True Peace

TRUE PEACE

A Sermon by
James Ishmael Ford

23 September 2007
First Unitarian Society
West Newton, Massachusetts

Text

The spirit of (this) time is woven about two books: the Torah and the legendary Book of Life. According to legend on Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, the Angel of Life writes each of our destinies for the year to come. During the ten days following, the Days of Awe, the Book of Life is kept open. If we then merely try to understand how to take the Torah’s insights with us into the everyday world, the Angel of Life must reconsider what has been written. By taking thought, we have made changes that will alter the future. At the last sound of the Shofar on the day of Yom Kippur, says the legend, the Book of Life for the year to come is sealed. All is written.

A UU Liturgy for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

The questions of war and peace are close to my heart these days, as I believe they are for many here in this room. With war raging in the Middle East, with the congress divided, like the nation itself about the quagmire in Iraq, how we should be involved in Afghanistan, about Mr Bush’s apparent plan to expand the war to Iran, not to mention so many other flashpoints around the globe; how can we not think of these things? I find it timely the 2006 General Assembly of Unitarian Universalist congregations requested our individual communities of liberal faith reflect on issues of peace over the next several years. In the best of our quasi-anarchic tradition there is no particular plan that everyone is asked to follow, although the denomination provides some resources and suggestions.

They do ask a question to kick it all off. I find it rather startling. “Should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war to resolve disputes between peoples and nations and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means?” It’s a big question. It asks us to reflect in our own hearts and to respond to whether some form of peace witness might be a guiding principle of our contemporary Unitarian Universalism?

This is not a question to be asked lightly. Last week I was in downtown Boston to go to the bookstore at our denominational headquarters, at 25 Beacon Street. While there I stopped briefly to look at that monument across from the statehouse, erected as the 54th Regimental Civil War Memorial. It is often also called the Robert Gould Shaw memorial for the young white colonel who led that African American regiment in battle. Perhaps you’ve seen the movie “Glory” about them and their fight for freedom, and the fact so many of them, including the colonel died fighting slavery. Some may choose to downplay the centrality of slavery in our American Civil War, but for the 54th such words ring hollow. Their war was for freedom, to end slavery. What’s relevant to our purposes is that Shaw’s fervent Unitarian faith was a principal inspiration for his part in that fight.

I personally am not settled on whether Unitarian Universalism should be an official peace church. Reasonable and soulful people will and do differ on this. What I am certain of is how we are called by our faith to consider how best to live in this world. And I have little doubt that in examining the ways of peace we are examining the deepest call of our hearts.

September the 12th was the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year; Friday evening Yom Kippur began. While this time floats because it is calculated by the lunar calendar, I’m very much taken with the fact the Jewish New Year happens pretty close to the inauguration of our own church year each September. I believe there are themes explored in this ancient Jewish season, called traditionally the Days of Awe that can be very important for us as Unitarian Universalists.

I believe a consideration of this ancient holy time may well help us find rules of the road as we examine questions of peace. In fact I believe within the stories and rites of this season we find a way to engage most of the things of our deepest concern. So, in addition to that reflection on peace, I believe we also can find guidance as we embark on our own next phase within this congregation, as we begin our discussions of ministerial leadership, of how best to provide pastoral and religious education within this Society.

While casting about for how best to engage all this I stumbled upon a ceremony designed by Unitarian Universalists for Jewish Awareness, a Jewish identity group within our denomination similar in organization and intent to the UU Christian Fellowship, the HUUmanists, the UU Buddhist Fellowship and CUUPS our UU Pagans. It’s called “A UU Liturgy for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.” As I read it and reread it, I saw some patterns that I would like to hold up today for our consideration, sort of a four-fold path of engagement for the big questions of our lives. I also saw how each of these steps was associated with some traditional Jewish theological terms, which I will try to briefly unpack.

The four steps are noticing what’s going on, reviewing how we got here, looking to how we can address the situation and then going toward a larger vision. The Hebrew terms I associate with these steps are teshuvah, tefilah, tzedakah and tikkun olam. (Please pardon my Baptist pronunciations.) Each step could be a sermon in itself; each term could be, as well. But for today, I would like to present it all as an outline for how I’m trying to deal with those questions that are pressing in my life, how to be a friend, how best to engage our own upcoming ministerial transition, how to respond to a call of peace in a time of war. I’m surprised at how so many of the issues of our lives are so well addressed in these four steps.

The first symbolic act of the days of Awe appears to be the call of a shofar, traditionally a ram’s horn. For me this suggests our attention is being called to something, we notice something. In particular it’s noticing some ill, such as the violence that rages across the world and in our hearts. I think any situation of transition is an invitation to stop and look. The Hebrew term teshuvah is often translated as “repentance” it actually seems to mean, “return.” This noticing of a situation or problem is itself a call to return to something better.

So, as we look around and within, what do we notice? What actually is the situation in the world and our own hearts? I look around and I sure see a world of hurt. Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, all leap to mind. Closer to home the events at Jena, Louisiana, haunt. Want, homelessness, racism, a host of isms call out like hungry ghosts. And what about closer to home? I’m aware of my own intemperate words, my actions, and my failures to act, all of which have caused hurt. Where, I find myself asking, is the difference between the wounds of the world and my own hurtful actions? Indeed, in any situation, how am I involved in a negative way rather than a positive one? Taking it that personal is actually quite hard, at least I find this so. But noticing, just noticing takes us a long ways.

That noticing is the call of the shofar. Once our attention has been caught we need to go into how we are involved in the whole thing. We need to take inner inventories, to look hard. But not just looking hard, looking to assign responsibility or blame isn’t the point in this exercise. Here I find the second Hebrew term, tefilah, helpful. Tefilah means prayer. I understand it also means mirror. Prayer means many things to us, conversation with God, calls for help in difficult times, expressions of fear and longing, of gratitude and joy. For me it means attention and aspiration, it means putting off my own ego-centrality just for a while, to try and see from a larger perspective.

If we want to understand violence and peace, I’m pretty sure we need to take a backward step, to turn our gaze wide, to look relentlessly and honestly and compassionately at our selves and the world. I think that’s the prayerful perspective that allows us to see what is really going on. I know in my own life taking time, not just when it seems necessary, but regularly, with some discipline, to stop and notice, is helpful. And in that noticing it feels essential to take that bigger perspective, an inclusive perspective that acknowledges we, you and I, are a part, a precious part, but not the center.

For me something amazing happens when I sit for a while in this perspective. Like clouds beginning to part in the sky, the way forward becomes a bit clearer. How I can best act becomes a bit clearer. For me the Hebrew word tzedakah reveals much about action from a prayerful perspective. Tzedakah is often translated as charity. I have no problem with that particularly as the English roots of charity speak to matters of heart, actions of heart. But with that it also means justice or righteousness. To see injustice is to feel a need to act. At least that’s how I’ve experienced it as I take on the disciplines of attention and aspiration, as I look into my own heart and see how my life is connected with everyone and everything.

The great teacher Maimonides speaks of the how of this way of justice framed as the actions of heart. Giving of our time or money to the poor, giving anonymously either to those we know or those we don’t, giving publicly, but to someone we don’t know, giving before being asked, giving enough to help, giving willingly, and I love it, even giving unwillingly. There is a hierarchy here and giving unwillingly is at the bottom, but it still is a mark of justice. No matter how small our action, how feeble our attempt at correction, it can have consequences that wash out far beyond our dreaming. This is a hint of the way home. And, I think, it tells me how we might engage the questions of war and peace, as well as the smaller issues of our lives such as ministerial transition.

You might notice the operant term here is giving. We need to draw out of ourselves, to extend ourselves, to live largely. I find myself thinking of those recent images of Buddhist monks silently marching in Burma, simply witnessing with their bodies, carrying nothing but religious banners and their begging bowls turned upside down, an ancient symbol of protest, protesting the junta that has ruled that poor nation so long, too long, with its iron fist.

If we really give, really give ourselves, then the clouds might part further and the way become even clearer. Perhaps we can even find a glimpse of paradise, of true peace, of truest peace. And that’s where I find myself contemplating the fourth of the Hebrew terms Tikkun olam. Tikkun olam means the repair of the world, the healing of hurt. Is this an inner healing or an outer one? I think we find an answer in Rabbi Hillel’s question: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?

At this point, I suspect, if we’re walking this way faithfully, if we are really engaging, if we notice the hurt, if we see our part in it, if we turn our lives into lives of prayer, of attention, of that mirror-like quality that is at the heart of who we, each of us, really are, we find transformation. The inner and the outer join, and what we do for one is done for all. I’ve been to this place a number of times. Sadly, I don’t always live here. But I know where it is. Perhaps you have a similar experience?

So, we face a time of war, and we face a call to consider what peace means for us. We are in a time of transition within our congregation. We are always in moments of change. I think if we look fiercely at each situation, embrace a prayerful perspective, act from heart, the ways will be revealed. Our individual choices will be more healing than hurtful. Our communal choices will reflect the deepest wisdom of our being; will be a returning home, to true peace.

A worthy project, I have no doubt.

Amen.