Spring Ground
Rev. Linda Simmons
March 29, 15
This is the time of lent for Christians. Some of us remember lent as a time ashes
were rubbed on our foreheads and we were encouraged to give things up. I
remember giving up candy and calling my sister names one year, both still worthy of
giving up today! Many still do refrain from various consumptions. Some of my UU
friends give up alcohol, facebook, sweets, TV. The call to discipline is one that many
of us respond to as it can open up unexpected places that might then fill with
revelations or realizations that have meaning for us.
This reminds me of a Lenten Prayer
"So far today, God, I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, I haven't lost my temper.
Haven't been grumpy, nasty or selfish. I'm really glad of that.
But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed; and from then on, I'm
probably going to need a lot of help."
Wondering what lent might mean today to us, I went to the Christian bible to see
from whence this tradition comes.
From Matthew 4:1-11
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3
The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to
become bread.”
4 Jesus
answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every
word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
5 Then
the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of
the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is
written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
7 Jesus
answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
8 Again,
the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the
kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you
will bow down and worship me.”
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10 Jesus
said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your
God, and serve him only.’ ”
11 Then
the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
From these words, it is clear where self denial as a lenten practice came but I think
there I so much more available here.
When Gary and I were at the Trappist Monestary, I read a book of Fr. Martin Laird’s
called A Sunlit Absence about contemplation as a way to love of self and all others
and the holy, and we were treated as retreatants to a video of Fr. Laird speaking.
He spoke about the desert fathers who were Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks
who lived mainly in the desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. Fr.
Martin told us of their translation of what happened to Jesus in those 40 days in the
desert.
The desert fathers write that Jesus was able to resist the devil because he never
responded to him. Rather, Jesus quoted scripture to each of the devil’s requests,
Hebrew scripture of course. Laird’s point was that non-reactiveness give us the
space to remain true to ourselves.
I find something else compelling here too.
In this story of Jesus in the desert, his quoting of the Hebrew Scriptures reminded
him of who he was, A Jew, connected to other Jews by a sacred story. Through the
scriptures Jesus stated again and again, I belong to a people that have a story, an
understanding of what matters, a knowledge of from where we come and to where
we are going. This story, in my reading, and Jesus’ responses show me the
importance of naming oneself as connected to something bigger than self. Jesus
named himself as a Jew who lived in an ancient story of community, faith, discipline
and love.
I think we all long for this, to be part of something bigger than ourselves that calls us
to community, faith and love, that gives us the courage to remain true to who we
are. Does Unitarian Universalism have the strength, the history, the meaningfulness
to call us to this?
I was recently on the Faith and Immigration Panel here on island that was convened
after we read Enrique’s Journey in our One Book/One Island project. I was on the
panel with 3 others, who immigrated here; some were citizens and others were in
the process of becoming citizens. It was a humbling experience. My good friend and
fellow activist with whom I have done a lot of work to make conditions for our J-1
Visa workers on our island better, Tom Ryan, who is a liturgist at St. Mary’s and an x
catholic priest, moderated the panel.
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Tom asked each of us how faith was part of our understanding of immigration. The 3
panelists of color told their personal stories, how they came to be here, what their
struggles were, how their Christianity, which they all shared, made a difference to
them.
They led the conversation into a discussion among themselves about what they felt
were moral and immoral ways to obtain citizenship.
They mentioned that some marry to become citizens. A few panelists had been
offered that option. They all agreed this was not what Jesus would want for them;
that they had to be true to who they were and what they loved and not pretend to be
another in order to obtain citizenship because in their reading Jesus never
pretended to be another, never took the easy way out.
One spoke of an offer to pay another who promised to get papers in one way or
another and they again agreed that Jesus would not approve, that their
interpretation of Christianity and the way Jesus lived his life insisted that only
through their own merit, effort and faith must citizenship be obtained.
I was so moved by this. I am not sure if I faced deportation, especially if it meant
separation from my children, if I could resist the temptation to marry or pay for
papers in order to stay.
What struck me is that these folk knew to whom they belong, they knew the story
that binds them, they knew how to lean into this story in a way that gave them
strength and courage, unity and individuality both.
And so for lent, I thought rather than focusing on giving something up, what if we
agreed to take something on? What if we decided to live into a different one of our
principles each week and started with the inherent worth and dignity of all beings?
What would that mean? What would that call us to? How would it help us discern to
whom we belonged and what it meant to live each day here?
Ben Franklin had a list of principles he tried to live by not so dissimilar to ours,
though it is a list a bit longer than ours and a bit more prescriptive. He listed 13
Virtues:
1. TEMPERANCE
2. SILENCE
3. ORDER
4. RESOLUTION
5. FRUGALITY
6. INDUSTRY
7. SINCERITY
8. JUSTICE
9. MODERATION
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10. CLEANLINESS
11.TRANQUILLITY
12. CHASTITY (which Franklin meant not abstence but as sex never used as he
writes, “To the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.”)
13. HUMILITY
Franklin wrote: “My list of virtues contain'd at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend
having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride
show'd itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the
right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which
he convinc'd me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring to
cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my
list.”
Franklin tried to integrate these virtues into his life. I think our 7 principles are a tad
easier to live by, if only because they allow us some freedom of interpretation. But it
can be this freedom, the universality of our principles, that make them hard to apply
to daily life.
But let me push on this a bit.
What does the inherent worth and dignity of all people or beings as it might soon be
amended to say, or our 6th principle: The goal of world community with peace,
liberty and justice for all, ask of us in terms of how we respond to our neighbors and
fellow islanders who are immigrants, documented or undocumented?
When is the last time at a dinner table we were inspired to say, “As a UU who
practices the principle of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all, I
do not support the deportation or detaining of children who come here from central
America. Or, As a UU who believes in the inherent worth and dignity of all people, I
support Obama’s Immigration Reform that would grant those who are parents of
American citizens and do not have a criminal record or who have been here since
they were 16- a 3 year deferred deportation.
Our Catholic brothers and sisters work hard for immigration reform. They have
hired immigration lawyers to help those seeking citizenship. They have a website
called, Make Immigration Reform your Lenten Promise.
The call to this Lenten Action includes saying a prayer for a member of congress for
40 days that they might come to understand the inherent worth and dignity of
immigrants and then calling each one of them. They are also fasting in a program
called, Fast for Citizenship: The Moral Obligation to Pass Immigration Reform.
The story of their faith and the way they interpret what this asks of them, calls them
to a common action, to taking a stand that they see as part of who they are called to
be.
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The story of our faith calls us too. Unitarians throughout history have stood for the
rights of others who could not stand for themselves. Our principles call us to renew
our sense of connectedness.
We share this sense of the interconnection with the Catholics as they state in their
Ash Wednesday liturgy, Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. As
Unitarian Universalists, we often affirm that we are all made of the same stuff, that
we have all come from the same stardust and to stardust we return. We affirm that
we are connected, each of us to one another, to this earth, to this moment in time
and that our principles call us to live out this connection with our lives.
This reminds me of a story of a little boy came home from an Ash Wednesday
service and went into his room to change his clothes. When he emerged he asked his
mother, "Is it true we come from dust?" "Yes dear," replied mother.
"Is it true that when we die we go back to the dust?" "Yes dear, that's right." The
little boy ran into his room and came out all excited, "Mom, I just looked under my
bed and there's someone either coming or going!"
Enrique’s Journey, our one book/one island read, is about a young man who came
from Honduras to the US in search of his mother. The writer Sonia Nazario when
asked how to address immigration said that it is not only immigration reform in this
country that needs to change but that we have a responsibility to contribute to the
stability of countries that US policies have contributed to destabilizing.
Honduras now has the highest per capita murder rate in the world and its capital
city, Tegucigalpa, is plagued by violence, poverty, homelessness and sexual assaults.
Gangs have more clout than the government. These gangs are trafficking cocaine to
the United States, the world’s largest consumer of cocaine where more than 1.5
million use cocaine.
Many Hondurans flee to ride on top of those trains we read about in Enrique’s
Journey, to escape this violence where children are made to enter gangs under the
threat of death, families are split up, schooling is all but impossible. Honduras is also
one of the poorest countries in the world. The average earnings are $180 per month.
I spoke to some Dominican sisters who live in Massachusetts who have a mission in
Honduras which includes a high school for young women, a medical clinic and an
organic farm in Guaimaca. The sisters explained to me that everything they do is to
increase the common good. They teach 75 girls, who have so little to look forward to
in Honduras, how to respect themselves and others, how to honor their worth and
dignity. Their medical clinics, one in Guaimaca and the other in Tegucigalpa, the
most dangerous city in the world, serve whoever comes to them free of charge. The
sisters told me that they are not afraid. They told me that they are not because they
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take care of those around them and those around them then offer them their care
and protection.
In liaison with grassroots nantucket, I have invited one of the sisters who work at
this Honduran mission to come to speak to us in the late spring about how we might
be of use. I will let you know more about that as it unfolds.
Also, once a month we will have a 1.5 hour Spanish class at the parsonage to begin in
May on the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month from 5-6:30pm led by Angelica Lemus
de Delgado and we will also meet once a month for a Spanish/English conversation
group in the fall, once we have some proficiency under our belts, speaking for half
an hour in Spanish only, a half hour in English only. We are hoping that in this way
we might become better neighbors, allies and friends. The information session for
our Spanish group is on April 24th.
We will have some flyers and more information about the classes to you soon. We
hope that many of you will join us.
Today is Palm Sunday. It is a celebration of Jesus entering Jerusalem. The story goes
that folks welcomed him, haling him as the savior and waved palms as he entered
the city gates.
The palms I offer us today are offered in celebration of this story we live together,
here and now, and to this revelation that is our lives, to our commitment to peace, to
community, to equality, to raising our voices as a people long known as justice
seekers.
And these are special palms. A little over 30 years ago when some of the Hmong
people from Cambodia settled in Providence and in the Brockton area, Tally’s, a
store for liturgical supplies on the Cape, hired many Hmong families who bring the
palms to their homes and prepare them into the strips that we see here.
Let’s let our palm Sunday be about showing up for each other, recognizing our
connection, celebrating the birth of the prophet within each of us that knows the
way to justice and compassion when we walk together toward peace.
Please come forward while Diane plays for us and take a palm of peace.
Amen
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