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Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sunnyvale, California
Comments, Essays, and Sermons (Collection 1) |
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Roger Jones, Minister
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sunnyvale, California
Candle Lighting: Invocation for a Service of Grief, Hope, and Love
We light this first candle to invoke the spirit of compassion. We hold in our hearts all those who died. We hold in our hearts all those who grieve the loss of loved ones, friends, colleagues. We hold in our hearts all those whose lives have been torn by this act of terror. We invoke the spirit of compassion.
We light this second candle to invoke the spirit of full and honest grieving. The nation and the world are so full of sorrow. We honor and embrace the pain caused to all of us by thousands of injuries and deaths. We invoke the spirit of full and honest grieving.
We light this third candle to invoke the spirit of righteous anger. We call down shame upon you, who would break bodies and steal so many, many. We stand against your efforts to break our spirits. We stand together for justice and freedom and love. We stand together to affirm the worth and dignity of the human character. We invoke the spirit of righteous anger.
We light this fourth candle to invoke the spirit of wisdom and discernment. We send our wishes to those who serve the nation in the halls of government. We call on you to pursue wrongdoers with all good speed, and we call on you to keep faith with our country’s values of freedom, fairness, and justice. We invoke the spirit of wisdom and discernment.
We light this fifth candle to invoke the spirit of gratitude and courage. We send our thanks to the firefighters, the rescue workers, the police officers, those who tend the wounds of the injured, those who care for the dying. We stand in awe of your strength. and we live in gratitude for your testament to human caring. We invoke the spirit of gratitude and courage.
We light this sixth candle to invoke the spirit of reason and love. We remind ourselves of the danger of rushing to judgment and the sins of scapegoating, prejudice, and racism. We remind ourselves to be gentle with one another in the days and months to come. Let us be open to the pain in our hearts, and in others’ hearts. Let us call forth the healing which comes from listening and from the touch of human hands. Let us call forth the best which lives in the human soul. We invoke the spirit of reason and love.
—Roger JonesSunday Sermon: Explaining Terrorism
As you know, the terrorist attack took place on Tuesday morning of this past week. Tuesday hadn’t even ended when I heard the first of several explanations for why this disaster happened. It is quite normal to try to explain something so shocking. It is quite normal to try to explain something so senseless.
There are some conservative Christians who cite the Book of Revelation to explain disasters. In their thinking, this disaster, this gigantic evil indicates that the "end times" are at hand. The end of the world is just around the corner. They emphasize the Book of Revelation but ignore the parts of the New Testament that contradict their interpretation. In fact, Jesus himself says that nobody knows when the end will come.
Another explanation is that of divine punishment. The story of Noah’s ark gives the first instance in the Bible of such punishment on a grand scale. God flooded the world to clear it of corruption. In several places throughout the Jewish scriptures, God becomes angry with the Israelites. They have failed to hold up their half of God’s covenant with them, and God teaches them a lesson, again and again.
Abraham Lincoln evoked this idea of Divine punishment during the Civil War. In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln said that the war’s casualties were the penalty for 250 years of slavery. The war might not end, he said, "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash [would] be paid by another drawn with the sword."
New Age thinking has been around for over a century, believe it or not. And in recent years, many New Age writers and workshop leaders have said, "everything happens for a reason." Nothing is a coincidence, they say. This is appealing so long as you have good fortune. But if you are the victim of torture or abuse, you may not find comfort in that thinking. Another New Age idea is that both good things and bad things happen as a manifestation of our consciousness, as a result of our attitudes. This idea implies, "If you had had the right attitude, that bad thing wouldn’t have happened to you."
Among the other attempts to explain Tuesday’s disaster, some people have made a point out of the fact that the disaster happened on 9-1-1, the ninth month and the eleventh day, or 9-1-1. I assume that astrologers will soon have their explanations too.
On the radio yesterday I heard part of the funeral for the chaplain of the New York City Fire Department. He had been killed while giving Last Rites to a dying firefighter. In his eulogy, another priest said that the chaplain’s day-to-day job was overwhelming. There was no way the chaplain could have cared for all the men and women in the fire department--here on earth, that is.
But in eternity, in heaven, he could care for all of them, the priest said. And this priest was sure that the chaplain would have chosen to have it exactly this way. I was outraged! I want to say to you all right now: If I should meet an untimely end, I do not want anyone to say that at my funeral! Do not say that I would have chosen to be a minister in heaven over a being minister on earth. It’s not true. In heaven I would have to do all this for free!
Some people ask: what causes a person to have so much hatred that he would kill himself and so many other people? That is a good question. I don’t know. But I bet the answer is complicated. I think the answers vary with each given situation. But I think in each situation, the answer has to do with evil.
On Tuesday the San Jose Mercury News carried a story about a white man in California. He had killed his girlfriend and several other people. He had held one man at gunpoint and forced him to videotape his ranting and raving. Then he shot the man. Then he shot himself.
On the video, he spoke of the great "statement" he was making. He bragged about the news he would generate. He guessed that this was worth a month of news coverage. It was a cruel joke on him that his timing was off. The hijackers stole the spotlight from his crimes
I believe that human evil is real. It exists. We human beings have the potential for both good and evil. Sometimes evil wins. Evil is evidence of the failure of empathy and the failure of imagination.
Evil works through individuals, it works through groups, it works through nations. It seems to me that there are many possible ingredients to an evil act. These ingredients include stupidity but sometimes brilliance. They include cruelty, insanity, desperation, denial, greed, resentment and arrogance.
These ingredients combine in diverse ways in different situations. Evil can be spontaneous, or it can be cultivated. Evil can beget more evil. Evil is absolutely sure of itself.
I want to speak a bit about Islamic fundamentalism. You probably know this already, but it bears repeating. Not all Muslims are Arabs. Iranian Muslims are not Arabs. Indonesian Muslims are not Arabs. Some Muslims are Chinese. Six million Muslims are Americans, Americans of diverse backgrounds and colors.
And not all Arabs are Muslims. Many Arabs are Christian. Some Christian Arabs live in Palestine, and many of them also have complaints against the government of Israel. Not all Muslims are fundamentalists. Most Muslims are not militants. In fact, Islam’s holy book forbids both murder and suicide.
Yet it is a sad truth that many people use their religion to justify their violence, and this includes some Muslims. You probably know this already, but it bears repeating. In recent days Americans have attacked and even killed other Americans because they thought they were Muslims. This bears repeating by the media, by the President, and by each one of us.
The writer E. L. Doctorow has published book about religious fundamentalism and fanaticism. He said (yesterday morning on National Public Radio) that terrorist leaders take advantage of young, vulnerable, fearful and weak-thinking people. They manipulate them into waging suicide missions in order to destroy the "great enemy."
Doctorow noted that more clear-thinking people could ask, if leaders like Osama bin Laden think suicide missions are the way to paradise, why don’t they go on one? If martyrdom is so great, why are they still alive?
This week Jerry Falwell was a guest on Pat Robertson’s TV show, "The 700 Club." Falwell said: "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."
"Jerry, that's my feeling," Robertson responded.
Falwell said: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "
Let’s say that God did fail to protect us. Even so, what Robertson and Falwell have to say doesn’t shed light on what might have motivated the terrorists. E. L. Doctorow notes that Islamic fundamentalists have numerous grudges with the United States. They dislike our political support of Israel, which is a modern state. And they are outraged by the Israeli government’s treatment of the Arabs in Palestine. (Also, I have read elsewhere that Bin Laden resents the presence of American military in his native Saudi Arabia, a county which threw him out years ago.)
Militant Muslims dislike our economic system. Market capitalism causes rapid social changes around the globe. Capitalism appears to make some people and nations very wealthy while keeping others in misery. Our way of life repulses militants–they see uncensored media, a permissive culture, an openness about sexuality, and changing ideas about the roles and rights of women and men.
They resent a secular society based on Western, liberal values. What they aspire to is a religious society based on traditional values - values ordained by God, they think. We tolerate a diversity of ideas and a diversity of behaviors. They seek to repress ideas and repress behaviors. Militant hatred of America stems in large part from this great cultural gap. It stems from the apparent intrusion of modern secular culture into their lives.
So the terrorists’ reason for hating us is the exact same reason that Falwell and Robertson believe that God let them attack us last Tuesday! To both groups, our society is secular, and corrupt. It is liberal, and corrupt. It is free, and corrupt. On these points, Falwell and Robertson agree with the terrorists.
In the first half of Psalm 55 (above), the Psalmist cries trouble and misery are in the midst of his city. Then he says more: "It is not enemies who taunt me—I could bear that. It is not adversaries who deal insolently with me— I could hide from them. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company. We walked in the house of God with the throng."
What really hurts the Psalmist is that he is betrayed by one of his own people! He goes on: "My companion laid hands on a friend and violated a covenant with me, with speech smoother than butter, but with a heart set on war, with words that were softer than oil, but in fact were drawn swords."
Have you ever heard Pat Robertson speak on television? His speech is smoother than butter. That conversation between Falwell and Robertson was so outrageous that it made me laugh. Yet thousands of people listen to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Enough people, in fact, that Robertson felt he could make a credible run for the Republican presidential nomination several years ago. Hence, I have no doubt that many people believe his twisted interpretation of Tuesday’s disaster.
Like Islamic fundamentalist leaders, these two "Christian" leaders take advantage of vulnerable people. With speech softer than butter, they manipulate fearful, irrational or weak-thinking people. Pat Robertson has more in common with Osama Bin Laden than either one of them might care to admit.
Clearly, America is not free of evil. Throughout our history, our government has participated in all kinds of evil. We have murdered Indians and displaced them, enslaved Africans, overthrown elected leaders in Latin America, and bombed civilians in many parts of the globe. I heard a news analyst say this week that if America really commits to rooting out international terrorism, we will have to get close to some very shady characters around the globe. We will have to hold our noses. To go after some terrorists, we will have to associate with some tyrants. This may be necessary work. It may be the proper choice for us to take. But we should not deny that it lies somewhere in the realm of evil.
At the same time, I do not accept that the United States is the cause of all injustice in the world. We should not let our own sins blind us to the evils which many nations perpetrate on their own people. We live with evil, but we did not invent it.
I have heard on Public Radio that we should beware of scams in the wake of this disaster. We should beware of telephone solicitors who call us to ask urgently for donations of money for the rescue efforts. (So we should not give out credit card numbers or send checks in response to someone who contacts us claiming to be from the Red Cross or some other agency. Instead, we should contact the agencies ourselves. We shouldn’t assume charities will call us; we should call them or visit their Web sites. Two are www.giveforchange.com and www.uusc.org).
Clearly, someone who swindles me out of money is not the same as a killer. Yet such theft is somewhere in the realm of evil.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, people have called to make bomb threats to public buildings. This act is somewhere in the realm of evil. It is cruel and it is hurtful.
But this is nothing new. In Psalm 55, the Psalmist cries out that trouble and misery are in the midst of his city: "Her streets are never free of oppression and deceit."
I have been worried by the intensity of some of the American patriotism that I heard seen in the last few days. It makes me so uncomfortable that I’m afraid even to disclose my feelings about it.
I hasten to add that I do love my country. I love our heritage, I love our freedoms, I love our Constitution, I love our people. I love our sense of fair play. I love the richness of our religious diversity and our ethnic diversity. I love our country, and I feel assaulted by the attacks on the East Coast. I feel angry about those attacks. I am moved by the candle light vigils at 7:00 every evening and I am moved to see flags flying at half-staff.
Yet some of our radio personalities and too many of our politicians speak more out of resentment than sorrow. From their tone and their words, it seems it the greater sin is that others would dare to attack America, not that they would kill thousands of innocent people. This kind of patriotism implies that the attack on the American way of life is worse than the attack on human life and human dignity. This kind of patriotism does not say, "How dare you kill innocent people to make your point!" It says, "How dare you attack our country!"
To this way of thinking, the greater sin is not the cruelty, but the dishonor. And if this is true, we are at risk. We are at risk of defending our honor but losing our principles. We are at risk of punishing their sins of cruelty with our own sins of cruelty.
It may be that we can identify the right criminals. It may be that violence against them is appropriate. Yet if we do not identify them clearly, if we do not focus on them alone, we risk killing innocent people. If we turn the cause of justice into a cause of honor, we risk turning patriotism into evil.
Writing about evil, M. Scott Peck said this: "The capacity for ethical behavior is dependent on the capacity for self-questioning. Virtually all of the evil in this world is committed by people who are absolutely certain they know what they are doing."
As I said, I love my country. And what I love most about our country is our freedom to dissent. Our Constitution allows us to question our government and to criticize it. Our Constitution allows us to argue about the course we should be taking. Our Constitution allows us the right to doubt. And doubt can save us from evil.
It is hard to resist trying to explain why bad things happen. It’s scary to admit that we have little control over our lives. It’s scary to admit that we don’t know what the future holds.
Not everything can be reasoned away to our satisfaction. I do not believe that everything happens for a reason. Some things shouldn’t happen.
Yet, we do have some choices about how we shall live our lives. We have some choices about how we shall live together. It is the challenge to discern the good which gives life its meaning. It is our freedom to choose the good which gives life its meaning.
Of course, much of what happens in human life happens at random. We have no choice about the or the country into which we are born, or when we are born. We can’t choose our ancestors and we can’t design our own genetic code.
Given the small number of choices we do have, we should make good ones. For starters, we can make the good choice to affirm life.
We can choose to accept the gift of life. We can choose to thank God or Mother Earth or the Spirit of Life or whomever--or to thank the improbable intermixing of energy and elements--for giving us a glimpse of life. We can give thanks for every day we are alive.
We can choose to wonder at life, wonder at the world, and wonder at one another. We can welcome each new face we meet.
We can affirm life through helping others--and through letting others help us. We can choose to serve needs larger than just our own needs. We can choose to protect the well being of others. We can choose to improve the world, starting in our local community. We can choose to work for justice.
We can affirm life by doing the best we can with this brief opportunity to be alive. We can choose to give thanks for each new day that we’re given. Some days this is harder to do than others. There’s no denying that. This is why people need one another. This is why people come together. This is why we help and serve and care and give--not alone but together. By doing so, we affirm life. So may it be. Blessed be, and amen.
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Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sunnyvale, California
Comments, Essays, and Sermons (Collection 1) |
Back to index |
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