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© Davidson Loehr
Ian Reed
Will Boney
13 June 2004
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
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CENTERING
Ian Reed
In the presence of the power of this congregation,
In the presence of the warming chalice,
We gather here to search and to reflect,
On the beauty and power in this room.
HOMILY: Tolerance
Ian Reed
We gather here today, in this room, in front of this chalice, as a congregation of Religious liberals looking for a greater truth. And right here in front of us is one of the most powerful symbolic lesson to be found on that search, our chalice. While it’s origins as pertaining to our faith are rather spiritually empty, being more or less the winner of a glorified design contest, it still remains that the chalice is one of the most potent religious symbols for any faith. As the oldest recorded symbol for the feminine, the chalice is here to remind us of one of the most important lessons our faith yearns to teach us. That of respecting all of humanity as you respect yourself. One of our strongest principals is to respect the inerrant worth and dignity of every person. Regardless of race, sexual orientation, economic status, or religious affiliation, we have a sacred duty to respect all life, regardless of our disagreements.
The power of this symbol, the power of creation, acceptance, and nurturing, serves as a reminder to us all. This symbol is here to remind us that when we grasp those ideals of tolerance, we have the age old power of the chalice within us.. We must not think of someone’s origins, someone’s family past or religious orientation, we must only think of them as people, for they were all created just like that flame. Gently cradled, and given the spark of life to dance with. This symbol of creation is a reminder to us all that true life comes from this cradling, from this nurturing of the flame. Whether in turn the flame is oil or candle, the person Christian or Jewish, the chalice, the mother gives life to all unconditionally. This is our gift, this is our calling.
My favorite example of that is the biblical story of the good Samaritan. The story goes that there was a man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho and on his way he unfortunately encountered a band of robbers. These robbers stole all the man’s possessions and beat him to within an inch of his life. So there the poor man lay on the road, while a day’s worth of commuters pass by his way. Much time had passed after the beating when all of a sudden, a kind stranger, identified by Jesus as a friendly Samaritan took it upon himself to help the near dying man. The Samaritan took up the man, bandaged him, bathed him, took him on his back, brought him to the nearest inn, and looked after him for the rest of the day. When the kind Samaritan had to leave the next day, he left two silver pieces with the inn master for the care of the injured man, promising also to repay the innkeeper if the man’s care cost any more. The moral of this story seems to be a simple one of helping your fellow man, but it goes much deeper than that. You see, that Samaritan was not just anybody, for at the time, the Samaritan’s were waging a violent war against the Jews. Thus the lesson herein is much more profound.
Regardless of opinion, regardless of past experience, we must treat all who we encounter with the same tender care. Blood, birth, belief, neither of these truly define a person, or give any justification for harm. The beauty of this story is that it admits this folly, admits the folly of war, the stereotype that all enemies are enemies, that all soldiers are soldiers, even off the battlefield. Respecting the inerrant worth and dignity of every person is just that. We must truly be unconditional with our kindness, for not every Muslim is a terrorist, not every Baptist preaches hellfire and brimstone, not every Catholic is anachronistic, not every Christian wishes to convert us, and not every American is a violent sadist. We must see beyond the labels we create, and respect the person behind them.
The Samaritan was at war with the Jews, and yet he was able to put aside any anger, any prejudice, and simply helped a man in need. The Samaritan did not see the man as a so, as an enemy, as a threat, he just saw a man in need. This is our power as religious liberals. We have the power to see the wonderful myriad of spiritual pathways out there with an unfettered spirit, an unbound mind, and an unobstructed vision. We have no creedal right and wrong, we draw members from all spiritual pathways, from all callings, and we have a gift to see the entire world in that light. We are the Samaritan, we are not bound by thoughts of religious predestiny, of a hell or heaven, we can just see all the world, and all its myriad paths as just that. We can rightly give life to anyone, for that is our strongest calling.
Watching the world like this, without pre-existing fear, hatred, misunderstanding, is our highest good. This is the Samaritan’s true lesson. That when it comes down to every day, to our daily lives, the only thing that matters is seeing past what we are trained to see, and see the man behind the prejudice. We cannot label people by our preconceived notions. Then we become every other passerby we become the ones who let the beaten man lie in the road and die. Our thoughts do have that power. Every time you avoid a Christian because of fear of conversion, you are abandoning them, and denying them crucial companionship. Every time a stranded truck intimidates you a little too much just because of a visible confederate flag, you are denying a man the help he needs. Every time you don’t attend a dinner party with a Hasidic friend for fear of ‘unhealthy’ dinner conversation, you are leaving a good friend based on mere thoughts. We have the power to do many great things with our love, if we can only lean to give it without fear, prejudice, without hesitation. Our greatest gift as a congregation is our love, is our commitment to respecting and understanding the views of all people. If we are willing to accept the lesson of this age old story, and embrace the power of tolerance, of acceptance and understanding, we have the power to be a congregation of good Samaritans, the warmth of the life giving chalice, and when we live up to that potential, let the light of our acceptance shine, we relive that greatness, that warmth, that life saved.
HOMILY: Tolerance
Will Boney
A recent search for tolerance found an organization called Fight Hate and Promote Tolerance. This project has countless resources for someone trying to find out about tolerance. It contains countless examples of tolerance in the news: gay marriage in Massachusetts, the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, etc. And our society has taken large steps towards being a tolerant society in recent years. I recall watching Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago with my parents. For those of you who don’t know it is the story of a young lawyer, Andrew Beckett, who is fired when it becomes apparent that he has become infected with HIV and is therefore, according to the stereotypes of the time, gay. The amazing thing about the movie was the huge amount of change that has occurred with the way normal people in society view HIV and homosexuals. Instead of, as in the movie, it being difficult to find a lawyer willing to represent Beckett due to his homosexuality, the opposite would now be true. My parents and I were amazed when we realized that this movie was made in 1993, a scant 11 years ago. This increase in tolerance has shown up in a myriad of areas, too numerous mention here, from the societal classics of race, religion, etc… to the more mundane aspect of tolerating people who are different from us in our individual, everyday lives. This increase in tolerance has definitely been a good thing. Tolerance is important on two levels: first, the tolerated gain by being tolerated. By being tolerated, they can be accepted into a community and society. As social beings, this acceptance is key to many people’s happiness and self-actualization. The second benefit of tolerance is to the tolerating society on a whole. The tolerance increases the diversity of the society, which countless studies and authorities claim increases some overall quality.
But does this tolerance truly extend to everyone? The previously mentioned organization to Fight Hate and Promote Tolerance reported on many other news stories, including one regarding an ad campaign that was attacking a proposed reality show called “Amish in the City.” The news story sided with the ad campaign, but, to me, this seems the opposite of their declared position for tolerance. The attacking of the proposed show is very intolerant, and yet an organization to promote tolerance supports it. The explanation is easily understandable the show is accused of mocking the Amish, an intolerant act but this position exposes a contradiction, or at least an ambiguity in any doctrine of tolerance. There are likely to be people who do not accept tolerance in all things. How does a tolerant person deal with this? One cannot attempt to force tolerance on them because this goes against the very core idea of tolerance. There seems to be no action or inaction that can be taken by a tolerant person to end this intolerance. They must simply tolerate it. But a tolerant person cannot easily in good conscience ignore them because the intolerance is so offensive. That is one of the great challenges of tolerance: how to tolerate the intolerant.
Another huge challenge of the tolerant is to tolerate everyone. This, I believe, is the biggest obstacle to complete tolerance. Everyone has their morals and ethics; these are the rules people live by that give them guidelines for what they can do and what they can’t do. Tolerance is easy when it is an act that ones morals agree with, still easy when one finds it not too offensive. But how many of us can tolerate the things that we find the most offensive in the world? How many of us are tolerant towards murderers? Rapists? Child molesters? The list goes on. For that is the true test of tolerance: think of the most disgusting, offensive act you can and see if you can tolerate a person that commits that act with no remorse.
And is tolerance really enough? Because tolerance only means that, well, you tolerate it, that you allow it to happen around you and in your community without taking action against it. Tolerance in no way means that you like it, that you encourage it, or that you support those who you tolerate. Instead, you need only ‘grin and bear it’ for tolerance. But is this really what we want in society? A bunch of people who go around merely tolerating each other? Does that really constitute a community, or merely an assortment of people? Acceptance seems more desirable, but much more difficult to achieve. Acceptance would give us a real society, but less diversity. Although the amounts of both can increase some over time, there does seem to be a definite tradeoff between the amount of community and the amount of diversity. Which one is more important is a choice that people will have to make for themselves, but it seems as though we cannot have both.
