by Brent Gavin Was, Intern Minister

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

Friends, too much of a good thing becomes just that, too much. Take fudge. I like fudge. Most of us do. And fudge is good, right? Tastes great. Makes us feel good. It can be made from good things. But, as in everything, too much of a good thing ceases to be good. Eat a pound of fudge in one sitting and see what good can come from that. (This was certainly the most difficult part of researching this sermon.) It doesn’t feel good. I am sure that it equals 1.5 inches on the waist. Rots your teeth, bad for skin, yikes . . .

There are times when too much of a good thing can become dangerous, even more dangerous than a pound of fudge. Friends, we have too much freedom. And as with fudge, too much of a good thing becomes just that, too much.

Did I just say that? Did I just say that we have too much freedom? Friends, I am no heretic. I am concerned. I am concerned that we are going down the wrong path, sometimes. I am concerned that we have created an environment that preserves our right, our freedom to never be challenged in our beliefs, never to be questioned about what we want, what we need. I fear that we, here in this nation, and yes, in this building, we enjoy many precious freedoms, but while we can often do what we want to, there are many time that we just should not.

We must begin with the most basic question: are we free from something, or are we free to something? If we say we are free to believe what we want, free to express ourselves, free to be the good people that we can be, then bravo! But, freedom can also let us be free from responsibility for our actions, free from accountability, free from obligations to each other. There is ever the temptation to do what we want simply because we can. If our freedom makes us free of responsibility, free from community, free from sharing, we must beware.

Everything is better when shared. This is true when it comes to fudge and theology and other notions of existence. We need to share. To taste. Sample. Try things on. To give and receive on this great journey we are on. The joy of journeying is learning from those with whom we travel.

I spent several months on a 2,400-mile solo bicycle trip in Europe some years ago. Oh, the places I went. I remember some gorgeous scenery, some awesome beauty. But without a doubt, the best stretch of road I encountered was in the first week I arrived, 30 miles of unspectacular foothills in northern Spain. I was lost. Desperately lost, low on water, lower on blood sugar and even lower on Spanish vocabulary. I was alone, scared, and all I wanted to do was cry. But, before I did, I was found, delivered from that near-wilderness experience by the kindness of a passing cyclist. I don’t know his name. I can’t pronounce the town he was from. I could barely keep up with him, but this man stopped on the side of the road, and communicating only through pointing on a map, he led me home, and, I think, he led me home for 30 miles in the opposite direction of where he was going. I tried to keep up. "Andele, andele (hurry, hurry)," I think he said, me, inexperienced and struggling on my touring bike with heavy bags, he, a lithe Spaniard riding a bike lighter than the copy of Shakespeare’s complete works I romantically carried. I labored to pedal up the many, many hills. And from that vantage, from that place of not knowing where I was going, of discomfort, I pushed myself, I kept my eyes and ears open and I struggled. And on the way, I learned. I learned that cars really do stop for bikes in Spain. I learned that Spanish maps are awful. I learned a little about how to shift gears efficiently, and I learned that people are pretty wonderful. That kindness does not know language barriers. That compassion does not know cultural limitations. Learning does not require a translator, simply an openness of the body, mind and spirit.

Our journey together ended as he skidded to a halt at a crossroad and impatiently pointed north, saying "Santillana! Santiallana!" (My destination.) Breathing heavily, I caught up as he looked at his watch, looking behind schedule. I offered my sweaty hand in thanks, then I reached in my bag and handed him that bottle of wine also carried. I offered it as a gift for his kindness, a peace offering for his sure-to-be-angry wife. My leader’s hurried look vanished, and from the folds of his spandex he produced the only tool he had with him, a corkscrew. We sat for an hour on the side of the road, sharing the wine, watching the arcing sun, not speaking and being two men, not so alone in the world.

We must not close ourselves to the possibilities of other ways, other wisdoms, other approaches to the world simply because we cannot understand. More importantly, we can not survive alone. We must come together in community. And to do this, we must give up that which we hold most dear, some of our freedom.

Conventional wisdom tells us that we are the freest people in the world. Hearing the debates on the Hill this week, America is synonymous with freedom. But that has not always been my experience. Understanding my own inalienable freedom led me to believe that I did not and could not rely on anyone else. Others limited my opportunities, restricted my flexibility. I thought that people who were not willing to move on short notice, travel for weeks on end, work very long hours due to family or community obligations were foolish, or handicapped. I was free of restrictions. I was also free of meaningful human contact. I was alone. We can survive alone if we need to. But I, for one, do not want to. I have done that and it scared me. It could have killed me.

Many of you have heard a bit of my history: Marine Corps; management and sales. Now I farm, go to seminary, minister. But what brought me here to this path, when my office was once the turret of a main battle tank? Questions, friends. Looking under rocks that I did not know I had the strength to overturn. Realizing that while my privileged upbringing, my class, my years of training in the military and especially the corporate world assured me that I was the freest man in the world, I asked questions and I learned that my freedom was abridged, so restricted, so non-existent because the range of "free" choices I had was limited by convention, that darkest of the enemies of true freedom. Convention, business as usual, the "way it is" kept me from being challenged, from being asked those tough questions, from stretching my boundaries to become the man that I so needed to become.

When I worked as a medical sales rep, I had a large hospital account in New York. It was risky business, half my sales in one account. I had inherited it and did my best to keep the business. There were good people there. I worked very hard there and in spite of business, I made close friends, some of whom I am still in touch with years later.

One day while restocking after surgery, the Operating Room director came up to me and said "Brent, I have to tell you, we are not going to be able to use your surgical equipment any more. I am sorry, I know everyone likes you and all, but you know, it’s just business."

Whoosh . . . $120,000 in sales vanished. Oh, it wasn’t my hard work that vanished, it was just some sales; it wasn’t friendships compromised, it was a change of business partners; that is what this director saw. Dollars, not me. Perhaps I was naïve, but I was crushed. For me, it was personal. Humans interacted there, not dollars. I could never see past the people. "No, it is not, Dave," I said, "This is not just business. This is me, a person, who has worked hard with you and for you, has done you and your hospital right, but to save a couple of thousand dollars, ‘just business’ you will toss me out?"

Friends, there is never just business. "Just business" gets market speculators in a frenzy rewarding those who profit from the lay-off of tens of thousands in the name of efficiency. "Just business" gets us bonded auditors colluding with the very companies that they are charged with verifying independently. "Just business" lets massive corporations rape the earth, enslave millions of the world’s poorest people into sweat shops, sell unneeded drugs, dangerous food and destructive, sexually violent entertainment products to our own children. "Just business" may just get us, our sons and daughters, our friends killed in a war in Iraq. "Just business" is irresponsible freedom. Yes, we are free to act that way, but that doesn’t mean that we should.

We experience too much freedom, perhaps most clearly in economic relationships. Even troubling men such as Milton Freedman and Larry Summers, prominent neo-liberal economists, will tell you all of the predictions they make about economic behavior are made with two basic assumptions: first, we each have perfect information, and second, we each are rational actors. In short, we make sound decisions based on perfect information. Perfect information is about as common as jackalopes. And I, for one, am not a rational actor. I don’t know anyone who is. I have likes and dislikes, envy and generosity. I am loyal sometimes, and I like orange things better than blue things. Is that rational? We all do this. What too much freedom does is to allow us to act on these imperfect impulses with impunity. To satisfy our wants simply because we can. Too much freedom absolves us of responsibility, responsibility to accept each other as human beings with inherent worth and dignity, to realize that my wants are not more important than your needs, that all of our well being is intimately connected. Accepting this is not anti-business, it is pro-community. This is why we are here this morning. Here in religious

community.

I have had freedom. Lots of freedom. But this freedom, this freedom from want, a life of comfort and success came at a price. It came at a price that I thought I could bear. I was alone. Unconnected to my community (I was on the road 100 nights a year), unconnected from myself, as I rushed, hurried, filled those voids with good wine and fun; unconnected from my God. Nothing in that life told me it was okay to cry, to seek something deeper than a catalogue could provide, to be gentle, to admit vulnerability. To need anything that I could not provide for myself was forbidden for someone like me; I was alone

I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I do not want to be alone, not anymore. That is why I farm. Windy and I participate not only in the farming and civic community of Amherst, we are part of the bio-community of the land. We live in the fields, with the plants, animals (yes even those awful cutworms), we interact with the soil and trillions of microorganisms. The river and the weather matters every day. It is why I go to church. I seek a holy community, people joined by a covenant to witness our faith and act upon it, together. But that takes work, that takes sacrifice. It takes sacrifice of the most precious thing we each have, our own freedom.

We are too free when we fail to see what freedoms we enjoy, fail to see how qualified our freedoms are. We are too free when we live freely, apart from each other, apart from community. Beware the freedom of consumption, the freedom to not participate in civil society, the freedom to not be moved by suffering and hatred and injustice in our world and in the streets of Portland. I, like so many of us, was too free, and it left me hollow, it left me alone. I sought a different path. I sought community.

Two things happened to me to put me on this path. First, I accepted the love of a most precious woman whom I trust unconditionally and who believes in me. Who loves the scared, hopeful, sometimes lonely, and ever passionate man who stands before you today. I needed that. And for the first time, I let myself need that. I allowed myself a need.

And second, I created a wilderness for myself. My bicycle trip, alone for many months, in foreign lands with limited communication, undertaking a physical test that I was not ready for. Exhaustion, lack of human contact, being lost. The antithesis of community. This experience opened my eyes. Being lost, but being loved. Not being anywhere, but knowing that someone cared. Being more alone in body than ever before but more connected in spirit than I thought possible. This and since I sent a letter to the owners of my last company making some vague reference to class war, there was no going back. I had questions to ask, answers to find and freedoms to consider. Community was on the horizon. And yes, I cried a lot.

Living in community by its nature means subordinating some of our own desires, our own needs and wants for the good of the larger whole. Paying taxes is an example, or in church, sharing of our wealth through the Annual Fund Drive.

No one will be denied religious services due to inability or unwillingness to pay. But who here would deny that we should contribute if we can? We abridge our freedom of private property just a little bit for the good of our church community.

Tempering our freedom for the larger good is the key. And an open heart and mind is the route to temperance. The best way I have found to open my heart and mind is by opening my eyes and ears. Like in religion, when I read the Bible, I do so not with the critical ear of the academic or the disbelieving eye of the liberal religionist; I read with a heart full of awe. There is truth to be found that I never guessed. When I listen to an Imam at evening prayer, I feel the wonder and beauty, as I do when I sit with my Buddhist sanga, when I consider humanist philosophy, as I do when Christian friends of mine witness their deep faith in a God that I don’t quite understand, but I understand enough to know that I don’t understand enough to make a judgement.

Tempering our freedom for the betterment of the whole is truly opening our body, mind and spirit to the possibility of other ideas, other ways. It is learning how to make the judgement that we have enough, or that we must do more. If we do not sacrifice some of our own needs and wants to the larger whole, other people, other ways of being become invisible to us, as invisible as genetic pollution in our food supply, the holes in the ozone layer, the seabed scarred with unsustainable trawler fishing.

We here must sacrifice a bit of our freedom for the sake of our community, or the possibility of the home we have the power to create will be lost, here in this church, in this nation and in the world.

We strive for community and this requires sacrifice. If we fail to limit that which we most dearly love, if we forsake the whole for the sake of the one, if personal freedom exceeds the betterment of the many, we will be lost in our own excesses. Too much of a good thing, even freedom, can be just that, too much. Friends, with open hearts, open minds and open spirits we must be prepared to give up some our own individual privilege, our freedom for the vast privilege of being together, in community. Amen.

PRAYER

Dearest One, why do we make things so hard for ourselves? Please help us find a way to be together. Guide us through our own great privilege to find a common ground where we can form that blessed community which, by your grace, we have the power to sustain. Amen.

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Copyright 2002, Brent Was.  All rights reserved.