Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Sermon from Last Sunday: Owning and Atoning the Wounds of Judgement
Owning
and Atoning the Wounds of Judgement
Delivered to First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh,
February 3, 2013
Well........ today is Superbowl Sunday. And I recently heard that 27% of Americans polled believed that God plays a part in how teams perform at sports. Now I know that our group here tends to be a big mix of theists, atheists, and agnostics. However, on behalf of this town's definitely very faithful fan-base, it crossed my mind to offer a prayer for a miracle. Namely, that today, the Steelers might be able to pull off their seventh Superbowl win.... though I think the odds are probably pretty low of seeing that today. Yet, if I recall correctly, there are things that we see at pretty much every football game. I haven't watched much football in the last decade, so please straighten me out if any of these things have changed. There's still a coin toss, followed by a kick-off, yes? Do coaches still make frustrated faces at the referee or quarterback, and go like this [hand motion, hit head, wave downfield]? And are there still people with giant John 3:16 signs in the section just behind the field goal?
I
want to talk to those folks. Ever since I read it growing up as a
Lutheran, I have felt that John 3:16 is entirely incomplete without
the important clarifications of the next verse. Many of you who are
come-outers from Christian religions – or those of you have been
frequently evangelized – likely know the gist of John 3:16, “For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who
believes in him may have eternal life.” Now, John 3:17, printed at
the top of your bulletin, goes on to clarify that the reason for this
offering was not for the purpose of judgement, but rather for saving.
In
December from this pulpit, I offered my thoughts against
the theology of substitutional atonement in which one person may
expect to be saved by the distant actions of another. I also take
issue with the male-gendered language regarding God, and the way many
people interpret their salvation as coming exclusively from the
person known as Jesus of Nazareth, putting him on a pedestal,
separate and far-removed from everyone else. I imagine many people
in this room have their own thoughts and history around such a
theology, some perhaps painful. Today I hope to name some of the
pains, and to offer some balm for healing to begin.
The
important thing in my mind is that judgement was not Jesus' purpose
and should not be ours. “Judgment” here I see as similar to
condemnation, rather than judgement as discernment or
recognition. Condemnation says, “This is unworthy, or is
qualitatively lesser, and should be cast out,” whereas discernment
more neutrally says, “Things appear to be this way, or that way,
and perhaps these steps will work toward making the situation
better.”
A
problem I see is that in many of this world's cultures (including our
own), on several levels, we've gravitated toward an expectation of
judgment, of condemnation as the natural order of the day. This
expectation and acceptance of judgement has created a wound so
profound and pervasive that we are immersed in it. More often than
not, we do not recognize the omnipresence of condemnation.
Condemnation appears anywhere there there are situations reflecting
an attitude in which a person sees their agenda as more important
than the life or well-being of another person.
For many in the world, there is a theological understanding of a deity fit for meting out punishment. We may identify somebody else as evil-doers, and hope they get what's coming to them. Or we may condemn ourselves as somehow unfit, and expect that we will be individually punished for our nature, or our bad life choices. While indeed, bad choices sometimes lead to bad results, I don't view this punishment-and-guilt-based framework as healthy. When we see someone as the evil-doer, is it possible to meet them on common ground? When we feel unworthy somehow, are we then really capable of stepping up to meet others on common ground?
On
the social level, these condemnations can come from oppressive
prejudices – a word that means “early judging, before taking time
to check out assumptions.” This is often a result of categorical
thinking, in which a group of people are thought to deserve different
treatment. This can appear in the amount of pay different classes of
people should receive for their contributions to society; Prejudicial
condemnation appears in expectations about racial segregation by
neighborhoods – still
very much an
issue in 2013! – and a status quo many people continue to take
for granted. And of course, this condemnation appears as roadblocks
preventing marriage equality to same-sex partners. In a host of
other ways certain categories of people are condemned to second-class
status, because they do not conform to the dominant mono-culture's
narrow expectations. Here, of course, I'm speaking to the culture in
the USA, but also to the culture right here in Unitarian
Universalism.
“We
also underestimate the reality of resistance in our congregations, a
resistance rooted not so much in racism as in matters of class and
culture. We forget when we talk about cultural competence in
ministry, or cultural change in ministry, that it is not just those
other people who have a culture. Unitarian Universalist congregations
have a culture. Consider who many of us are, and who we are pretty
proud about being, no matter what our race or ethnicity. Many of us
are the people who brag about not owning televisions because there is
nothing worth watching, unless it is PBS. Many of us are the people
who refuse to listen to popular music because it is misogynistic and
violent, and more than a few of us regard rap music as nothing more
than noise and confusion. Many of us change the channel, and listen
to NPR and love Garrison Keillor and Prairie
Home Companion,
and laugh when Keillor makes fun of us.... Many
of us are unapologetic nature lovers, and the only thing we might
love more than hiking in the woods is building our congregations in
the woods, complete with tiny elegant signs that blend in well with
the natural environment but cannot possibly be seen by a seeker on
the highway.
Many of us eat locally, we shop at farmer’s markets, and we would
never be caught in Wal-Mart, unless it was a dire emergency. Many of
us do look ahead in our hymnal to see whether we agree with the
words, and forget that the person sitting next to us may need exactly
the words we are refusing to sing.”
*Gray
part is edited out. See this
link for her full lecture and here
for Paul Rasor's accompanying lecture.
When
we strongly identify expectations about the culture that McNatt names
(or whatever ours tends toward), who are we condemning to somehow
feel outside? In what ways are we advertising ourselves as
multicultural, only to have newcomers arrive, or members stay, trying
to make a good fit, but feeling the way I do when I try the
one-size-fits-all gloves at Home Depot? These extra-large hands
those gloves would not fit, but if my hands were cold, I'd see them
as the best thing going to keep my hands warm. I wonder how many
people are here not because Unitarian Universalism (or First
Unitarian) as it stands is a perfect fit, but because it's the best
thing going. AND I invite you, to make space, here, for your
authentic self. If you are willing, to do the work of transforming
our culture to be a bigger fit – to wear the not-quite-perfect
gloves until they're broken in to fit your (figuratively) knobby
hands, your long fingers, or your giant thumbs until they become
gloves finally comfortable – so that our culture (or more properly,
our cultures)
make a good and welcome fit for people like YOU.
In
institutions, mono-cultural ways of being find their ways into our
codified laws, bylaws and policies, which serve to favor the groups
with the loudest voices. It is likely not surprising that members of
these most vocal groups also tend to conform to cultural norms which
offer privileges. And that these in-group members are often among
the decision-makers who create the policies. In these cases, the
policies created and maintained may still reflect an agenda that
subverts the well-being of some categories of people, yet may not
even be consciously intended. Systems of privilege and oppression
can sometimes be very very difficult to discover
and root out.
There is perhaps no stronger evidence of an attitude of one person's agenda being more important than another's well-being – or their life – than the intentional use of violence. My choice for today's sermon on judgment came as a result of the recent spate of gun violence. Guns are tools useful both for coercion and for absolute judgement. There is a wound of judgment there, a wound that goes deep maybe in every one of us, and I believe it needs attending to. The Sandy Hook massacre brought upon me a moral doubt so deep, I asked the question, “What is the worth of our culture at all, if we cannot respond with a collective will to do what is necessary to safeguard our children, and dismantle this thing underneath our culture that keeps bringing this violence?” Then only a week later, during our time-for-all-ages, a child suggested shooting somebody as an answer to the problem in the story I had told. While I imagine the parents may have been mortified, I knew the same could happen from my own child. In fact, at Christmas when given a gift of a lovely and ornate cross made by an uncle, Henry's immediate response was quizzical (not being very familiar with crosses), followed by him grabbing one side of the cross and aiming it like a gun.
This
is after we have done so much to dissuade him from guns. What is
happening in our culture that young children think of guns so easily?
What pressures are built into our culture that young adult males
decide to pass judgement in such an indiscriminate way? The
solutions to this must be multi-faceted, and I believe they must move
away from the mindset of “punishment for perpetrators.”
Answering one type of condemnation with further condemnation does not
build a just society, but instead it serves to further undergird a
culture in which we pass judgement on each other.
There
is a better answer than punishment, one that would produce lasting
positive results, but it has heretofore been rejected. This better
way is restorative
justice. Whereas a system of punitive justice assumes that
“Penalizing this particular perpetrator will bring justice,” in
contrast, restorative justice asks “What must be done – what must
change – so this crime doesn't continue to happen?” This is a
radically different approach that calls upon us to be both mindful
and dutiful. We must be mindful to pay attention to the present
moment, without judging, without assigning a value to what is
happening or introducing non-observable interpretations. And our
call to duty then is to find the source of the injustice, or the
cause of the prevention of justice, and work to lessen the energy of
that source.
Because,
as Allan G.
Johnson tells us [in today's
reading], even though we should be able to find ways to
get along just fine, something powerful is keeping us from it.
I believe that something is inertia – participation within a
system that doesn't value life, a system that encourages us to
compete against each other, to value our agendas more than right
relationships and beloved community.
Black
History month has just begun, and Women
of Color Herstory month begins February 15th. In
recognition of that, I will share this quote from Harriet
Tubman, an African-American abolitionist and women's suffrage
advocate : “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a
thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” I do not know
for certain who these “thousand more” might be that she refers
to, but I interpret this as a broader all-encompassing statement
acknowledging the bondage we have to participating in systems that
does not allow us our full freedom, and acknowledging the difficulty
we have even recognizing that participation. But our duty to justice
asks us to find our way to freedom.
We find our way free when we recognize the truth within our theologies. That the judgment so many people expect upon the return of some great prophet is already laid bare in the crucified condemnation of Jesus of Nazareth and the various condemnations put upon countless other prophets and light-bringers, as recently as former CIA agent and whistleblower John Kiriakow, sentenced to prison while the torture crimes he brought to light remain un-investigated. We live in an upside down world where those who most loudly advocate for justice are often most quickly cast out.
If
and when the new great prophet comes, whether in the form of a
returned Zoroaster, Elijah, Jesus, or Mohammed, or somebody
unrecognizably new, they will not need to bring down fire, and their
message will not have to be anything special. It will be not much
different than before, saying to the people of the world, or the
people in their sphere of influence: “Look around you. The
cornerstone the builders rejected was one of love and justice! The
cornerstone they chose has a nature of avarice, and uneven privilege.
Look at what the building created from this cornerstone has
wrought.”
“LooOOK!”
would be fire-from-the-sky enough. But according to his gospel
biographers, Jesus' attitude was one of forgiveness. Somewhere
between harshness and mildness, he found the middle ground of mercy,
in which the gospels record him as saying, “Forgive them Father,
for they know not what they do....” Rather than the sword of
condemnation, which would have been understandable, he offered an
olive branch of hope for reconciliation, to which the powers of this
world have yet to respond in kind. The invitation remains: How can
we build each other up to create a world more heavenly, rather than
grind one another down as the world descends into something that
represents our values less and less? Restorative justice asks what
must change so that sibling is not set against sibling in an ongoing
state of adversity.
Restorative
justice asks what must we do to be in true equitable relationship, to
create the deepest form of solace in our hearts by reaching for
common ground? I believe we must not have a too-high or too-low
opinion of ourselves. We must recognize our equal inherent value –
not superior or inferior – to the person who drives the fanciest
car to the halls of great power, and to the person who walks in
ragged clothes to ask for spare change a half-block from the Market
District grocery. I believe that to achieve the destiny of authentic
common ground, we must include all voices as valid, and listen
non-judgmentally without feeling a need to interpret or immediately
respond.
Restorative justice
also asks “What must we do to keep our bodies and our communities
safe?” A start is to educate ourselves and our children of the
moral
injury brought on by living in a world where weapons of
condemnation are normative. I do believe that to respect each
others' dignity, we ought to minimize the energy that goes toward
creating, owning, and using weaponry that works to harm life, and we
must add to energies that uplift our connection to each other, which
in itself increases our safety.
I
will close with this quote from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King: “Power
at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice
at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
I
advocate that we recognize the power we do
have. I advocate that we build
our love by committing
our
power to tear down any system that denies life, or impedes
flourishing, or quashes organic harmony. And may we at the same
time, build up new systems based on a cornerstone of love and
justice, with respect for harmony, individuality, and lives that may
flourish and bloom. Amen.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
Labels: 0th UU principle, 1st UU principle, 2nd UU principle, anti-oppression, anti-racism, Community, freedom versus freedom, John 3:17, multiculturalism, peace, prophetic voices, racism, restorative justice, sermons
