First Parish of Watertown

Opening Words

- from Robert M. Doss

When giving thanks comes hard for you,
And things are grim,
And hope runs thin,
Recall:
Despair’s a door to pass on through,
And not a home for living in.
When thanksgiving fills your cup,
And those you love are all about,
Look at your blessings, count them up,
And give back something to the world
without.

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Sermon

Some years ago my colleague Gordon McKeeman provided a twist to Jesus’ most famous sermon, the sermon on the mount. Here Jesus enumerates nine categories of the blessed concluding with blessed are the peacemakers. McKeeman says rather than repeating the sermon on the mount, he is going to give the sermon on the amount., begging the question, what is the amount of your pledge going to be? I thought I might provide my own variation by picking our opening hymn today, which features the line, “don’t be afraid of some change.” This is not the challenge I might present to convince you to change your thinking or way of living, but rather the change in your pockets. And hopefully we are talking about larger amounts than the loose stuff. McKeeman also talks about how we have been blessed with a great faith tradition, a great building, great privileges, and now we are blessed with a time of great challenge and opportunity. Blessed by what we have been given, McKeeman wonders if we will be among the blessed who say , “Yes” to the invitation to give more generously. He says both the sermon on the mount, and the sermon on the amount contain the same theme: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

”Don’t be afraid of some change.” We often take our change lightly. We come home and throw it in a jar or other container dreading the time when it builds up so much, we either have to roll it, or bring it to one of those change machines. Loose change will buy us one small bottle of water. (Like the ones I have just given out) My parents would have found it amusing that we go out and pay for our water. To pay for something that should be free, and we seem to have in such abundance would have made no sense to them. Bottled water signifies the commodification of our society, while my parents would have thought it was something everybody has a right to have free of charge. But this essential life giving, life sustaining substance is not available to everyone. It is precious.

Water and loose change also come to mind in the context of wishing wells. In years gone by whenever we visited a place that had a pool that seemingly accepted loose coins, be it a mall fountain, a mini-golf course hazard, or holy shrine, my boys would call out to me to empty my pockets, so they could make a wish, and then watch the waters ripple. Like tossing a rock into a pond, they liked the splash, and the wish that would hopefully come true that very day, usually a toy or an ice cream cone would do. As simple as this act seemed, it signified a larger meaning. Giving the quarter opened up the possibility that something wonderful might happen to them. It was something that would give them a happy day or week, a few moments or longer of joy.

It was also something they could come back to. Of course you don’t literally pump a wishing well, you just throw, taking a leap of faith that something good will follow from your hope and trust and faith. And my boys operated on pretty good assurances. Today I want to suggest that we are a wishing well here at First Parish, and you will pump up all our hopes and dreams with your pledges. It is up to you to make all of our community spirit both within and without come alive. All of those good wishes, those dreams we have for a fulfilled community tomorrow in the form of our gifts of faith to ourselves, our children, and our community will take shape in the gifts you give.

Today we begin our wishing well voyage with a first sip from the bottle of water. We will take four stops on the journey around the wishing well, to correspond with the four directions. Let’s ask ourselves what kind of waters we drink at the First Parish well. Does this faith satisfy our thirst for meaning and longing for community? Are they living waters that we drink? Remember in the old westerns how if the well or spring was poisoned there would be a sign showing a skull and cross bones or the like? Many years ago when I first visited England I was introduced to the practice of well dressing. Everywhere around the villages of Derbyshire in the midlands of England you will see what once were town wide wells that provided the drinking water for the community. In the spring these wells are decorated with flowers. Usually the flowers are formed to recreate a Biblical story. These lovely displays not only decorate the public arena today, but they evoke an ancient practice that was begun to show thirsty passersby that this water was safe to drink. The Bible stories meant that this was indeed living water that would literally keep you alive rather than kill you.

We easily forget that in non-developed parts of the world procuring safe, clean water is problematic. In Medieval England disease was rampant, latrines flowed into wells, and the plague came north when merchants brought cloth made in London. Wells became poisoned, and people needed a way to know that here was living water for you to drink. Thus, the colorful displays on the wells. We also know of the devastation when wells are poisoned. The pollutant run-off from the tanning industry in Woburn poisoned that water leading to illness and death. Well dressings centuries ago produced trust that you could drink the waters freely. So, too the waters of our faith can be drunk with trust that your own approach to faith is acceptable. Here you are encouraged to express your doubts, and you are encouraged to ask questions. A few weeks ago I fulfilled a sabbatical leave obligation by preaching in Framingham. I gave a sermon I had delivered here in October on the future of reason. I said we UUs need to hold up our tradition of reason in response to the irrational absurdities that other faiths often proselytize, and not be so tolerant of them. After the service a young man, came up to me beaming saying, “Are you an atheist?” While I told him I preferred the term humanist, he clearly felt affirmed that he could say publicly to me that he was an atheist, and that he had found a faith that trusted and affirmed his doubts. For the first time in his life religion was not force fed or contrived. Drink of this tradition that trusts you, trusts your mind and your heart to know what God is or is not.

Long before medieval England, wells were a significant community gathering place for longing, thirsty souls. Wells were the major source of water in ancient Palestine. Digging a well in this dusty, desert like land was a cause of great celebration. Many of these wells were located just outside the city gates, and they became gathering places for people, especially the women who performed so many of the household tasks. Remembering these wells of gathering and fellowship, let’s take a second sip of water.

Perhaps the most famous story about a well occurs in Genesis 24. Abraham has sent his servant out of Canaan back home to find a spouse for Isaac. Will the woman who the servant hopes will be the perfect partner for Isaac appear? Before he can even finish uttering his wish that a woman who will offer him and his camels a drink will appear at the well, Rebecca shows up with a jar on her head. She proceeds to offer water to both the servant and the camels. After the servant meets the rest of the family, it all works out that she will go back with the servant to wed Isaac. The story of Rebecca at the well has some implications for us in religious community. There were significant reasons for not finding a Canaanite spouse for Isaac. We might suspect there was concern for the bloodline in a strange land, but the important line Abraham wanted to preserve was the religious line. He was worried about the corrupting influence of Canaanite religion, and wanted a partner for Isaac who would keep the faith.

The story of carrying on a tradition is important, but even more important is the method in which the match is made. When the servant meets up with Rebecca at the well, it is not her beauty or virginity that convinces the servant that this is the right choice, it is not all the wealth that Abraham has accumulated that convinces the servant that this is the right choice. It is her gracious hospitality. She immediately offers a drink even before he can get out the words. Let me take care of that thirst. You carry on a faith, you find new partners in faith by showing your loving concern for them, by being their friend, by opening up your hearts to one another. The mythic tale reminds us to offer a drink to the stranger. He/she is thirsty - alone and wandering with a longing for a spiritual home. Bring them to the well, and offer a drink, and they will never thirst again. Drink of this faith that wants you to feel compassion for one another.

As many of you know I grew up only a stone’s throw from what is today the Quabbin Reservoir, the river valley from long ago that became four drowned towns to satisfy Boston’s thirst. Despite being so close to this gigantic source of water as a boy, we could not use it for our own drinking water. In my rural hometown each family had its own well and septic system. Predating my family’s ownership of the property someone had dug a well just beyond the old barn, and when we first lived there it provided our water needs. Let’s drink our third sip of water to remind ourselves of those traditional sources of water. We work hard to preserve traditions, but sometimes we find the meaning of traditions become dried up, and we must let go and discover life giving waters anew. Last fall a member of FPW visited our place n Maine, where we also have our own well and septic. I use visit in a short term sense, because after she arrived she found there was no water coming out of the tap. No water, no visit. It turned out in this case that the pump was broken, and therefore even though the water was there, there was no power to put it in the pipes.

This reminded me of an event from my childhood when in the wake of a winter ice storm we lost power for days, and had no water. I recall going down to the edge of our property where a fresh water brook ran through. The land slopped down covered in snow. We could not exactly tell where the land ended and the frozen ice began underneath. Digging with our toes, my brother and I found the slippery surface beneath. Pushing the snow aside, we then had to reach the water below. We chopped and chopped with axes until water appeared, gushing from its frozen tomb. We had one of those large aluminum milk containers, which we then angled in to catch the chilled liquid life giver we needed so much. We filled all our containers, brought them to the wooden cart we parked by the road, and then slowly pulled and heaved it home. So we had smashed through the ice to quench our family thirst. Together we were able to assert our power, do what we had to do to get what we needed in our time of need. It was a portent of things to come.

Finding water where there is none, is not an easy task. I have tried dowsing a few times. This is taking a wooden stick that is trimmed clean of excess twigs and leaves, and is shaped something like a wish bone, with a pointing top, and two handles down. One balances it evenly walking through open fields, waiting for the pull of the water beneath the ground to angle the wishing point downward toward the flow. One year, it wasn’t frozen power lines, or frozen pipes, it was a supply all dried up that stopped the flow. The old well in New Salem dried up. What happens when you run out of water? Drink to remember that some have no supplies, no resources to draw upon, and we are called to remember those who have none. Remember the hard work of slicing through ice. Did the poet say the world might end in ice? Do we believe it in the midst of a New England winter? May our faith reminds of us those thirsty ones who are prisoners of want and disease.

So we have drunk three times, three times to keep the living waters flowing for free thought and affirmation, for human community, for justice for all. Now let’s drink a fourth time. The communities we create can dry up and die unless they have a deep, larger spiritual well of strength to draw upon - the oneness of humanity, the love of God, whatever you call it. When my family well dried up in New Salem, we drilled an artesian well. Sometimes we use the word artesian simply to signify a deeper well. What we had before, 150 feet or so deep, was not sufficient. One must go deeper to have a strong consistent flow of water. An artesian well is one where the water is under more pressure and flows to the surface naturally. We go deeper because we are challenged as a faith community to build a stronger institution - to care more about each other and our children, to have a greater presence in our community, to have a vision for a just world. How do we go deep like the artesian well?

Together we seek a trust of life’s goodness and beauty that can overcome our fear of its heartache and pain. There are many things that can make our living waters become stagnant. If we don't challenge each other, and seek deeper truths, we end up undisciplined and lazy with our minds and thoughts. We need to take the effort and care to dress our wells with works of inspiration and imagination. If we don't gather at the well of fellowship, then we end up not caring about each other; and there is no love in our hearts. We need to make the effort to be with each other offering up our love and our healing touch. If we don't see the pain of the world around us, and act in ways that alleviates that suffering, we end up seeing justice and equality slip away. We need to have a vision for a world made whole, and take part in making that vision a reality. If we don't go deep with one another to the living waters of the human search for personal truths, community building, and a just world then the deeper search for the underlying love that gives meaning to it all will surely dry up. We give to the church that the church might have life, that we might have life, so that those who carry on will also have life. May the living waters live in your hearts for all the days to come.

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Closing Words

- from Mark DeWolfe

Know that the love which blooms inside you is stronger than fear, for people who love find strength they didn’t know they had. Know that the love inside you is stronger than illness, for people who love hang in when physical health is gone. And know that love is indeed stronger than death, for people who love are like stones tossed into a pool: the circles of love radiate out and echo back long after the stone has come to rest at the bottom. So remember your love as a source of strength; remember who you are: lovers tossed by these difficult times.

Opening Words

- from Slavery in Massachusetts by Henry David Thoreau

Will [humankind] never learn that policy is not morality - that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate, who is invariably the devil, - and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men [or women] , not of policy, but of probity - who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority. The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls - the worst man [or woman] is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot box once a year, but on what kind of man [ or woman ] you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

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Sermon

Do you believe in Antidisestablishmententarianism? Well, do you, or don’t you? (Let me see hands) Some years ago I was told that this word won the honor of being the longest word in the dictionary. There is a bit of irony here because it refers to the separation of church and state, which was a long historical battle here in Massachusetts that, once it became law in 1833, was termed by some as the most significant event in Unitarian history. Why? First, let’s break the word down into its components. Disestablish means break down the establishment of religion, which is exactly what we had here in Massachusetts from the beginning in 1630. Puritan communities, by law, had to establish a Congregational church, and everyone in the town belonged to the parish church, which was the same as the geographical boundaries of the town. Furthermore, every landowner was taxed for the maintenance of that church and the paying of the minister’s salary. So anti-disestablishment means you affirmed the idea of a state church. Add the entarianism, and it doesn’t even fit into spell check. Its an odd thing that we once favored a state religion, because today we religious liberals are usually thought of as staunch advocates of the separation of church and state. Why did we once believe it was a good thing?

This Sunday is often the day in recent years when we have chosen to celebrate our church anniversary. This is obviously not the July founding date in 1630 of the Puritan congregation, but rather the February 1835 date, when we were literally forced to establish an independent, voluntary Unitarian congregation separate from the former town established Congregational church. I say grudgingly because its hard to give up a good deal. Even as late as the 19th century, the parish church had the building, the silver, the property, and most important a large group of people who had not pledged allegiance to any other congregation, such as Baptist, Methodist or Universalist. All the uncommitted people in town were required to belong to the parish church. The Unitarians thought they had a mega church. But guess what happened when the state church was disestablished? We had to promote the theological doctrine of Unitarianism, and most of you know the history of how well we have done with evangelical promotion. This is why it was such a big event in our history. Most of the money and people we initially believed were supporters and members were gone with disestablishment.

We once had power, numbers, control, the kind of media attention and influence the Catholic church demands today. These were all gone in one act of the legislature, but that influence is not the reason we believed a state church was a good thing. The religious reasons rather than economic or statistical ones are harder for us to grasp. Most of us grew up fearing the concept of a state church. When Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in 1517 he said “forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils.” Although they were not quite as graphic, our Unitarian ancestors in Transylvania concluded that we must begin to tolerate different religious viewpoints in one sovereign state, and so when the Edict of Torda was issued in 1568 it stated that preachers shall preach and explain the Gospel according to their own understanding of it, and no one shall compel the congregations to have any preacher but one they approve of, and no one shall be reviled for his/her religion by anyone, for faith is a gift of God.

A state church meant we could be controlled by someone. Many of us remember the fear that some people promulgated of the dangers of electing a Catholic President when John Kennedy ran for that office in 1960. Editorials claimed he would be a puppet for the Pope in Rome, who would instruct him as to how to manage the country. This after all, was a hierarchal church whose members were mere stooges for the dogmas of the Pope. This is reflected in the reading from Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, where she recalls the images of Catholic children who might be put to death for losing school books. Many of us likewise wondered what our Catholic friends were subjected to, as we were half curious, half pitying of them.

As many of you know, I grew up in a small, country town in a rural part of Massachusetts. It was so small and parochial, I didn’t even have Catholic classmates. We lived in a time before the Supreme Court decision on school prayer. Every morning of every school day we had Bible readings, a prayer in Jesus’ name, and we all recited the Lord’s Prayer together. In my school we clearly had the establishment of one religion, and it was Protestant Christianity, which we all were, some more devoutly than others. If this had occurred after the court’s decision then all these religious exercises would have been considered violations of the wall of separation between church and state that Jefferson and others worked so hard to put in the our founding American documents. We would probably all agree that these are violations of the separation of church and state. Many of us are concerned right now that the church-state wall is being destroyed by the Bush administration. Sometimes the message of the President seems to be that the United States has some sort of official tie to religion, that we are a Christian republic rather than a secular state that promotes the free exercise of all religions. Even when the message is that we are suppose to respect all religions, the implication is that there is only one that matters. Even today the legislature in Jefferson’s home state of Virginia is considering an amendment that would allow religious expressions such as prayer in schools and traditional religious displays on public property. This is an affront to those who rightfully see this effort as a form of establishment of religion.

While we have every reason to be concerned about these attacks on the wall of separation, there is another piece to this we liberals sometimes fail to grasp. This can be seen in the founding principles of America, the state church of Congregationalism here in Massachusetts, and the reason I was taught those prayers in public school. The founders of America were pretty clear that particular religious beliefs should not be written into laws that apply to everyone. They did not want religious involvement in government, but despite their fear that religious minorities could be persecuted by a majority, they clearly understood life to be governed by some divinely ordained principles which had to do with freedom and equality. They worried about religion controlling the free exercise of political rights and privileges, as we do when a Catholic Bishop threatens to deny communion to a Catholic politician because of a political stance. But there is a second American separation of church and state tradition that dates back to Roger Williams in nearby Rhode Island which says that we must be wary of government interfering with religion, and not the other way around. Here the purity of faith is sullied by its association with politics. I find this argument appealing based on how our politicians today use religion as a means to pander to voters. Both parties now fall over themselves to God Bless America, so that we might vote for the righteous man who invokes the name of God. We never saw a truly religious person, like Jimmy Carter using such hollow rhetoric. This results in politicians turning their debates into a kind of theological wrangling. Soon both parties will seem to want us to believe that they are advancing a certain agenda with God’s approval, like John Kerry remarking this week that God will figure out if he will run for President in Œ08.

What are we to do? This past fall there was controversy at Watertown’s Lowell elementary school, where my three sons attend classes. For some years there had been a fund raising, holiday fair during school hours. A major brouhaha developed when this event first appeared to be canceled, and then was later rescheduled for an after school time. I am not going to give more detail, but clearly much anger and passion was raised over the handling of this event. One of the cornerstones of the separation of church and state is that you can’t offend anyone’s faith or lack thereof. This is as it should be - one should not be able to promote Christmas or Hanukkah or any specific religious celebration in a public setting. What that means is that you always have a purely secular approach to public issues. A secular approach to schools seems like the proper thing so that no minority faith is offended, but it has its drawbacks, too. Just as fundamentalists are offended when creationism is not included in science text books, I become offended when history text books talk about the the Puritans coming to America and fail to mention religious persecution. Something is often lost in the secular translation. As liberals we have often embraced secularism as the only way to deal with the church/state issue, but what that means is we end up promoting that no one gets offended, and nothing else. In a new book called God’s Politics, Jim Wallis says, “conventional wisdom suggests that the antidote to religious fundamentalism is more secularism. But that is a very bad mistake. The best response to bad religion is better religion, not secularism.” I agree. I think we often have embraced secularism as the removal of religion from the public sphere when we should have been affirming it as a condition of religious pluralism.

So how could early Unitarians have ever thought a state church was a good thing? Let me make a pre-Valentine’s Day digression. Have you ever heard of the term, “X marks the spot.” If you turn an “x” on its side, what do you have? (a cross). In the middle ages, when few people could write they used to sign their documents with a cross because it was a respectable mark for anyone to make because it was a Christian symbol, which in theory would mean you were honest, true, respectable, fair. After a document was signed it was common to kiss the page upon which it was written. to show that it was signed by you in good faith. Now Valentine’s Day comes in because we have merged the “X” with the kiss, and so all those x’s from your loved one mean kiss, but in this context, so much more. Of course the idea was that your faith made you a trustworthy person.

This points to why early Unitarians could affirm a state church. It is really rather simple. Remember I said that the Unitarians mistakenly believed they were leading the masses. That is the very reason. A state church for them meant that everybody (which by 1820 included many unchurched folk) would be subject to society’s central reason for being - to create a moral community. Everyone would be reared with Christian principles. This was partly done for reasons of social control, but in a positive sense it meant that public worship was a way to diffuse religious principles to everyone - moral and intellectual improvement and opportunity for all. They were able to implement this to some extent in the public school system as it was developed by Unitarian Horace Mann. He was even accused of using his religious principles in bringing educational opportunities to all. The theory then behind a positive understanding of a state church is that everybody could sign with a cross and seal with a kiss. The public role of the church for everybody was that you created a people who could trust each other to do the right thing, to literally do unto others. This is still what religion can contribute, not as a state church, but as an expression of our own faith.

There was an article in the Globe a couple of weeks ago about bringing faith to work. It said more and more people are bring their faith to the workplace, but this is mostly to put their faith into practice in their lives, rather than to evangelize others. In his new book, Jim Wallis argues that we need more genuine political expressions of how our faith could create a better society for all. We liberals, too need more expression of our religious values in our lives. Our voice of moral leadership must put our religion before our politics, and show how our faith informs our vision of the community. We have put so much effort into the religious emphasis on freedom of choice, we forget to actually express the values we embrace, which mostly derive from religious foundations.

What does it mean to be religious for us? Our religious approach affirms a higher common good rather than a narrow particular, doctrinal persuasion because historically and today it points to a religious pluralism, God’s love is boundless. Why should we appear to say we want no religion in the marketplace, so we seem faithless while narrow, bigoted perspectives become the representatives of religious values? It is our religious values that are wider and more compassionate, closer if you will to Jesus’ ethical example. Our expression of divine love and justice means we abhor racial and sexual oppression, the poverty of so many and the selfishness and coarseness of culture, and it is our faith that gives us this motivation. This is why we must speak for religious pluralism rather than the removal of religion in the public realm. Religiously this means that our personal desires are secondary to a spiritual awareness of the universe - to God or to the oneness of creation. Justice for others and love for the earth become the ultimate vision of a world made whole, and we must act accordingly, not just talk about it. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau says that even if one person will withdraw from the slave conspiracy and go to jail, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. He writes: “For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be. What is once well done is done forever.” Our universal and pluralist religious values for earth, world community, family and marriage must be expressed for the saving religion they are. The one we, and all the world, needs.

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Closing Words

- from Jimmy Carter, in New York Times Magazine

I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I’m free to choose what that something is, and the something I’ve chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands - that is not optional - my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.

Opening Words

- Samurai Song (15th century)

I have no parents
I make the heaven and earth my parents
I have no home
I make awareness my home
I have no life and death
I make the tides of breathing my life and death
I have no divine powers
I make honesty my divine power
I have no means
I make understanding my means
I have no secrets
I make my character my secret
I have no body
I make endurance my body
I have no eyes
I make the flash of lightening my eyes
I have no ears
I make sensibility my ears
I have no limbs
I make promptness my limbs
I have no miracles
I make right action my miracle
I have no principles
I make adaptability to all circumstances my principle
I have no tactics
I make emptiness and fullness my tactics
I have no talent
I make ready wit my talent
I have no friends
I make my mind my friend
I have no enemy
I make carelessness my enemy
I have no armor
I make benevolence and righteousness my armor
I have no castle
I make immovable mind my castle
I have no sword
I make absence of self my sword

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Sermon

A couple of weeks ago we were sitting at dinner when Andrea and I asked one of our children whether he would like to participate in a sports program over the February vacation. He replied that he didn’t want to play. Even the enticement of a friend’s involvement could not convince him. When we asked him why he didn’t want to do it. He said it was because the coach had a mean voice when he tried to tell him something. He said it was hard for him to listen when such loud commands for strict obedience were leveled at him. While we implored him that the coach might have some useful things to teach, and that it was many of the games he liked, along with the great incentive of friends, it was still to no avail. “No,” he said, “I’d rather not.” As the conversation ended it came out that sometimes Dad’s voice or manner was like this, too. There was a commanding, loud, even angry quality in adults (but especially men’s) manner or voice sometimes that frightened children, and prevented them from hearing the message that an adult wanted to show them or instruct them in the right way of doing something.

This was clearly a relationship my son wanted to avoid; someone, who at least in his view was yelling at him to do it right, or do it another way, or to work harder and harder. He was not going to be reconciled to the prospect of being verbally coerced to do something, especially when it made him feel bad about himself. Last spring the subject of reconciliation was a UU World cover story. Reconciliation is a way, the article said of bringing two parties together to help resolve differences about the way they see and treat each other. In the end reconciliation between people or parties is a way to bring peace to a situation, resolve differences or restore harmony. Traditionally reconciliation is also an important theological concept placed in the guise of a Christian doctrine known as the atonement. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of the most important book in Universalist history; the first book published in America to openly avow the doctrine of unitarianism, but it is quite possible that you have never heard of this book. It was called A Treatise on Atonement, and it was written by the man who became the central figure in the Universalist movement in the 19th century; Hosea Ballou. At the UU General Assembly in June it will be my task to speak about the continuing meaning of this work, and I hope to make some initial forays today.

As a child I probably never heard the word atonement, but I do recall Christian preachers and Sunday school teachers speak about God reconciling the world unto himself. How did God get right with the world? Well it seems God was angry at human beings for their sinfulness. It was that Adam and Eve situation. You may remember, we humans were then, and still continued to be disobedient and willful. Because God was angry with us he needed to be appeased, or reconciled to us. Christ’s death on the cross was the instrument of this appeasement. God was reconciled to us on the cross. That in Christian theology is the atonement. Christ atones for our sins, and makes it right with God so we can be saved. God is angry. You are bad. We need Christ’s sacrifice for salvation. He paid for our mistakes. While this seemed like a rather violent way to make the peace, it was what I was taught. It also had some implications for the way family life and school seemed to work, at least for me. I was taught that I was likely to go astray. I needed to be obedient to the systems demands. Adults tended to be angry and punitive and distrustful of children. One wonders if the current emphasis in our public schools on rote learning and testing is a reprieve of the punitive approach of the past.

Hoses Ballou and the Universalists appeared in the late 1700’s with a different vision of the atonement. Ballou said that it is not God that needs reconciling to us, but we need to be reconciled to God. God is not angry at us, but God wants us to be happy. Ballou said there was a divine benevolence constantly present in the creation, and we need to ask ourselves what is our response to this benevolence going to be. Ballou countered the idea of infinite sin by saying that sin was finite. If it was infinite then nothing good could ever come from us. We could never get out from under it, and there would be no reconciliation. God does not want God’s children living in fear, or unable to see what they can become because they are always worried about reprisals, or not being perfect. Universalists then were attacked because many Christians felt that only fear and threats of damnation could induce people to moral behavior, but Ballou said you don’t get positive results by making people live in fear. So happiness is set before us as something everyone seeks, but Ballou said some are misguided as to what makes for happiness.

Ballou then contributed two significant understandings of reconciliation that are worthy of consideration today. Rather than happiness being bound up with personal desires or the success of individuals, as American society then was increasingly doing, Ballou said our happiness is bound up with others. Could anyone be called reconciled to God while they lived with the knowledge that others were in torment?, he asked. A loving God would not allow for some to know joy and happiness while others were in misery. Second, Ballou said that religious disputes were not worthy of a supreme being. If the atonement or the compassion of Christ is the reconciliation of the human heart with the spirit of love among us, then one cannot possess an exclusive outlook or condemn others. Ballou was probably the first to imply our modern pluralism when he realized that the power of love could not be exclusive. A loving God is not going to be partial to some, and not others.

What was most significant about Ballou’s idea of reconciliation is that it was not punitive nor exclusive nor condemning of the human condition. The traditional idea of atonement condemns the innocents. Here infinite sin means even children are born sinful and in history the innocent Jesus hangs on the cross. Herman Melville portrayed this suffering of the innocent when Billy Budd the innocent sailor was condemned for an accidental death of an officer. Yet how can we achieve reconciliation if we expect the worst? What if I keep saying that I can’t stand that person? One sees this replicated by hearkening back to our assumptions about children and their school work. What I hear frequently is that they are going to do their utmost to get out of doing their work, and we can’t trust them if they say they are not feeling well or need something. How can we develop a respectful, nurturing environment if we constantly suspect they are being dishonest or manipulative? Our relationships with children who we often don’t listen to and expect the worst from, point toward the self-reflection we might undertake to begin developing a spirit of reconciliation in our lives.

A few years ago the Mormon church developed a series of commercials that was quite effective. One of them showed a school age child running through the door with his report card yelling with joy about the grades he had received. Before he had a chance to share this happy news with his parents, he was rounding condemned by the father for making so much noise. His spirit was crushed by the negativity of the parent. Then the scene was replayed, and this time the parent got another chance to react. Now, instead of reprimanding the child, the parent said, “great, let’s look at those grades!. “ So the first step, especially useful for a parent, is not to react so negatively to the child or the spouse or the friend or fellow church member you don’t care for, and assume the worse because they are always too loud or always wrong or always intrusive. With children especially, we often forget to provide them with the respect they deserve as people by listening to them. Even liberal parents who think they would never condemn a child often fail to truly listen to their children and give them the respect or understanding they deserve because we are too busy with our own needs.

My greatest personal involvement in reconciliation of warring parties probably comes in refereeing between my boys. This often reminds me of my own childhood, where me and my two brothers were often in conflict. The aggravation can make me feel like I want to invoke the infamous victim, Rodney King who pleaded, ”why can’t we all just get along?” I have learned over the years to encourage my sons to use their words, or come get a parent when they cannot work something out. But perhaps what is most helpful is have each tell his side of the story, so they can see and hear what the other’s perspective is. Their conflicts often arise over property issues; who can use an item that belongs to the other and when. I remember this from my own sibling relationships, when the most bitter reprisals for usage that was taken without permission, was often the destruction of the other’s property- the breaking of a record album, the ripping of a baseball card. I don’t recall developing many skills for working things out. There was too much yelling all around, and not enough common ground of understanding. We either avoided conflict or let it get out of hand. What would have been most effective would have been a solution that worked for everybody instead of yelling and forced behaviors. How do you appease the angry parent or other angry authority? No one gets heard. Everyone gets mad. No one is reconciled.

The fountainhead of not having a negative view of the person you want to reconcile with, or understanding the others perspective by listening is seeing your own past and understanding your own faults in working with others. There is a story from the ancient Desert Fathers that tells of a Brother in Scete who happened to make a mistake. All the elders of the group gathered and asked Abbot Moses to join them. At first he did not want to come. Then the priests sent a message saying, “Come, the community of brothers is waiting for you.” So he arose, but he took with him a very old basket that was full of holes. He filled it with sand, and carried it behind him. The elders came out to meet him when he arrived. What are you doing, they said? The Abbot said, my sins are running out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I come to judge the sins of another. The brother who made the mistake was eventually pardoned. This tale reminds us of the one Jesus told about the woman who was to be stoned for adultery. The implications for reconciling with others is immense. We need to understand our own faults in order that we might not be so judgmental of others. Reconciliation , as Ballou taught, has to do not with seeing your own joy as salvation, or your own victory as personal success, but in seeing that your own reconciliation with life is impossible as long as another suffers. And so, too your reconciliation with another person is impossible, as long as your are only able to judge them for their faults, and find that you are in the right. In my own self reflection I am trying to stop judging a person who I perceive only uses others, and contributes nothing. Instead of just condemning him/her outright, I have tried to understand his/her lack of connection to others, and therefore feel some compassion for how lonely he or she might be. Moving from personal judgment to compassion will give me greater depth of meaning in my own life, and help me understand the larger theological meaning of universal reconciliation or salvation. My intentions in the relationship make all the difference, so now when I enter a conversation with the person, rather than feeling angry and totally unable to communicate with them, I can begin to see them in a positive light as a person who needs my compassion. Then, there is a possibility of a deeper connection, a larger reconciliation.

A couple of weeks ago I saw the word reconciliation was mentioned in the context of some people in Lexington trying to reconcile themselves to the celebration of an Bush inaugural. For some it meant accepting what had happened, and moving on to continue to seek truth and justice. I think what remains as a great barrier to any kind of reconciliation between parties and people is the lack of self-reflection, the lack of doubt on the part the President. Some weeks ago there was an article in the Globe on Ashoka, an emperor in India 2,500 years ago who was called the first great ruler to reject the glory of violent conquest. Reading about him led me to the book An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World by Pankaj Mishra. At first Ashoka attacked another state, but he then realized the devastation of war. His edict said “When an independent country is conquered those who dwell there all suffer violence, murder and separation from their loved ones.” Ashoka tried with some success to implement the teachings of the Buddha in his secular state. What Mishra wants to emphasize most from his example of Ashoka is the emperor’s use of self-reflection. There is great effort in self-examination as he questions all that he does in trying to build a righteous state. Am I listening to their concerns? Do I sow compassion? I wonder where this sense of reflection is when we see liberty’s manifest destiny and mission imposed in political speeches. When we see violence and chaos arise from those who claim to be good men fighting evil, we must ask where is their examination of self and what they do? Ashoka rejected the old sense of legitimacy by divine right or what we might call sense of divine mission, but rather saw legitimacy as something that was created by how free you are of oppression.

In trying to reconcile with another we always must ask, what is the impact of my actions? How do I feel about the other? Ballou asked, who needs reconciling and concluded that we all must be changed. We must reflect on how we are in the world. Ashoka learned from Buddhism that the desires of the self are meaningless when we hear the cries of those who are excluded. In our own desires and striving for success we lose sight of Ballou’s revelation of a divine benevolence that teaches there is no salvation for anybody until all taste its fruits. I think of those who are outside of the usual constellation of the saved as the sleeping beauties we heard about in the poem. Maps have always fascinated me. Long ago, as most of us learned in elementary school, they were a cause of terror because they mapped the unknown. It was feared Columbus would sail off the edge or into the mouths of monsters. Yet what was unknown to him and others was a sleeping beauty of a land that was waiting to be loved. We often stay in our ivy covered castles with our defenses raised. We are asleep in our own desires. But a true reconciliation would have us awaken to each other. That person who I love to despise is that person because he/she fails to give to others, but I give all the less the more I despise them. How often do I speak or want to speak unkindly of this annoying person? I am diminished. If my annoyance grows, then I am lessened by it, and I feel worse, while sometimes the person who annoys us find its amusing, or even gratifying. What if I instead saw him/her with the compassion of a universal benevolence? How much closer to salvation would we all be? The monsters we imagine. The monsters we create become greater when we fail to see how much the other needs compassion, and we fail to nurture the spirit of love in ourselves. May we together create new maps of the world, and rather than fight over mountain walls of fear, instead build valleys of peace.

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Closing Words

- from Anne Frank

In spite of everything, I still believe
that people are really good at heart.
I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation
consisting of confusion, misery and death.
I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness,
I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us, too.
I can feel the suffering of millions, and yet,
if I look up into the heavens,
I think it will all come right,
that this cruelty will end,
and that peace and tranquility will return again.
In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals,
for perhaps the time will come
when I shall be able to carry them out.