of grain and new wine.
In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone will keep me safe.
Our Modern reading is from the Day of Affirmation speech delivered
by Robert Kennedy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa,
June 6, 1966:
Each time a [person] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve
the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, [that person]
sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from
a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples
build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression
and resistance.
"If Athens shall appear great to you," said Pericles,
"consider then that her glories were purchased by valiant men,
and by men who learned their duty." That is the source of all
greatness in all societies, and it is the key to progress in our
time.
SERMON:
"No Country for Old Men," was not an easy movie for
me to watch. I don't think I'm in any position to judge whether
or not it was a good or a bad movie. It was a hard one for me to
watch, though, just the same. When it won so many awards a couple
of years ago, I thought I should see it and so I did. It was brutal.
The violence was repulsive. It was intended to be revolting, and
it was.
I know that a lot of people enjoyed it for its intensity and intrigue,
but I can't really say I found much redeeming about it until towards
the very end. Throughout the film there is a seemingly endless spree
of horrendous and brutal murders, committed by Anton Chigurh, the
antihero - or anti-Christ. Sheriff Bell, who is obsessed with the
thought of catching Chigurh and ending the bloodshed, is as much
of a hero as the narrative is willing to offer. In one of the final
scenes though, after Chigurh escapes his pursuers yet again Bell
meets up with his Uncle Ellis, who is in a wheelchair. Ellis had
also been a law man, as had Bell's father and grandfather. The two
men have a conversation at Ellis's remote cabin. We pick up their
dialog a ways into it; the uncle speaks first:
Ellis: Got a letter from your wife. She writes pretty regular,
tells me the family news.
Bell: Didn't know there was any.
Ellis: She just told me you was quittin. Sit down.
[Sheriff Bell lifts an electric percolator off the counter.]
Bell: Want a cup?
Ellis: 'Preciate it.
Bell: How fresh is this coffee?
Ellis: I generally make a fresh pot ever week even if there's some
left over.
[Sheriff Bell pours some and says]
Bell: That man that shot you died in prison.
Ellis: In Angola. Yeah.
Bell: What would you a done if he'd been released?
Ellis: I don't know. Nothin. Wouldn't be no point to it.
Bell: I'm kindly surprised to hear you say that.
Ellis: All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took
from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just
try and get a tourniquet on it. [He taps a cigarette ash into a
Mason jar lid on the table in front of him.] ...Your granddad never
asked me to sign on as a deputy. I done that my own self. Loretta
says you're quittin… How come're you doin that?
Bell: I don't know. I feel overmatched. [Pause] ...I always thought
when I got older God would sort of come into my life in some way.
He didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion
about me that he does.
Ellis: You don't know what he thinks.
Bell: Yes I do.
Ellis: I sent Uncle Mac's badge and his old thumbbuster to the
Rangers. For their museum there. Your daddy ever tell you how Uncle
Mac came to his reward?
[The sheriff shrugs.]
...Shot down on his own porch there in Hudspeth County. There was
seven or eight of 'em come to the house. Wantin this and wantin
that. Mac went in and got his shotgun but they was way ahead of
him. Shot him down in his own doorway.
Aunt Ella run out and tried to stop the bleedin. Him tryin to get
hold of the shotgun again. They just set there on their horses watchin
him die. Finally one of 'em says somethin in Injun and they all
turned and left out. Well Mac knew the score even if Aunt Ella didn't.
Shot through the left lung and that was that. As they say.
Bell: When did he die?
Ellis: Nineteen zero and nine.
Bell: No, I mean was it right away or in the night or when was
it.
Ellis: Believe it was that night. She buried him the next mornin.
Diggin in that hard caliche. [Pause] ...What you got ain't nothin
new. This country is hard on people. Hard and crazy. Got the devil
in it yet folks never seem to hold it to account.
Bell: Most don't.
Ellis: You're discouraged.
Bell: I'm... discouraged.
Ellis: You can't stop what's comin. Ain't all waitin on you. [The
two men look at each other. Ellis shakes his head.] ...That's vanity.
Ellis's message is that we don't get to choose what world we're
born into. We don't get to choose what evil we must fight. We don't
get to fight the last generation's devils; there are always new
ones in the works. The world we discover is the one that is real
for us. "You can't stop what's comin. [It] Ain't all waitin'
on you." What we get to choose, for good or for ill, is our
response to the world in which we find ourselves. Kind of a tough
message.
I found myself thinking a lot about this scene and its message
this past week in the aftermath of the elections. I wasn't surprised
by them, but I was greatly disappointed. I have to feel that the
outcome of the election was the collective voice of the majority
of Americans. And what the voice is saying to me is - the hand we
have been dealt is too frightening to sort out. We're not going
to play this hand and we're going to make damn sure that nobody
else plays it either for us or against us.
I don't begin to imagine that everyone here feels the same way
I do about the election. I trust that there are those here who feel
as many citizens across the country expressed - we don't like where
things are going and all we can manage to do is put the brakes on
as hard as we can. I trust that this is one of many possible, reasonable
responses. It's just not one that helps me to feel hopeful about
the future. I want to feel hopeful about the future. Like the Psalmist,
I want to know who will show us better times.
Satire humorist, Stephen Colbert, sent a Message to America this
past Wednesday on his show: "This Election Is Forever and Ever,"
he said. "That way you're feeling right now - depressed, fearful,
embittered, hopeful, joyous, hungry, gassy, obsequious, persnickety
- get used to it, because that feeling is the new definition of
you."
I don't want to get used to the way that I'm feeling about things
just now. I'm finding that this is a very tough place to live. At
the Y this week there were lots of jokes about moving to Canada,
once again. I usually don't appreciate those jokes but I have to
admit that this time they did give me pause. Canada? Maybe that's
not such a bad idea. But I don't want to feel that way.
If I'm going to feel any other way though, I know that it will require
that I do something in order to feel differently. I know that. I
may not be able to stop what's coming and I know nothing is waiting
on me - except for me. If I want things to be different, if I want
me to be different, I'm left with having to do things different.
The way I see it, if I'm going to do my part to deal with what's
coming, there are two fronts I need to face and they are really
closely related - the spiritual and the mechanical. Mechanics are
usually the simpler of the two. Being a part of this congregation
makes it very easy to take part in the mechanics of trying to create
a world that we might all recognize as being more just, more loving.
Several years ago, when things were looking particularly disparaging
for the religious right and the ultra right wing of this country,
they very strategically began to build from the bottom up. Their
motto was local, local, local. If a more progressive voice is to
one day prevail again, it too will need to take a page from that
same book. We have access to many local opportunities for a progressive
social agenda, here in this congregation.
I want to be clear about something, though. I'm not talking about
partisan politics, although I am talking about politics. What I'm
suggesting is that we need to organize so that our liberal religious
values are being exercised from the bottom up. What values? The
affirmation and promotion of the inherent worth and dignity of every
person - regardless of race or ethnicity, of documentation, or sexual
identity or orientation. And the promotion and affirmation of the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part - our
planet, our ecosystems and our food chains.
What are the local opportunities available to us here at the U?
There is our After School Tutoring Program, which mentors at-risk
neighborhood children so that they might experience some success
in the academic arena. Pete Williams, our director of the program,
tells me that the program is always in need of additional volunteers.
Each week, Francesca Elms, Chair of our Peace and Justice Coalition,
sends out an email with countless opportunities for participation.
Most of them are not very demanding and she asks that you choose
just one thing from the list that you can respond to. If you are
not on her email list, let us know - we can get you on it.
As a congregation, we belong to two local coalitions of religious
organizations for social change. One is New Jersey Together at Montclair.
It's an interfaith partnership of Montclair congregations, affiliated
with similar organizations in communities throughout the Metro area.
And there just happens to be a meeting of our chapter tomorrow
night at 7:30, at Union Baptist Church, just a couple of blocks
away over on Midland Avenue. Johanna Foster, our New Jersey Together
Coordinator, and I, along with other members of our congregation,
will be there. You can be with us as we try to build a healthier
Montclair and northern New Jersey. Again, it's something already
here for us to be a part of. It's a vehicle for us to move out of
what might feel like our temporary setback and to help make a difference.
The other group we belong to is the Unitarian Universalist Legislative
Ministries of New Jersey - The UULMNJ. This is a coalition of UU
congregations from across the state that attempts to give our UU
values voice in the creation of public policy for New Jersey. I
am the current president of the 501-C-4 Board of Trustees for that
organization. Diane Finn is our congregational liaison and she will
be meeting for a few minutes with anyone interested at 12:00. The
current focus of UULMNJ is affordable housing and many of you know
that there is currently important legislation that is pending on
this issue. We've already had a big impact on the formation of that
legislation and now we need to make sure that the legislation will
indeed affirm and promote all New Jerseyans.
It so happens that one of the two Annual Meetings of the UULMNJ
will take place next Saturday at the Morristown UU Fellowship. Let
me know if you'd like to join me. We can make a difference.
We do not have to accept Stephen Colbert's tongue-in-cheek rebuke
to acquiescence. We don't have to accept that how we feel now is
how we have to feel in any future. We don't have to quit. We can
hardly afford to quit! Even though we may find ourselves in a very
tough situation, we can play the cards we've been dealt and still
impact the future in ways that we want it to be impacted. The choice
to participate continues to be ours.
And for the spiritual… Too often to my thinking, spirituality
is considered to be some kind of personal or private relationship
with a higher or inner power. It is about relationships and personal
ones may be part of it, but I think only a small part. If the goal
of spirituality is solely to achieve some sort of introspective
high, I think we may be missing the opportunities of our lifetime.
If we dig inward deeply enough, all we do is bury our heads in the
sand, missing the connections that could otherwise hold us in relationship
with others and with our world. Spirituality is about relationships
- beginning with the inner-personal and moving to the interpersonal.
Here is where I think Universalism got to the heart of the matter.
None of us are individually saved. If any of us is saved, we all
are. And Unitarianism adds that not only is God one, but that we
are one with God. Interpret the idea of God as you will. For me,
there is one Spirit of Life and we are one in it.
Any spiritual response to the popular defeat of deeply held spiritual
and social values, would need to contain the same values that have
gone down in that defeat. If we are going to wage a spiritual response
to defeat, it will need to be a moral/ethical response. If we want
to see good in the public square, it will be up to each of us to
take goodness to the public square.
I suspect that we do need to look deep within ourselves in order
to find that kind of goodness. But it will remain a hollow and shallow
goodness until we can find ways to express it in affirming and promoting
the inherent worth and dignity of others, until we can find ways
that affirm and promote the interdependent web of existence of which
we are apart.
Finally, a spiritual response most likely needs to be one that engenders
hope. "Each time a [person] stands up for an ideal, or acts
to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice,"
Robert Kennedy said, "[that person] sends forth a tiny ripple
of hope..."
I wish I could say that, if we buried our heads in the sand for
a couple of years this would all blow over. Something would blow
over, I'm sure. But I doubt that it would be to our liking. These
are tough times, and they require that we be strong in thought and
in deed in our responses to them.
My longtime mentor, Rev. Alan Egly, sent me an e-mail this week.
He said that he too was feeling blue after the election. He came
across a collection of quotations put together by the late Rev.
Dick Gilbert that he said made him feel better and so he sent it
along. I include these thoughts here because they were also inspiring
for me and I hope will be helpful to you, too. Some of them are
by some of my favorite thinkers.
" Democracy is not a spectator sport. (Marion Wright Edelman)
" By their fruits shall you know them. (St. James)
" The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.
(Leo Tolstoy)
" The great use of life is to spend it for something that will
outlast it. (William James)
" They who work in harmony with justice are immortal. (Olympia
Brown)
" People become house builders through building houses, harp
players through playing the harp. We grow to be just by doing things
that are just. (Aristotle)
" Be ashamed to die until you have won some great victory for
humanity. (Horace Mann)
" We are not called to be successful, only to be faithful.
(Mother Teresa)
" It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost
insecurity. (Dag Hammarskjold)
" Reform is the watchword…Failure is impossible. (Susan
B. Anthony)
" One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine
who have only interests. (John Stuart Mill)
" No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's
too much work to do. (Dorothy Day)
" There is no one but us. (Annie Dillard)
Our time to quit growing spiritually or to stop making efforts to
transform the world around us will come only when we come to our
time to die. Now is no time to roll over. This is our time to shine,
and to shine as brightly as we possibly can. Our future, the future
of what may yet be this great nation and even of our world, hangs
in the balance. May we find our way to that promise land with acts
that are guided by our faith and hope and love.
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