All beginnings are difficult

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
September 13, 2015

As some of us along with our Jewish neighbors celebrate Rosh Hashannah, the Head of the Year, we will talk about making intentions for what we would like to call into our lives this year and letting go of what no longer serves us.

Call to worship
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Sermon

This evening, one of the highest holy days of the Jewish calendar begins. It’s Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the world. I just had a birthday, and sometimes a birthday is like a little hill in the terrain, where you are up above the mundane day-to-day and you look back over there you’ve come from and look ahead to see what’s coming. You take a larger view. Sometimes it’s exciting, and sometimes you feel a bit disappointed. You thought you would be better at controlling grumpy moods by now, you thought you would have figured out how to spend relaxed time with your sister, whose outlook on the world is so very different from yours that it seems the very realities in which you live are separate from one another. And you know all of it is at least half your fault.

On the birthday of the world, our Jewish neighbors and cousins are taking time to reflect, on a holy day which lifts you above the regular terrain, getting ready for a new beginning by casting off the things which don’t work in your life, casting off the ways of being in the world which cause pain to yourself and others, your sins, asking forgiveness from people you’ve harmed.

At this holiday, in the Jewish tradition, God is suffused with mercy and grace. It’s a good time to unburden yourself of the things you’d like to go into the new year without. Most of the year, the teaching goes, we come to God like a person would go visit the king. All our best clothes and best manners, our presentation prepared, perfect, our words rehearsed. At this time of the year, they say, it’s as if the king comes walking out of the palace into the fields, and we can approach him openly, as our regular selves, and be accepted and heard.

I think it’s easier to make changes if you feel relaxed, loved, and safe. Some rigidity passes, and you can imagine more choices for yourself and your life.

In the 12 steps there are times when you “take inventory” of yourself and your life. You see what you are doing that is creative, restful, beautiful, life-affirming or constructive and you see what you do that is wrong, or just unhelpful, self-centered, anti-communitarian or apathetic. We UUs do have a sense of sin, as I’ve said before. If we throw something non-recyclable in the recycling by accident, or if we post something on FB that a friend gently suggests might be a hoax we’ve been duped by, or if we say something that hurts someone else’s feelings, or if we spell you’re “y-o-u-r” by accident. You are welcome to add your own.

These are our very mild sins. I’m avoiding the more heinous ones because this is not a fire and brimstone UU sermon and God is suffused today with mercy and grace, why should we not also be? We are good people. We mean well. We try hard.

We are called to judge ourselves clearly, but look at others with a softer gaze. Solzhenitsyn says: If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Each of you was offered a small pebble as you came into the sanctuary. Rosh Hashanah in connected with an ancient ritual called Tashlik, or “casting off.” You take a stone, or a piece of bread and toss it into some moving water. Or you just stand there and empty your pockets into the water, an old mint lifesaver covered with lint, a dime, a slip of paper with a phone number on it. Take the pebble home with you, or carry it in a pocket, worrying it with your fingers, reminded by its presence of the things about yourself you would like to cast off as a new chapter of time begins.

There is a proverb in Hebrew, kol hatchalim kashim, all beginnings are hard. The Russians say “the first pancake is always a flop.” Making changes is awkward, and as one is learning, there may be clumsiness.

This is the beginning of the church year, and with that comes the annual stewardship drive, where a big attempt is made to interview every member of the community about what part the church plays in their lives, why they’re here, and what financial commitment can they make to sustain and strengthen our church home. This effort brings in financial support, but it also provides a valuable chance for the church’s leadership to hear from its members. We try to do fund raising in a sane and almost enjoyable way, but money is a minefield of shame and questions about whether you are living our values or doing our part. You will be getting a call, and it might be hard to agree to the appointment. It might make you feel ashamed or clumsy, but I ask that you take the call, make the appointment to talk, turn your focus toward how much you value what this congregation is about here in central texas and how much you want to be part of that.

This congregation is making changes, moving more and more toward being in healthy relations, toward standing on the side of love in more and more fraught situations. We are taking the opportunity, on this day of taking inventory, to look over how this congregation is doing at fulfilling our mission. We stepped up to help Sulma Franco avoid deportation so she would have time to go through the process of getting her visa. We became the first church in TX to have offered sanctuary to an asylum-seeker since the 80’s. We got national attention, but, more than that, we had the satisfaction of being part of something that made an enormous difference in the lives of many people. Added to that, we made a new friend and are being enriched by having Sulma and Gabby involved with this community. We had the best float in the Pride parade, thanks to Bev Larkin and her helpers, and our presence there sends a good message to the Central TX community. Our being a Wildlife Habitat is paying off. We have a gray fox living on the property. Because of a bequest from the estate of Martha Leipziger, First UU offers a free breakfast on Sunday mornings, and a multigenerational community of breakfasters has formed, and the first service doesn’t seem so early. Did I go too far with that? Our music program is simply the best. We are engaging our children, passing UU values to them, strengthening them for their lives. Many of you are in small group chalice circles, and if you would like to be in one this year, please look for Mari and tell her you would like to do that They will begin sign-ups soon, so watch the announcements for that. We pay our staff fairly, according to UUA guidelines, so you are doing economic justice there as well.

There are many things First UU could do better. After the service, you are invited to have a slice of pizza and a couple of post it notes. Write on those notes what you like about what this congregation is and what it’s doing, and what you wish would improve. Real human beings will read what you wrote and take those things to heart.

Your comments after the service will be the stone I carry in my pocket, reminding me about what needs attention, what needs to be cast off, how next year can be richer, filled with comfort, transformation, nourishment and working for justice in the world.

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Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 15 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.