A sermon given January 28, 2001

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

OPENING WORDS

Let us come into this place of worship,

and bring our questions, our longings, our doubts.

May we find in this community a place where we can listen, and a place where we can be heard.

May we build here that beloved community,

where all are loved and all are embraced.

Come, now, and let us worship here together.

As a minister I strive to always being open to new spiritual experiences. Whatever life presents, I tell myself to be open to it and go with it. There is bound to be a lesson in all of it somewhere.

So I had to remember this when I got the call late last Friday that our guest speaker (Rev. Alma Crawford) was not going to be able to come to Portland this weekend due to a family emergency. I knew that somebody was going to need to be in the pulpit today and I knew that that someone was very likely going to be me. I rescheduled the other things I was going to do this weekend, and yes, I almost immediately knew that there would be a lesson in the experience somewhere. If I ever have the opportunity to teach at a seminary, I think it would be a good exercise to bring some students together, give them each a sermon title, and tell them they have 36 hours to prepare.

Tolerance and understanding are not things that seem to be particularly in vogue these days in our culture.

All we need to do is look at the roads, where there is plenty of aggressive driving. It frequently makes the paper and laws have even been passed to address it. I certainly perceive it when I’m on the road—both in myself and in other drivers. Seems that people are more likely to lay on the horn when they are not happy about something or to cut someone off in traffic. And then there are the cases where people are so angry that they pull out a gun, or do something else that is threatening.

For myself, I know there are a number of things that make me mad, like the increasing popularity of cell phones, and the subsequent use of such cell phones in the car. It drives me nuts when the light turns green and the person in front of me just sits there on the phone, or when I see a car weaving in a lane and then see someone on the phone.

There are more people on the roads and therefore it takes longer to get somewhere. And predicting when traffic will be slow is more and more unpredictable. And all of this is complicated by the fact that most of us are in more and more of a hurry.

These are all a part of it, but a factor that underlies the issue is a perceived decrease in our level of tolerance and respect for others. The first priority is to get what we want and the consequences for others does not seem to be a priority. It happens on the road, and in other places.

In the political arena, the discourse does not seem to be as civil as it once was. The results of the presidential election seem to be the latest chapter in the growing partisanship in our country. The goal doesn’t seem to be the common good as much as it is to see that the other guy loses and I win. Instead of listening across the lines of debate, it is better to put labels on our opponents and paint them into a corner and then attack. If you are defined by your opponent, it can be very difficult to get out of the box.

Last week, I heard that a respected moderate Democrat was leaving Congress to spend more time with his family. He cited the partisan rancor in Congress and how it makes it difficult to get things done, and how it keeps getting worse and worse. That is a loss, the moderates may be the people who are most needed in the debate.

Tolerance of differing views is certainly something we are taught to strive for in a democracy. It is the foundation for how we are to get along and how our society is able to govern and maintain the order.

In the small town in Wisconsin where I grew up, the lines of tolerance were pretty clearly drawn. There was the Catholic church and the Lutheran church. They were about a block apart, but clearly much further apart when it came to a willingness to engage in much of a dialogue. The only times Lutherans would set foot in the Catholic church, and vice versa, was when there was a wedding or a memorial. For some, including my parents, even weddings were a little questionable. Depending upon how close you were to the family, it may be they would just go to the reception, and not the wedding in the church.

It’s interesting that funerals were the most permissible events to attend. Somehow we knew, apparently, at the time of death, people needed to come together and religion was not as big a factor. Tolerance, if not agreement on such important issues, was the way to maintain the established order. It was central to the life of the community. It has, throughout time, been considered an important part of our civil society.

As Unitarian Universalists, we have historically prided ourselves on our tolerance. We don’t have to agree about everything in order to be together in community. We can celebrate not only the things we have in common, but even those beliefs we don’t share. The key is that we respect each other for the differences and can be together in community as long as that respect is present.

Now, tolerance seems pretty basic for us, but it is not such an easy thing to do. Believing something and acting on that belief can be a very different thing. And how it actually plays out in a community may not be what we would expect.

A minister colleague tells the story of being a speaker at a UU summer conference one year. She was doing a series of talks on various theological positions including theism, atheism and agnosticism, among others. Each day there was a theme talk followed by a workshop to discuss the topic for those who were interested. At the first day’s workshop, on theism, there was a young woman present who tearfully told the group how she was a theist, but how her own UU congregation was all atheist, so she kept quiet about it, for fear they'd all tell her to try the Baptist Church down the street. She talked about how much this need to keep quiet hurt her. It hurt a lot, she said, but she didn't know what else to do.

The following day, the workshop was on atheism, and the young woman was not present, having chosen to go to another workshop that day. But an older man was there, and he complained bitterly about how he was the only atheist in his congregation, they were all theists, and how he kept his mouth shut, because if he didn't they'd all send him to the Ethical Culture Society down the street. He was very angry about being the only atheist, and about how damned theist all the rest of them were, and how he never dared open his mouth.

After the workshop, the colleague was taken aside by another colleague who served as a District Executive. "You know that woman who was the theist yesterday, and that guy who was the atheist today?" he asked. "Yeah," she said. "Well, the joke is they both belong to exactly the same UU congregation." And indeed they were. They belonged to the same congregation.

For starters I hope the two of them were able, at some point, to sit down and talk. But I fear that may not happen. Sometimes, no matter how much we talk about tolerance, achieving it may be a much bigger challenge. Before we can even get to much of a place for discussion on tolerance, we have to feel secure enough to see beyond our own needs and open ourselves to what is happening for the person next to us.

Now, I should probably acknowledge at this point that I have always struggled some with the word tolerance. To tolerate something is certainly not to embrace it. It has meant to me more a sense of putting up with—we plug our noses and accept someone no matter what it is they are saying, or how off-the-wall it might be.

In the act of acceptance, it seems, we give someone the right to speak, but we don’t necessarily hear them. We don’t so much come into the relationship intending to hear someone and come to know them so much as wanting to pat ourselves on the back for being so open. We are so open that we will let someone have their say, no matter what.

And if this is what tolerance means for us, we can see ourselves as somehow above others in the very act of listening. There can be an inherent arrogance here. I’m so open and accepting that I’m here willing to listen to this person. Note the emphasis on self and not on someone else or something larger. Tolerance is not such an easy thing.

It seems that tolerance, at its best, is just the starting place. That is where the real challenge begins. We are asked to not only let others have their say, but to have our own beliefs and assumptions challenged in the process.

When we are with others who may not agree with us, it may be uncomfortable, and it may be we don’t even want to go there. Better to just not say anything than to risk things being uncomfortable. But the discomfort is probably the very sign we need to pay attention to. It is probably a sign that we are pushing up against our edges. When we meet someone we don’t agree with, that person calls us to look at exactly what it is we believe and why.

And that may not be something we’re ready to do. Tolerance at its best is an openness to be with someone, opening ourselves to listening, and finding an opportunity to grow ourselves.

But that all takes work and patience. It is often a lot easier to make assumptions about people who we perceive as different. It can happen not only in the religious realm, but in other realms as well.

If someone is a Democrat, then they must be x, y and z.

If someone is a Republican, they must be x, y and z.

You can go down the list of categories that we put ourselves and others into. And if we are able to listen, what we quickly learn is that the categories are not as universal as we might like. Not all Republicans are anti-abortion and not all Democrats are pro-choice. Not all gay people are Democrats. Not all Unitarian Universalists are liberal or humanist or theist or college-educated.

It becomes clear that we are more varied than we might think and the categories we might want to put people in are not as easy as we would like them to be. I learn just about every day that people in the church may not fit into the categories I have assigned them to be in. I’m amazed sometimes at the diversity I discover. And it challenges my assumptions.

In our much-valued tolerance, we have to be constantly open to having that tolerance challenged. If it leads to self-righteousness about one thing or another, chances are we may not be as tolerant of others as we might think.

And this calls us to do some hard work. We are called to listen, to be open to what we can learn. And it calls us to discern where we stand on things and how we got there.

When we find that we are about to point our fingers in the direction of somebody else, it is probably a sign that we need to first look to see if we are really pointing to ourselves.

Not everyone believes the way we do and we are asked to be OK with that.

This is a lesson that I find myself coming up against several times a day—and those are just the times when I’m at least a little bit aware of what I’m doing. When I feel discomfort, I’m coming up against my edges.

Now, there is a limit for each one of us as to how open we’re going to be with someone who has different views than our own. If the other person’s views are not respectful of us, it makes it pretty hard to have a conversation, and chances are we are not going to get very far. In this case, it probably just is not going to happen. For each of us, it is an ongoing discernment process, where we find our limits. But knowing who we are, we also get more clear on what we are not. And this is good. Our challenge is to be always open.

Life presents us with many opportunities to grow. It is human to want to point out things in others before we are able to see them in ourselves. The "ah-ha" moment comes when we can see something in another and can also see it in ourselves. In this moment we come to some understanding and are also aware of how that person bringing the lesson is both different from us but also like us. It brings the awareness that we are connected. If we see something we don’t want to see in ourselves, the act of seeing it in others makes it universal, and therefore allows us to see it in a new context. Now this is certainly not the easiest path—it is very difficult indeed—but it may be the one that helps us find a meaning we could not have otherwise anticipated. And when we have disagreements with someone, we move from a stronger place by knowing who we are and what we believe.

The world is a dynamic, changing place. It points to a world that is not static, but moving, one that is evolving because we are evolving. As we grow and change this world we are in grows and changes with us. There are divisions in this world, and as we are able to embrace those divisions, the world, also, moves closer to doing that.

For there to be a coming together and an atmosphere of listening, there needs to be a foundation of trust. If that is not present, then we will always be looking first for who is out there against us, and we will see ourselves as alone and isolated, and not connected.

The writer Nora Gallagher tells of a day she was working at a soup kitchen in an Episcopal church and how the day was not going very well. Her stomach hurt, she had a flat tire on her way to the kitchen and as soon as she got in, she was told to deal with a woman who was in the ladies room and threatening people. It was one of those days where one thing after another seemed to go wrong and she found herself at her limit. The last straw came when the soup was being served. A small, red-haired woman walked up to the servers from the Presbyterian church and yelled obscenities at them. The woman left as soon as she was approached by staff members, but then paused at the outside door. Gallagher walked up to meet her and the woman started ranting.

"Do you know who I am? I have a resume in my suitcase. I’m somebody; I’m not homeless. I have a nice place. Did you hear what she said to me?"

Gallagher writes that in a flash, she heard her own words—she was furious, helpless, outraged—at the events of the day. "Do you know who I am?" was something she suddenly felt both for herself and for the woman.

Gallagher said to the woman, "You feel offended and insulted. I know just how you feel."

And the woman’s eyes bugged out. She said, "I feel offended and insulted," as if tasting the words on her tongue. "Yes, I do." Then she said, "They won’t let me have dessert here."

 "I’ll make sure you have dessert."

"Thank you," she said.

"Thank you for coming to lunch," Gallagher says.

They shook hands.

It is in those moments when we see ourselves in others and we see others in us. For a moment we are not isolated from them but connected. As we make that connection, we see ourselves but we are also able to see the other.

And as we are able to listen to and see that other, we go from tolerance to something much more. We find the potential for communion.

It comes when we are able to open. It comes when we are able to trust and to be grounded in who we are. It comes when we are in a place where it is OK to make mistakes. It comes when we are able to listen.

And it is never easy. It is most always a challenge. And sometimes it may take more energy than we want to give.

The 17^th century writer John Bunyan said: "(We) are like the several flowers in the garden, that have upon each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall their dew at each other’s roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become the nourishers of each other."

The universe continues to unfold every day, in every moment, and we are part of that continuing unfolding, that continuing evolution. As we grow and change, so does the universe, in ways, we can only attempt to understand.

And as we come to know others, we also come to know ourselves.

I had nothing

better to do

than listen.

Said the poet in our reading this morning.

I mean this

seriously.

In our lives, on the road, in the church, in the office, let us take seriously the listening we are called to do. May our listening take us beyond our assumptions. May that listening bring us to communion with others, with ourselves, with the ground of our being. May it lead us to action. May that listening nourish us and keep us in all of our days. Amen.

Let us pray.

PRAYER

Spirit of life, we give thanks for this day and all the lessons life holds for us. Help us to acknowledge and celebrate all the goodness and beauty in our midst. Help us to pay attention, to notice those around us, to see them for who they are. May we have the courage to walk in another person’s shoes. May we laugh at ourselves, and may others always be there to walk with us. Help us to face injustice without fear, grounded in who we are. We ask this in the name of all we hold sacred. Amen.

BENEDICTION

Let your light shine, and may you ring that love into the world. Go in love and go in peace.

Copyright 2001, by Rev. Thomas Disrud.  All rights reserved.