“Standing on Holy Ground”
by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman
November 12, 2006
READINGS
The first reading is from the ancient Chinese, philosopher and moral thinker, Confucius:
The moral Laws form one system with the Laws by which Heaven and Earth support and contain, overshadow and canopy all things. These moral Laws form the same system with the laws by which the seasons succeed each other and the sun and moon appear with the alterations of day and night. It is this same system of Laws by which all created things are produced and develop themselves, each in its order and system without injuring one another; by which the operations of nature take their course without conflict and confusion, the Lesser forces flowing everywhere like river currents, while the great forces of creation go silently and steadily on.
It is this - one system running through all - that makes the Universe so impressively great.
The second reading is from American historian, social critic and political scientist, Howard Zinn:
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness and if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents and to live now as we think humans beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
SERMON
A month ago, when I chose the theme for this morning’s sermon, “Standing on Holy Ground,” I didn’t have a clue as to what sort of world we might have all awakened in today. I knew there would have been an election this past Tuesday. I had hopes about how the election might go. I knew we all would. Based on the last couple of elections though, while I had hopes, I didn’t have much confidence in them. I figured this morning would bring one of three possible realities: 1) Americans would have affirmed that status quo; 2) We might have elected an even greater ambiguity then the one we already know; 3) We, the American people, would have declared that it’s time for our country to move in a new direction, one hopefully more in keeping with the loftiest of American values.
Given our recent history at the polls, my fear was that we might have opted for the first or second possibilities. I’m not at all sure which one of those might have been worse. I am sure that with either of them, I would have personally experienced a regrettable and deep loss. I suspected that, if either of them had been the case, I would not have been alone in that experience in this room. (Parenthetically I might add that – while that may sound incredibly partisan, I would report that in the past few days I’ve heard many of my Republican friends and loved ones say, “At least now, maybe we have a chance at getting our party back.” I hope any Republicans or conservatives, who might be in the room will not in any way feel excluded by my remarks.)
Loss, I don’t know about you, but when I experience deep loss, it often feels as though I’m falling, as though I have no real ground to stand on, and so I keep falling. So, I thought that had the election gone differently, if we would all be having the experience of tumbling through space this morning, we might need to locate some solid place to stand together; we might need some holy ground to gather upon. And so, I thought we might need to explore the terrain, to try to locate some terra firma, some safe place of shelter that might allow us to re-gather our faith and rebuild our hope.
But that’s not what happened, is it? We were spared potential realities one and two and instead, American voters said, “Enough! We’ve had enough incivility and polarization, enough paranoia and war, enough gouging the poor and endowing the rich.” We’ve had enough, we said and so we find ourselves having elected reality number three.
For many of us, that’s cause for celebration. I don’t begin to imagine though, that my world political views are shared by everyone here. If you were holding out hope for potential reality number one, I have to guess that you’re experiencing something of a tumble yourself, at this point in time. I’ll let you in on a secret; you are not tumbling alone. We’re all in it together. No one is singing, “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.” The shift in power that will come about, as a result of last week’s elections, does not necessarily insure any of the campaign promises that were made by winning candidates. There are huge systems in place and at work, systems that will make every effort to maintain the status quo.
What was won in last week’s election was not the redemption and salvation of good over evil. What was won was the opportunity to address evil from a perspective that is larger than a self-serving cadre of neoconservative politicos and post-millennial religionists. Being from New Jersey we are by nature “in-your-face” realists, and very aware that even some of those of the more liberal party, with a supposed larger world view are sometimes overly invested in lining their own pockets with other people’s money.
Still, my hope is that this election is not an end-point but a beginning of reclaiming of our national struggle against poverty, oppression and other injustices. It’s an uphill fight from here. And it’s hard to make much uphill ground when you’re continuing to fall in a downward direction.
Downward direction – we’ve elected a new cast of characters, short of the president who continues on as a significant player, we’ve elected a new cast of characters to lead the charge towards truth and right and the American way. While many evils were named in this past campaign season, and many more of them were illustrated by the candidates themselves, at no time did I hear mention of the largest of transgressions that should be weighing heavily on the collective American conscience.
What transgressions? The ones that result in the pollution of our air and waterways, the depletion of our biological diversity and natural resources. The ones that result in inner city schools that look a lot like prisons and end up too often being preparatory experience for prison. The ones that result in the fighting of a war whose predominant purpose may most honestly be no more than securing US oil reserves. What sins? They are the sins of greed and excess, the culture of which is so prevalent that most of us, myself included, often fail to see our part in it.
I think that we are falling under the weight of those sins and that even the new houses of Congress will have little potential for changing much of anything for the better until those very offenses have been named, confessed and atonement has been sought. The injury that Al-Qaeda can inflict upon us is small in comparison to the harm we constantly do to ourselves through greed and excess. This isn’t about any “them.” This is about all of us.
I pray that Congress will do its part in this process, and I do believe we have a much better chance to address what’s really important now than we did a week ago. And I do think that’s good cause for celebration. But it’s not enough to celebrate. And it’s not enough to leave the heavy lifting to Congress. We need to let them know that we expect them to lead us in a direction that is truly a moral and sustainable one.
For far too long, we have allowed the national dialogue on morality to be led by those who see the world in terms of black and white. They have held that their own standards are the measure of what is good, and anyone else’s are deviant. It’s time for a new conversation on morality, a conversation that recognizes, embraces and honors the unity of all things, the unity that undergirds the diversity of our nation and our world. The conversation can include worlds that lie beyond this one for those who experience such worlds. But it needs to be grounded in this world for this is the sacred and holy ground that we have been given. It is our home for now, and if we can find a way to sustain it, it will be home for our future generations. The truth that this is the sacred and holy ground that collectively and morally we are all accountable for, will need to be at the center of any conversation on morality that may take place.
I suspect that the religious right has been accurate about one thing; the answers to many of the questions that trouble us today do indeed have religious answers. Religion is about community, and religious community necessarily ought to be about inclusivity, not exclusivity. The religious answers that we need to be looking for are ones that affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person; ones that affirm and promote the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part. Those are Unitarian Universalist principles. There is a vital role for the voice of Unitarian Universalism in this dialogue, and it is incumbent upon us to take our place in it.
So here, I think, is the challenge to Unitarian Universalist in engaging in this national dialogue that I hope we are on the threshold of. The challenge is to bring God home. That might sound foreign to some of our ears, but I believe it is at the root of what we can contribute to this conversation. We need to bring God home and to help redefine God beyond narrow, anthropomorphic, super-human imagery.
Last week I spoke about religious extremism and how extremists of Jewish, Moslem and Christian persuasions had pretty much imposed their bloodletting and exclusionary religious views on the rest of the world. At the bottom of these views is the notion that, for whomever it might be, their’s is a chosen people, who have been identified by God – by a supreme and external being – to be the keepers of the faith and the enforcers of that God’s moral code, as it has been communicated by that God. The proof is in the communication, which cannot be questioned.
How can there ever be peace? How can there ever be a common good larger than a limited sectarian perspective might allow? How can there ever be an end to oppression? How can there ever be a true promotion of justice or the preservation of our echo systems to come out of a conversation that is guided by rival gods, who provide the greatest of assurances that each respective group is not only due, but ordained to inherit the earth?
We need to bring God home. We can ill afford to continue to allow the definition of God to be left to those who seek to benefit themselves at the cost of others, and to benefit themselves through the destruction of our planet. When God is “out there” somewhere, mysteriously communicating with a select few, there can never be peace and justice and environmental balance. Only when God is in our hearts, when goodness is in our hearts, when the common good – the very largest common good – is at the root of what calls us forward as a human race, only then will we begin to find our way out of this precarious, untenable and unsustainable world condition that we have allowed to occur on our watch.
To what end have we allowed such a thing? I have to suspect that it is for the shallow comfort we have found in greed and in the culture of excess. We have our own internal work to do, as well. We’ve not been innocent bystanders in this take over by religious extremists. We’ve had our external gods, too. It’s time to bring God home, whatever principles of goodness we might hold dear, and we need to invite others to do so as well. And wherever such a bringing home occurs that truly will be holy ground. That will be a sustainable ground, a sustaining ground, where all this falling can come to a stop, where the people can gather together in peace.
How do we find that ground? I think for now it is by never losing sight of the false gods that beckon us, by every day being vigilant of their roles in our lives, by rejecting their easy answers, and by holding very close and very carefully one another, this planet and all those values and principles that allow us to see the oneness that binds us together and in turn holds us in this marvelous creation – this gift of life.
The late Universalist theologian and UU minister, Albert Frederick Ziegler, once wrote:
“To know the worth of love and beauty, and grace and form,
And not to store the treasure but increase it by your own life span
For all the world to see and know — isn't that a pleasant prospect?
And, you know, it just might be true.”
And indeed it might just be true. This past week there was a National election, and in it there were winners and losers. As I suppose is always the case since the advent of the modern age, the world stands on the threshold of either destroying itself or saving itself. We can choose to be agents of hope by participating in visions of salvation. We need to bring God home.
There is a dialogue, a conversation going on about the possibilities of how the world yet might be. To religiously prepare for our part in this conversation, I very much suspect we’ll need to be in touch with the ground upon which we stand. The Vietnamese, Buddhist monk and holy man, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote:
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
We are of this sacred Earth, an incredible miracle, an incredible gift that did not have to be, and yet it is. And while it did not have to be, if it is going to continue to be, we will have to respond to the pleadings of an ailing world, an ailing God. Not a God that is in any way distant or separate from us, but one that is ever present, as the Spirit of Life, in each one of us and in All-that-Is.
We need to pay attention to who we are, to who each other is, and to this grand creation. We need to pay attention to this holy ground upon which we stand and walk, for it is in our connections with all of these that we are made one, and it is in that very oneness through which, if salvation is at hand, we are saved.
Another of the old Universalists, John Wood wrote:
“All kind of marvelous things go on.
I don't see how anyone who has looked, and seen,
Can do ought but say, ‘where I stand, wherever I stand,
I am on holy ground.’”
We all stand and move and have our being on holy ground. Our task is to realize the preciousness of this gift, to be in awe, to give thanks, and to do service. Our task he is to hold one another, in the largest sense of other, to hold one another safely and in the spirit that such a hallowed space must warrant. The election is now in our past. Much more importantly, the future anticipates our next steps upon this very holy ground. |
