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It is well said, in every sense, that a man’s religion is the chief fact with regard to him. A man’s, or a nation of men’s- By religion I do not mean there the church-creed which he professes, the articles of faith which he will sign and, in words or otherwise, assert; not this wholly, in many cases not this at all… This is not what I call religion, this profession and assertion, which is often only a profession and assertion from the outworks of the man… But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. That is his religion; or, it may be, his mere skepticism and no-religion: the manner it is in which he feels himself to be spiritually related to the unseen world or no world; and I say, if you tell me what that is, you tell me to a very great extent what the man is, what the kind of things he will do is. Of a man or of a nation we inquire, therefore, first of all, what religion they had.
Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange land?
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Prayer
By Josh Smith
O creator of all things, we call to you on this day, that you may assist us to travel through these trying times. Bring to life the qualities that we possess which are needed to meet the challenges of our life. Lead us to the courage that was once present to see past the hatreds that human beings have. For however long it takes, may we obtain the endurance to succeed in a true and hopeful life. Give love to all those in need of love, give strength to all those in need of strength, and give forgiveness to all those who need to learn how to forgive.
Amen
Wrote NY Times reporter Greg Myre this past Thursday: “In this tormented city [Jerusalem] responding to terror attacks has become a grim medical specialty, and Dr. David Applebaum was known as ‘the first man on the scene.’”
Dr. Applebaum, rabbi and doctor, is internationally known as a specialist on emergency care for bombing victims. Last week near the second anniversary of the terrorists’ attacks on America, Dr. Applebaum gave a meticulous presentation to an international conference in New York City on the care given at his hospital in Jerusalem. He is called a “tzadik” by those who know him in Israel, a term used in Judaism to designate a special person with a mind and heart so expansive it breaks the limitations of our human being and reveals how we can be touched by God. This “tzadik,” this healer, returned from New York City to Jerusalem last Tuesday to give his daughter away at her wedding. This doctor Rabbi with the touch of God, the expansive heart, returned to his work binding the wounds of those who are victims of the terrorist’s bomb, the tragedy of our times hidden in the trite phrase, “being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Never has that trite phrase been as profound as it is now on the eve of the 21st century, especially to us who have lived past September 11, 2001.
The mark of rabbi or preacher in our religious tradition is, as Unitarian Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, “that he deals out to the people his life – life passed through the fire of thought.” (Divinity School Address) To do that publicly each week requires an emotional balance that last Thursday’s anniversary of September 11th betrayed. I cried Thursday. The Biblical word “wept” is a more accurate term because my body teemed with that vulnerability that accompanies the manifestation of a great grief. “By the waters, the waters of Babylon, I lay down and wept, wept for thee, humanity.”
Two years ago more than just thousands died. An epoch ended and a new one began, much like the event recalled thousands of years ago in Psalm 137. And in the early throes of this new epoch, with its ferocious uncertainty, it will be too easy to think and respond out of old ways. The concluding part of Psalm 137 was not read this morning as sacred scripture for the very reason that old voices must be supplanted by new ones: “Fair Babylon, you destroyer, happy those who pay you back the evil you have done us! Happy those who seize your children and smash them against a rock.”
Our faith tradition as Unitarian Universalists calls us to look beyond the profession and assertion an individual makes, what she recites in the way of a creed, how he mimics what his preacher said last Sunday and holds his preacher’s words as sacred writ, or the convenient and repeatable phraseologies so common used to mask one’s true faith. Our tradition calls us to pursue, in the words of Thomas Carlyle, our “vital relations to this mysterious universe, [our] duty and destiny there… the manner it is in which [we] feel [ourselves] to be spiritually related” to the seen and unseen world. Profession of creed and assertion of belief, doctrine, dogma, philosophy, or theology is not one’s faith, but at best a secondary yield to a primary relationship, as the roses we give to our beloved is symbolic of something deeper and primary. Find how you are spiritually related world in unseen ways and you will find the deepest religion a man or woman can find. This faith tradition of ours measures the depth of one’s religion and faith by two questions: “Does your life aim itself towards the expansive heart, the possibility of a love for all souls?” And, “What are the hurdles to this greater love?”
There is a complexity in human nature that yields two contradictory, yet understandable, emotions: the grief of a nation that attends great loss, as the wailing of the ancient Hebrews at the waters of Babylon; and the hate that attends retribution, generated by a nation, leading to the cry of retaliation towards Babylon’s children.
What has made it difficult for religious liberals to comprehend the challenges and opportunities of this moment in history is the way our view of human nature is so narrow. We tend to look at the grief and hatred of a nation as just larger personifications of the grief and hatred of the self. We do not consider the wider relationships and loyalties of the self. That we are not made up exclusively, and maybe not even primarily, of inner qualities, private sentiments, or interior states of mind and heart. The greater part human existence is what exists outside of the self. We cannot look at the world and our lives from behind any other façade but our own face, our own perspective. But, the world is infinitely wider and deeper “out there” than “in here.”
Late Thursday night I got up out of bed, restless, while the house was dark and quiet, and I went to our den and turned on the TV for companionship. It’s a strange companion, thoroughly modern, as close to an object objectified from me as any. The television does not respond to my presence, only to the channels I select, but I certainly respond deeply to it! Flipping through the channels I came across one where the screen was slowly scrolling names in alphabetical order. I knew personally none of the people named. There was nothing to identify why the names were being scrolled. Yet, I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to bring my flag in after putting raising it in memory of two years before. A fatigue came over me, but not the kind that compels one back to bed for the solace of a good night’s sleep. My emotional mood was plugged into a social mood existing outside of the self, but which pressed upon me.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unitarian and the bishop of the self’s possibilities, had little capacity to consider in depth human being as a social creature. His remedy for the chief social concern of his time, slavery, was education. If enough individual white men were converted to its evil, it would surely pass away!
The greatest hurdle to the prospect of an expansive heart is one that we ourselves put up. We conceive of religion and faith primarily or exclusively as an individual thing. We think of it, consider it in terms of individuals. That is also the nature of our times. We tread ever so lightly on the prospect of a nation’s faith, or a nation’s grief, or a nation’s hatred, and with so narrow a view of human nature, place a large hurdle to our understanding and to our future path.
Like you, I have known the personal grief of the loss of a loved one. The loss of someone we love confronts us with our own individual mortality; the suppressed knowledge of our connection to our own end. But the loss of an epoch in history yields, consciously or not, the terror of the loss of everything; the frightening prospect that everything that is not related to us personally, not a part of our distinctive individuality, will perish. The grief of a nation is a way of saying that all possess something whose sum is much greater than the unique and distinctive griefs and losses each individual carries. The grief of a nation is the fear that the center that holds reality together, which we know decidedly is not held together by us, will crumble. The grief of a nation is a confrontation with the end of being.
And, yet, our 20th century sensibilities know the perils of the faith of nation. The certainty of the righteousness of a nation’s cause was part of Hitler’s Germany, Hirohito’s Japan, the Soviet Union, and even our own country’s betrayals of its own ideals. We have this national grief that moves outside of us and elicits from us the deepest emotions concerning the loss of being. And we have this knowledge that the faith of a nation can blind a peoples to their own propensities towards destruction.
And, yet, we need something more. We yearn for something more. And the world is desperate for the lessening of grief and a faith larger than a nation’s self interest!
This world must needs have groups who proclaim a love for all souls and devote themselves to nurturing a spirit in the world over which death will have no dominion! This world must needs have communities devoted to enacting a larger version of human sympathy and proclaiming a larger vision for the human heart. This world must needs have religious communities who raise the example of healing, from any and all quarters, as the aim of all religion: to bind the wounds of all as a recognition that all souls are created equal and from the selfsame source.
Dr. David Applebaum, rabbi and doctor, expert on emergency procedures after terrorist bombings, who never kept hours because he was always at the hospital when victims needed him and always stayed until the last one was treated, this “tzadik” with the touch of man and God, the first one on the scene of any terrorist bombing in Jerusalem, was along with the daughter he was to give away in marriage “in the wrong place at the wrong time” this past Tuesday in a café in Jerusalem. His body and the body of his daughter were identified among the victims of a suicide bomber. A suicide bomber is a vicious symbol that the world resists the spirit of love that exists outside of us yet moves among and within us. A suicide bomber is the dark side of the spirit to which Dr. Applebaum saw his life connected. The suicide bomber shouts of a grieving despair that there is no spirit alive stronger than death. And it is only to those who see something at work larger than the self that will deliver the redemptive reply.
There is a spirit that moves among us, call it God or Allah or what you will, that is the source of life, liberty, and justice for all. There is a spirit that moves among us, that when we respond to its call, we seek the enlightenment of the moral equality of all souls. There is a spirit that moves among us that calls us out of our own skin to inhabit the place of those who are most in need. There is a spirit that moves among us that will yield a compensation for our unwillingness to extend freedom and justice to all peoples, especially those whom we refuse to call neighbor! For there is a spirit that moves among us – call it God or Allah or what you will – that is emanated from the source of all and invites every and all souls to liberate and cultivate the expansive heart which will redeem our griefs and fulfill a faith that will see this world through.
AMEN.