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Rev. Mark Skrabacz

August 29, 2010

Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have Dream Speech.” He gave his soul-stirring message to 200,000 on the Washington Mall in what has been called the crowning moment of the Civil Rights Movement. It was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.

I suppose you know that yesterday Fox Network Commentator Glenn Beck held a Tea Party Rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Beck says Christians should leave their social justice churches. He says social justice is a code word for communism and nazism. I don’t know if Beck is just strange, or just trying to be controversial, or just trying to make money. But in any case, what he has said attacks the very heart of Dr. King’s message and of the Christian faith, and I wonder how many Christians will express their faith by no longer watching his show, and even decrying his rally, since Beck denies one of the central teachings of the Bible, and Jesus and Dr. King — that of social justice.

Of course Unitarian Universalism is largely a social justice advocacy movement. The fact that we meet as a church and in a church building just might cause many of our neighbors to wonder exactly what it is our church believes. No doubt some of us have searched for ways to express our UU experiences and, hence, I continue to speak about our roots, practices and understandings. No doubt our UU views can appear as disperate as the contrast between Dr. King and Glenn Beck. Today, I’m going to entertain the notion of a controversial topic, that of salvation, salvation from a UU View.

Are you saved? This is a question that is usually only asked by evangelical Christians. What, if anything, might a Unitarian Universalist answer?

If we’re feeling facetious we might be tempted to respond with something like this, “Saved from what? or Saved for what? or Saved by whom, or what? ” But those answers might end the conversation. And if, like me, you believe that Unitarian Universalism has something marvelous to offer a tired and troubled world, you might want the conversation to continue. I would instead offer something like “Yes, I’m saved, but I’m not sure we mean the same thing. What do you mean when you say saved?” And I would ask the person to tell me his or her salvation story. And then I would tell mine.

Because you see, I am saved, just not in the same way fundamentalist Christians mean. That is the reason I am here in this pulpit today, proclaiming with enthusiasm the good news. So what do I, a Unitarian Universalist, mean by salvation?

Well, part of my answer has to do with theology, and goes back to our roots in Universalism and Unitarianism. In America, both began as reactions against the prevailing orthodox Calvinist doctrines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These said that human beings were “totally depraved,” with no free will and no ability to make choices that would bring good into the world. The God of Calvin and many Biblical literalists had elected from the beginning of time which humans would be saved and which would be damned to suffer in a fiery hell for all eternity. Jesus was crucified and died in order to pay the penalty for the sins of the elect. The way to know whether a person was one of the elect, who would be saved and resurrected in the new and perfect world that God would create at the end of time, was to read the “signs.” One of these signs had to do with how much material wealth a person had; prosperity was therefore a sign of election. Perhaps this theology describes part of Glenn Beck’s view of what a true Christian should be about? There would be no need for social justice if humans were merely pawns in God’s chess game of life. Besides who could possibly do good and just things for another when only God can effect such goodness?

Two of our best known Universalist preachers were John Murray and Hosea Ballou, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They could not accept the Calvinist conception of God. For them, God was a good and loving father. This God would no more condemn any of his creatures to an eternal fiery hell than a loving parent would place a child in an earthly fire. Further, a God who would require the cruel and tortured death of a beloved son as atonement for the sins of some of humanity was not fit for our worship. Ballou argued that God’s purpose was to “happify” people, sending Jesus to teach us by example how to live a happy, healthy and holy life. If we lived in accordance with God’s purposeÑto love God and God’s creation and one another, yes, and practice social justiceÑwe would be happy. If we did notÑif we lived, instead, separated from God and from each otherÑwe would be unhappy. We, ourselves, would create our own heaven and hell here on earth.

Now, here is what I think is the essence of Ballou’s theology, the part that rings as true today as it did two centuries ago. And this very same idea was argued by Unitarians William Ellery Channing and, a generation later, Theodore Parker. It is this: what we need to be saved from is not original sin, and not the fiery pits of hell. What we need to be saved from is the concept of the angry, vengeful God who redeems humanity through violence and divides people into the saved and the damned. Ballou, Channing, and Parker argued that since people model their own behavior on what they imagine God to be, this concept of a wrathful, bloodthirsty God results in earthly hell. It results in the division of people into the worthy and the worthless, and it sanctifies violence against and oppression of those deemed to be worthless. This theology causes people to live in and from fear. A theology of a loving God would enable people to live in and from love.

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way: “It behooves us to be careful in what we worship, for what we are worshipping is what we are becoming.” For Ballou, the critical thing was to liberate people from fear so they could live in love. And fear resided in what Ballou called the carnal mind, by which he meant in the body. Fear resided in the body. So Universalist thinking in the nineteenth century made salvation not about where our individual, personal souls go after we dieÑthat was a non-issue. Instead, salvation was a collective enterprise. In both Universalism and Unitarianism, this enterprise meant attending to conditions in the here and now, in this world. If we could liberate people’s bodies from fear of hunger and violence, they could live in love.

We North American UUs can proudly remember the heroes and heroines of our heritage of social justice, like Benjamin Rush and his timely defense of social equality in the late 18th century. And Theodore Parker’s passionate advocacy of abolition in the mid-19th century. We remember Adin Ballou and his critique of the industrial society, and William Ellery Channing with his abhorrence of poverty. Olympia Brown was ordained into the ministry in 1863, the first denominationally ordained woman minister in the US. We remember her along with Red Cross founder Clara Barton, women’s sufferage pioneer Susan B. Anthony, and Dorothea Dix, a social justice activist on behalf of the indigent insane who, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums. During the Civil War, she served as Superintendent of Army Nurses.

The UU view of salvation is for life here and now, in love. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I come that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” Present-day Unitarian Universalism still reverberates with these ideas about salvation. While some of us believe in a personal deity and some do not, we agree in our covenant of seven principles that are underpinned by the following theological notions: the equal belovedness of every person, the importance of caring for this beautiful world here and now, the need to live in love and not fear.

This is part of my explanation of what I mean by salvation, but only part. Why do I say so joyfully that, yes, I am saved?

I grew up as the eldest son in a family whose Catholic roots were generations deep. Our image of God was that portrayed as the rule maker and law enforcer in the sky and of the fear of the final judgment. I began more than 20 years of formal Catholic schooling before I was 5, where I was taught that people are inherently sinful because Adam and Eve disobeyed God at the beginning of creation. Still I tried my best to be good and do everything right, but still I felt that God was angry with me and I was motivated by fear. In order to redeem myself and reach heaven someday, I must do all I could to be like Jesus. I must suffer, and forgive, suffer, and forgive. I was smart, and strong-willed, and I loved earthly things like Nature, and my friends and all things artsy, and it was hard for me to focus on getting to heaven. But I wanted more than anything to be good enough to be loved, so I did my best. I suffered and I forgave. Some fundamentalist Christians would say that this Catholic view of God is inaccurate and that basically all I have to do is accept the sacrifice of Jesus and his Lordship over my life and that all will be well, because God will only see Jesus when looking at me.

Perhaps this next part will sound familiar to many of you because this is your story too, and I have heard it from you many times. When I first began to attend a UU church in Midland during breaks from college I was overwhelmed that people cared enough to listen to me…and I didn’t have to worry about towing the party line. I found I was encouraged to develop my own ideas. This was in the late 60s and I was upset about the conflict in Vietnam and the continuing racial prejudices supposedly righted by integration, yet when I went to the UU church, I could express myself and be heard. That meant a lot to me. Sometimes I’d go to church services and just sit in the back and cry. There was a lot of stuff in my life to process, much of it from my Catholic upbringing. Then I started participating around the edges a little bit, joining demonstrations and small groups to discuss and act on social justice issues.

Finally, years later at the same Midland UU church, after my father’s death in early 1986, I started a men’s group, in which we gathered around and talked with each other and listened to our real stories. When it was my turn, I couldn’t resist being open. The other men had shared deeply, and their stories were riveting. No one had been judged, no one had been rejected. So I told my truth. And instead of turning away from me in disgust, the men leaned in and listened, nodding in recognition of what they heard. It was the first place I had ever been where I felt I could be my whole self, and be accepted for it — truly loved. My community looked into my face and saw light there, and reflected it back tenfold — a hundred fold.

In this way was I saved. Unitarian Universalism taught me that I have inherent worth and dignity, and that I am a beloved member of the interdependent web of all existence. The community that embodied this theology liberated me from fear by gathering around me in love. It gave me the ability to break out of the cycle of codependence and violence in which I was trapped for so long. I finally developed the strength and courage I needed to pursue my dreams and clarify my intentions. I also had the help I needed: my community showed up, with meals, work, rides when my car broke down. People visited me in the hospital when I had surgeries and held my hand when the stuff of life appeared bleak. This was redemptive.

Learning I was inherently lovable helped me to accept the profoundly generous love of others. Knowing all people have inherent worth and dignity helped me share my life in ways that bring me closer with others and to get upset when their freedom is limited. My community helps me create a life that is worth living. This is what I mean by salvation. This religion saves lives. And I think it can help save the world.

At this moment in time we are in the midst of economic, ecological, and political chaos that is unprecedented in our life’s experiences. We know that the sheer scale of change means that nothing will ever be the same again. We have no road map for the future. Some of us have lost many of the securities we were accustomed to. I’ve learned that whenever the human organism is confronted with sudden, potentially life-threatening change, its first response is fear. This is automatic. And right now fear is rampant in our world, as the religious fundamentalists and persons like Glenn Beck and others in many countries and many religions skillfully use apocalyptic rhetoric to manipulate people into acting from their deepest fears rather than from hope or love. This strategy has and is working very well in American debates on health care, immigration and economic reform, as people are manipulated into thinking their individual lives are endangered by changes that may actually benefit the whole.

But shall we have a little compassion for these people who ask us if we are saved? Their God would cast them into the depths of a fiery hell for all eternity if they do not believe just the right thing. They are sore afraid. They are alone and far from home; salvation for them is so individualized, and involves going to a world that is not this one. But we can offer something different in this time of crisis. We can offer real liberation from fear, and a fall into love. We can offer a theology that recognizes our interdependence with each other and with the larger community of life, in which salvation is collective and involves healing this world. We can embody this theology by doing what we do best: gathering together, and listening to each other’s stories. Singing songs, speaking words that matter and making life and art that give us hope and courage. Let’s help each other imagine what might come next. Then, show up to help.

My friends, we have here a religion that could be the salvation of the world, if we will but claim its power and take it to the streets. The stakes are too high for us to hide our light under a bushel. What do we say in the face of a culture that preaches salvation from hell and damnation? We could echo the words of John Murray, “Give them not hell, but hope”

I hope today’s message will encourage you to think, what will you say? I hope today’s message will encourage you to act, what will you do?

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Rev. Mark Skrabacz

August 15, 2010

Elwin Hope Wilson is 73 years old, lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina and suffers from severe diabetes. Last year he became something of a celebrity because, after a lifetime of racist rhetoric and activity, he had a change of heart.

As a young man, Wilson assaulted civil rights Freedom Riders. Later in life he threatened a real estate agent who had sold a nearby home to a black family, and another he time vehemently protested the desegregation of the local cemetery where his parents were interred. On yet another occasion he hung a black doll by the neck in his front yard and dared his neighbors to remove it. He regularly embarrassed his children and grandchildren by loudly repeating racial epithets in restaurants and other public places.

But then, last year, all of that changed. Having decided that his previous behavior had been horribly misguided, Wilson began the painful process of issuing apologies. He traveled to Congressman John Lewis’ Washington DC office to personally apologize for punching and knocking down the former Freedom Rider in 1961. He has visited black churches and offered public declarations of repentance. He has sought reconciliation with black citizens in his community.

Many have greeted Elwin Wilson’s apologies with surprise and pleasure, but others have been more skeptical. As one Freedom Rider allowed: “In the back of my mind I just keep thinking, ‘Why now?'” Why now, indeed. Although it’s always hazardous to render judgments about another person’s motives, one thing is clear: Elwin Hope Wilson, beset with serious health problems, was scared. “I’m going to hell,” he despairingly told a friend, to which his friend replied: “The Bible says that ‘If you truly ask forgiveness and you mean it in your heart, you can be saved.'” At that moment Wilson felt that perhaps he could escape the hellfire he believed was awaiting him.

So, what are we to make of Elwin Wilson’s attempt to reconcile himself to his victims? How legitimate were his apologetic gestures?

There can be no doubt that the man had a great deal to be sorry about and that a sincere and heart-felt apology for his egregious offenses was in order. And there can also be no doubt that Elwin Wilson went the extra mile. Like those medieval penitents who were ordered by Catholic confessors to undertake lengthy, arduous pilgrimages in order to atone for their sins, Wilson has made a strenuous effort to demonstrate remorse in many places and before many people, including members of his own family.

Elwin Wilson’s apologies have made him the object of considerable attention, and now he receives regular requests to speak publically about his conversion Ð a role he doesn’t really relish. He isn’t interested in publicity and, having said he was sorry, just wants to be free of a painful past and gain some measure of hope for the future.

This brings up at least one issue having to do with forgiveness. If the injured party senses that the apology is not an expression of empathy and compassion for their suffering, but only an attempt to assuage the perpetrator’s pain, it may fall on deaf ears. A genuine apology focuses on the feelings of other people rather than how the one who apologizes is going to benefit in the end. The words must communicate the desire not so much to be ‘saved’ but to be in right relationship, which is why Elwin Wilson’s apology to people of color, though powerful, still feels unsatisfying.

“Genuine” or “authentic” apologies include these essential elements:

A clear admission of fault or blameworthiness for specific injuries and, without excuse of justification, an unambiguous acceptance of responsibility; A sincere expression of remorse and regret for the damage our words or actions caused; An appropriate offer of reparation or restitution for said damage; A commitment not to repeat such behavior in the future.

Yet if the apology is half-hearted or seems inauthentic, how might it be reflected? The victim might simply say, “I’m sorry, but I need a better apology than that” which invites the offender to engage in more self-scrutiny and deliver a new message in which all or at least more of the important elements are present.

Now, you can say anything you want to yourself or to other people about forgiveness. But we’ll probably all agree, saying doesn’t necessarily make it so.

True forgiveness requires much more. It requires mourning, transformation and insight — some (as in the Jewish tradition) would add restitution, too. For while forgiveness may be freeing, it isn’t cheap. One way to misconstrue forgiveness is to promote a cheap and easy version of it.

You see, forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. Past experiences and the pain they cause have a great deal to teach us, so that we can try to avoid those patterns, and better yet, change them in the future. For forgiveness to function in a life-enhancing way, it more often requires remembering rather than forgetting.

Forgiveness is not approving or condoning. Forgiving someone often involves making some effort to understand them, but even if we come to fully understand them, we do not thereby conclude that their actions were acceptable. True understanding cannot occur when I in any way deny, minimize, justify, or condone the actions that harmed me.

So let’s be clear about a few givens. Forgiveness is not cheap, it’s not easy. Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting, or condoning, and it is not a form of self-sacrifice.

As we move into considering what forgiveness actually is, I’d like to invite you to get in touch with a situation or a wound that still has a hold on you; that diminishes you. I’d like to move this sermon out of the abstract and into the practical. I’ll give you a moment of silence to go within. (Pause)

What wound still has a hold on you? Some of you may have chosen yourself as a focus. Which brings up a good point: we all need our own forgiveness, for things we have done. And looking at it from another perspective, we need to forgive ourselves also about the situations in which WE have been hurt. We need to forgive ourselves for not having been able to stop whatever happened — for having limits to our control. For not having more information or making different choices. We are often reluctant to admit just how much pain we have and how much our life has been altered. In the aftermath, we have to engage our own feelings of vengeance and so on. This requires bountiful compassion for oneself, even as we hold ourselves accountable for our past actions.

I imagine that some of you chose another person or set of people who hurt you. We are in great need of intra-personal forgiveness. Showing compassion for the perpetrators of injustice or pain is a tall order. It’s a natural human response to ask, “Why should we be concerned about compassion for the perpetrators?” We feel we must focus our efforts on those who have suffered the injustice, not those who’ve caused it. But there’s no such thing as wholeness for me or wholeness for you or wholeness for “The Deserving”. Either there’s wholeness for everyone, or there’s no wholeness. Compassion that has to be earned by good behavior isn’t compassion.

Injustice and lack of forgiveness wounds the perpetrator as well as the target. And our compassion isn’t like some scarce medicine that we have to hoard lest we run out. Compassion begets more compassion. Every time we show compassion, the doors of our hearts swing open wider.

And this is not about condoning oppression or going easy on those who are hurtful. Everyone has to take responsibility for the consequences of his actions. We can insist on that and at the same time show compassion toward the perpetrator.

And I imagine some of you chose a Higher Power, however you experience it. Many of us have anger at the larger structure of things because of unfair personal losses we have experienced. I know that it was this sort of forgiveness that was most on my mind as I wrote this sermon. I remember when I lost my father as a young man. It was almost unbearable, and I was so angry. I wasn’t done with the relationship with my Dad. I cried and raged and cried and raged for a year. Eventually, I got the lesson that I had to forgive. I had to, once again, let go of the way I thought things were supposed to be, how things ought to work. I had to come back into relationship with Life itself. So some of us may haven chosen the Universe itself as what we need to forgive.

We know that letting go is a difficult practice. Yet for those who have let go, isn’t it amazing to know how that experience makes room for something new to show up. We have to let go of something that may be killing us in order for new life to emerge.

As I come to the end of my remarks, I want to emphasize what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is a turning to the good in the face of a wrongdoing or injustice. It is a merciful restraint from dwelling destructively in resentment or in thoughts of vengeance. Not that resentment or thoughts of vengeance are always bad . . . Anger need not vanish for forgiveness to be real; it need only cease to prevail as the main focus of our attention. Forgiveness involves the overcoming of injustice with good. We must come to wish ourselves, or others, or the universe well. In spite of everything, we wish betterment and flourishing of the subject of forgiveness. As we give the gift of forgiveness, we ourselves move toward healing.

Forgiveness is a process. In fact, the Institute for Forgiveness Studies in Madison, Wisconsin, has determined that forgiveness is four-phase process with twenty steps! I won’t go over the twenty steps, but their four phases are actually quite helpful.

The first of the four is the “Uncovering Phase.” In this phase, the individual truly encounters the pain that has resulted from a deep injury. Feelings of anger or even hatred may be present. Confronting these emotions and honestly understanding the injury is emotionally distressing, but it is the beginning of healing. So when we are experiencing the pain of an injury, we are often more assisted by a friend who helps us engage the pain and understand the injury than by one who initially encourages us to forgive.

The second phase is called the “Decision Phase,” and when I think of this stage, I think of an old story from the people of our First Nations. In this one a grandfather is speaking to his grandson. He says, “There are two wolves fighting inside all of us – the wolf of anger and vengeance, and the wolf of compassion and forgiveness.” The grandson asks, “Which one will win?” Grandfather replies, “The one we feed.”

In the Decision Phase, after coming in touch with the pain, the anger and vengeance, the individual realizes that to continue to focus on the injury and the injurer may cause more unnecessary suffering. The individual entertains the idea of forgiveness as a healing strategy. The individual, then, commits to forgiving the injurer who has caused such pain. Complete forgiveness is not yet realized, but the injured individual has decided to explore forgiveness and to take initial steps in the direction of full forgiveness. He starts weaning the wolf of vengeance, and actively nurturing the health of the wolf of compassion and forgiveness. In so doing, the individual enters the “Work Phase.” Feeding the urge toward forgiveness may involve forming new ways of thinking about the perpetrator.

An adult I know who was abused by her mother as a child went from seeing her mother’s abuse as malevolent and powerful to seeing it as weak and pitiful. She strove to understand her mother’s childhood and the suffering of abuse at the hands of her father, and put her own injurious events in context by understanding the context and pressure her mother was under. This new perspective did not excuse her mother, but helped the daughter see her as a member of the wounded human community. Some significant amount of empathy and compassion was generated.

In the “work phase,” this woman also did the work of accepting the pain she bore as a result of her mother’s actions. She had no sense that she deserved the pain, and knew it had been unjustly given. Still, she decided to not pass the pain on to others, nor very importantly to pass it back to her mother. Eventually this woman began to offer goodwill directly to her mother, and there was some reconciliation. In so doing, this woman moved toward growth and toward embracing life again.

The fourth phase is that of “Deepening.” The individual realizes a gain of emotional relief from the process of forgiveness. They may be able to find some kind of meaning that has emerged through their bearing of pain. They may discover a renewed purpose in life and an active concern for others, which they did not fully realize was missing. “Thus, the forgiver discovers the paradox of forgiveness: as we serve others by giving them the gifts of mercy, generosity, and love, we ourselves are healed.” This inspires today’s sermon title: “Forgiveness is for Giving.”

In closing, forgiveness is hard work and a long process. Forgiveness is free, yet it is not cheap. It may be a good idea to visit our injuries and resentments regularly to see if forgiveness is in order. I invite you to choose one area in the coming week in which you’d like to walk a little further on the path toward forgiveness. A sage once prayed, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Indeed, may our trespasses be forgiven by those we have harmed, and may we be the first to do the difficult and whole-making work of forgiveness. May it be so.