Going Your Own Way - A Sermon Delivered at First Unitarian Church, Providence, RI

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

 ³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22: 36-40, New International Version

When we discussed the theme of the summer services earlier this year, I started thinking about my own personal epiphanies in life. Two immediately came to mind. The first came when I was about 5 years old in Sunday School. I know I was about 5 years old because the teacher was Mrs. Toll, and she had been the preschool teacher since sometime around the flood and probably still is. I remember one Sunday, Mrs. Toll was telling us that God knows everything we do and in fact knows everything we ever will do.  I remember starting to argue with her because my five year old mind knew that that just didn’t make any sense. I also remember not giving up the argument until, in exasperation, Mrs. Toll asked me to say grace for the cookies and juice in an attempt to get me to stop. It worked. I used to think that this story was something that I’d invented over time in my own memory based on some fragment of truth, but having now experienced the uncanny wisdom and amazingly strong five year old will power of my own two children, this could very well be a true story.

But the second epiphany of my life came some 13 years later in my senior year of high school. Again I was in church, but this time in a less structured setting. It was after services and my good friend Sonia and I were talking theology while we waited for some other meeting or event of some sort.  The topic was salvation and I took the position that salvation was based on what we do in life, I guess I shared the belief in the power of those damnable good works that got this congregations first pastor in trouble.  But Sonia countered that salvation was based on faith alone and quoted me scripture to back it up. I can’t remember for certain, but she probably used this one from John 3: 18, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” I find this one interesting because it falls so close to that other more famous bit of scripture, John 3:16 that you find spray painted on walls from time to time.

This took me completely by surprise. I know I had heard this theological position before, but I didn’t expect to hear it coming from Sonia’s mouth. By this time I had been accepted to a good regional liberal arts college, but Sonia had been accepted to William College. Sonia was fluent in English and French, took AP everything. Sonia was smart. Sonia was much smarter than I was. And yet she held this view of salvation. And that is where I had my epiphany. It wasn’t anything to do with salvation or theology at all, but instead it was about me: I’m not a Christian.

Now this was a tough thing for me. My grandfather had been an ordained minister for 50 years. My parents met in seminary and both were ordained ministers. I was actually serving a two year term on the Youth Leadership Council of the national church organization and I was considering being a third generation minister myself. How could I not be a Christian.

So over the years I’ve spent considerable time thinking about what exactly I believe. I’ve tried to not be a Christian. I’ve tried to be Episcopal. My wife Laura grew up Roman Catholic and we had a Catholic wedding, so I’ve experienced that even if I didn’t really try to be Catholic. But I find that I still want to be a Christian. I’ve gone through periods of going back to the earliest Christian writings trying to figure out what the original church was all about and if the modern church had it wrong. The answer, by the way, is they both had and still have it wrong. From St. Paul to Jerry Falwell, they have all got it wrong. Well, Paul had some good stuff in there, but I think he took things off in generally the wrong direction. But that’s just me.

But after all this reflection and study, I have to ask myself why I want this? Why do I want to be a Christian when, objectively speaking, I don’t believe in much of what Christians have believed for the past several hundred years?

I don’t believe in heaven and hell, so the notion of eternal salvation is pretty much off the table for me as a motivation. Salvation for me is the salvation that I need every day here on earth for my own weaknesses. I don’t believe in God as some large man on a cloudy throne as depicted by Monty Python. And I’m fairly certain that Jesus was a slightly crazy man who had some really good nuggets of truth and a generally kind soul. But this doesn’t sound like a typical Christian.

So why do I want this?

Well Christmas sure is fun. Gifts, food, decorations. I love it all. I love my own family traditions, from the hand knit stockings that my mother made to homemade Pizza for Christmas dinner (OK, that tradition is only about 20 years old, but 20 years encompassing three generations is a good run). I’ve loved Christmas in Germany with all the Christmas markets, mulled wine, and sausages grilled out in the cold. What’s not to love about that.

Easter is fun too. I mean really, who can argue with all that candy and the fun hats and the fresh colors after a long winter? It’s not as fun as Christmas, but I like it just the same.

But these are just a few weeks out of the year. These holidays can’t be what keeps nagging at my soul asking me to be a Christian.

So why do I want this?

Perhaps if I lived in Europe where hardly anyone is openly Christian and they certainly don’t bring it into their politics, I wouldn’t care and I’d be a happy atheist. But I don’t. I live in the United States. I live in Rhode Island where during the debate on Civil Unions, Senator Metts said on the Senate floor that “…his concern is about rights vs sins…” and that “…he can't support the legislation because the bible is being marginalized.” These quotes are from the MERI facebook news feed. 

And while my current beliefs are far from the beliefs of my youth, those youthful beliefs are even further from Senator Metts’ backward and bigoted beliefs. While I may have unorthodox Christian beliefs, I think Senator Metts has taken Christian beliefs and perverted them in a hateful and despicable way.

But Metts is just a recent example of a problem I’ve had with Christianity for a long while. It seems every time I’ve tried to find a spiritual home in a Christian church, I’ve found some person to wants to damn someone else, sometimes me, for beliefs or actions that they don’t agree with. I don’t like damnation. I can’t believe that the God of Love would every give up on anyone. Let’s face it, eternity is an awful long time to spend for transgressions that are but a blink of the eye in the grand scheme. So when people start talking about damnation and sin, I get very uncomfortable.

So this may be part of my answer. I don’t want the hateful people claiming what Christianity is. Here I think of my grandfather. As I mentioned before, my grandfather, my mom’s dad, was a pastor for 50 years serving in churches in Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas, which in the 1920’s and 30’s was still the Wild West. I’m lucky to have a copy of his memoirs and some other stories that didn’t make it into print about his life in the ministry. One of my favorite stories is about the day he got a visit from a group of Klansmen in full robe and hood complaining that he was baptizing black people. When he wouldn’t give in to their demands he found that someone had put rat poison in his water glass that he always had in the pulpit on Sunday morning. He didn’t let them define who could be a Christian. Why should I let some senator use some perverted vision of Christianity to deny civil rights to some of my larger human family or some other bigot spew hate and violence against this or that group? 

But I also want to be part of the conversation in our society. I find that when I’m outside a UU context, speaking as a Christian allows me to be heard in ways that I wouldn’t be heard if I didn’t identify as a Christian. That seems selfish and insincere in a way, but I feel I need that connection to the larger community that I belong to. Perhaps I would adopt a more Muslim perspective if I lived in a Muslim society. Perhaps that makes me a bit of a moral coward, but there I am.

But there is still something compelling in my picture of Christianity that I’ve found that draws me home: The Kingdom of God. This is the nugget of Christianity that I’ve taken from my youth and made into something that works for me. I sincerely believe that the essential message of Jesus was that the Kingdom of God is here before us even if we can’t see it. Our job is to try to see it, enter it, expand it, and welcome others to it. It’s not some mystical alternate plane of existence or Heaven on Earth, it’s simply living those two commandments from the reading: “Love God with everything you’ve got, love your neighbor as yourself.”

That is where those damnable good works come into play. It’s not really enough to say “I love you.” I have to get out there and do things to try to make things better. They can be little things, like moving food from the basement to the distribution room on food pantry days, or writing a letter to a representative or senator. They can be larger things also, like spending a day at a Habitat for Humanity building project. They could be much larger things, but I’ve got kids, so I’m trying to avoid those for the time being. It doesn’t really matter. By accepting others and helping them get by, helping them become the fullness of who they are, I enter the Kingdom and perhaps bring others me, if only for a short while. That is my salvation.

I personally don’t need the mystical trappings of traditional Christianity, but I recognize that others do, and that’s fine. I have to admit that I do like the high church experience with the color, the drone of the congregation speaking as one in the creed, the incense, and the procession of the Bible and the Cross (remember, I did say that I tried to be Episcopal for a time). I understand that some people need the comfort of their belief in an afterlife. I’m happy for them to have it as long as we both can remember that shared foundation: Love for our neighbor.

I also recognize that other traditions take different approaches, but they boil down to the same core. Muslims talk about submission to Allah. But submission means taking care of the widows, orphans, and the poor. Sounds a lot like my Kingdom of God. Buddhists speak of compassion and the alleviation of suffering. Again, it sounds like love and good works.

And so I identify as a Christian Unitarian Universalist: Not very mystical and focused on Love and making it real and manifest. And while I might occasionally long for some stained glass, I love my spiritual home here where I can be an unorthodox Christian and work toward what is important to me and what I think is important to God: spreading love and making things better.

An Open Letter to the Spaniards

Dear Spaniards,

I have no idea who you are. The only reason I know you exist at all is a brief mention in court by the judge: "You are aware that a Spanish couple petitioned to adopt the child and then rejected her?" Was it that harsh in the judges own words or just in translation? Was it that harsh in real life?

When we got a picture of her in our referral package there was not an instantaneous feeling of "this is my child." I must admit it was closer to, "oh, my. She looks so angry." And our first visit with her at the orphanage supported that first impression, so I suppose I can understand why you decided not to adopt her.

But....

How could you turn your back on this child? Were you insane? Really? I mean what a woman she will be. Did you pay any attention to her spirit? She is fierce. She is strong. She will not yield. She is amazing!

That first visit in the mid-spring of 2007 was interesting. We brought two things with us other than our camera: a little black stuffed dog and some blocks. The dog was for her to play with, the blocks were for us to test her - how was her development? We played stack the blocks, which she did, but she also chose to throw the blocks at my head, and she had good aim for a 15 month-old - and power!

Did you do this too, Spaniards? Did it frighten you?

We also walked. She wouldn't hold hands and insisted on walking where she wanted to go, which was back to her play group. Over and over we had to turn her around and try to interact with her. But she had her own ideas and the most determined look on her face. Perhaps the anger in the photo wasn't anger after all, but was simply determination to get back to what she wanted to do.

Did she do this to you too, Spaniards? Did you fear you couldn't control her? You couldn't. God knows I can't.

We could have rejected her then and there also. But there was something there that let us see past the anger and the sores on her head from the infections and parasites: She had spunk. Nobody is going to tell this girl what she can't do. Nobody is going to hold her back from her dreams. I hope she will let me guide her, but I know I'll never be able to set her destination.

She is my daughter. From that first day until the end of time. How could she not be?

And even on days like today, when she screams and stomps her feet insisting on wearing the same dirty clothes that she wore the day before, I sit back and smile at her power. I also remember that she was rejected twice before we came to her and realize that she is wounded with a deep fear and may always wonder when the other shoe will drop. I hate you for that, Spaniards, I really do. How could you have hurt her like that?

So tonight, I will snuggle with her and listen to stories of her day and tell her my stories and let her know that she was my choice and that I will continue to choose her as part of my family again today. And tomorrow. And every day forward.

And that is why, dear Spaniards, I thank God each and every day for your lack of vision, your fear. Without that, she wouldn't be here to frustrate me to the edge of my sanity and thrill me with the joy of her being. She is my daughter, not yours, and I am grateful.

Ghost in the Driveway

We moved from California 15 years ago, long enough that we no longer think of travelling there as going home. But travel there we do, usually twice a year for each of those 15 years. It's always a delicate dance balancing the two sides of our family, but due to my wife's parents location to LAX, we always stay there the day before we leave. Every time we leave, even if that means leaving the house at 10:00 pm to catch a red-eye, or leaving at 4:00 am for an early flight, my mother-in-law would always walk us out the door and wave to us from the driveway. On some of those early departures she would tell us that she would say goodbye the night before because we were leaving too early for her to get out of bed. But every time, even if she was in a housecoat and slippers, she would wave to us from the driveway.

But last week we said our goodbyes to her and put her to rest beside her loving husband of 52 years. The vigil, funeral, and graveside ceremonies were difficult but as family and friends gathered at the house for food and recitations of fond memories, it seemed that the worst was past. Having done this before with my father-in-law and my own grandparents, I knew that grief comes in waves that rarely end at the graveside, but I wasn't expecting such a big one when we left the house yesterday for that 6:30 am flight.

There was plenty of rushing around the night before and even the morning of as we tried to get out of the house. We got the kids all loaded up and I pulled the rental care out of the drive and waited for my wife to close the gate. I looked up and expected Nadine to be there waving goodbye, but she wasn't there. I realized that she never will be again. The grief hit me new and hard. Much of the grief I had felt earlier in the week had been empathy with my wife and children. This wave of grief was for me and it hurt - still hurts.

Goodbye, Nadine.