"How Deep? How Wide?"
A Homily for Pageant Sunday by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
December 18, 2011
With their excellent pageant, the children have just shared with us much of the stories that are connected to the holiday season – Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas. I want to share three more stories with you. One of them is from the Hassidic Jewish tradition and the other two are very brief experiences that I’ve had…
When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the great Rabbi Israel Shem Tov, saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.
Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of Mezritch, had occasion for the same reason to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say, "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer." Again the miracle would be accomplished.
Still later, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say, "I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." It was sufficient, and the miracle was accomplished.
Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God, "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient."
And it was sufficient. For God made man because he loves stories.
I once worked with a very new Director of Religious Education in another congregation where I served. She was a strong adherent to one of the stories that our children shared. She thought, when she began, that if we UU’s don’t limit our focus to one story, we can never go deeply enough to experience the full possibilities of transformation available from any religious experience. I couldn’t agree with her.
On another occasion, more recently I was in conversation with a colleague here in town. He was a Rabbi who left Montclair a while ago. I told him about the words we use when we begin our worship services about being a community of memory and a community of hope. He asked, somewhat rudely, “What do you have to remember? You haven’t been around very long!”
I said that we had existed for close to 400 years. He reminded me that Judaism had been around for over 5,000 years. I couldn’t agree with him either. I said that must mean that our tradition went back that far in memory as well.
"I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient," said Rabbi Israel of Rizhin.
Unitarian Universalism is not for everyone! It requires much of us. It requires that we go both wide and deep.
How Wide: Today’s pageant is shows how we are able to go wide:
- Beyond national, ethnic, racial and traditional boundaries
- Race, age gender and sexual identity, religious background and perspective on life.
- to find the goodness and to find the hope that exists in all traditions, and that exists in every person. (Doesn’t that sound a lot like affirming and promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person!)
- We not only borrow from those other traditions, but we search to find our place in them
- Because they tell part of the human story and we too are part of that story
- How wide must we go? That wide!
How Deep: Today’s pageant shows an opening we have to explore the depth of that human experience as deeply as any of us dare to go:
- Deeply enough to find the hope and the courage that are the hallmark of Hanukkah;
- Deeply enough for us each to hold the infant’s gifts of beauty and promise and the connections that are reached in the compassion brought to us by the Prince of Peace through Christmas;
- Deeply enough to find our own roles, our own parts in promoting and achieving Purpose, Unity, Self-Determination, Cooperation, Creativity and Faith, which are the lessons of Kwanzaa;
- Deeply enough to enter any human story, there to find ourselves in relationship with expressions of the deepest yearnings for life.
And the truth of it is, we don’t have to get it exactly right, because it’s not about being right. It’s okay to say, "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and [so] this must be sufficient."
And it is sufficient because it puts us in relationship with what matters. It is about being, and about being in relationship. It’s about being in right relationship – in ways that are authentic and sustainable and fulfilling.
How deep and how wide? There are no limits. There are only invitations, and it is ours to provide the RSVP.
How deep and how wide?
How deep is the ocean and how wide the sky?
How deep is the yearning for hope and for courage?
How wide is the longing for beauty and promise and peace?
How deep and how wide are our needs for Purpose, Unity, Self-Determination, Cooperation, Creativity and Faith,
There is no final test and no final answer, and there most certainly are no limits to the depths and the heights we might go to claim those values.
I bid you in this holiday season… to claim the values and the lessons in the stories we share. They are your birthright, and they are your tradition. Within them are the answers to your misgivings as well as to your prayers. Within them are our memories of the past and all the possibilities of our future.
I wish you good holidays. You don’t need to limit yourself in any way! Take them all! They are yours, just for the taking. And in them I wish you great joy!
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