First Universalist Society of
Central Square, NY
Lenten
Reflections
Rev.
Margaret A. Hart
March 2,
2008
This Day In Unitarian Universalist History,
March 2
1401 The English
Parliament passed the law De Haeretico Comburdendo (“On the Burning of Heretics”), which
condemned all heretics to death at the stake.
It was the first law in England regulating Dissenting religion and was
not abolished until 1677. Even after the law was struck down, it was a criminal
offense to hold Unitarian views or worship, though the penalties were not often
enforced.
The living
tradition we share draws from many sources:
Two of the sources we claim are:
Wisdom from the world’s religions which
inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
Jewish and Christian teachings which call us
to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
The Unitarian and Universalist
churches evolved from the Christian church.
As we heard in the reading I did at the beginning of this sermon, an
entry from 1401, Unitarianism was a radical, heretical (meaning “to choose”)
branch of Christianity, and people took great risks to practice it. The same is true of Universalists,
who preached and practiced the belief in Universal Salvation, at a time when it
was popular for Christians to believe in hell. As Unitarians and Universalists,
our forefathers and foremothers pushed the margins of Christianity, and struggled to
discover the truth for themselves, even at great personal risk. We are relatively safe and comfortable here
in our sanctuary, though we are still somewhat countercultural in many of our
beliefs. It is helpful for us to
remember our heretical and challenging past, as we continue to draw from our
rich history and discover new meaning in it as we go. Remember, one of our principles is: We
covenant to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and
meaning.
Much of what I found on the web
related to Lent was Roman Catholic and high church, including the color
associated with Lent being purple. Lent
is the 40 days leading up to Easter, not including the Sundays (because Sunday
is traditionally a day for celebrating, not for fasting)
Easter, and
Holy Week preceding Easter, is central in the
Christian religion, and Lent is an important time of preparation. The 40 days of Lent mirror the 40 days which
Jesus allegedly spent in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan, or the devil.
Since Jesus is the central figure in
Christianity, and since we have our roots in Christianity, it seemed important
for us to reflect on Lent in order to discover what meaning it might hold for
us today. As I think about Jesus, I realize that he was truly a radical in his
time. He did so many things that
challenged the status quo, that served to turn things on their heads, and
helped people see things in a new way.
One of the most famous talks which is
attributed to Jesus, is the Sermon on the Mount. It appears in the Bible in Matthew, 5: 3-11
“Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are
those who mourn, for they will be comforted.are the
meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will
be filled.
Blessed are
the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are
the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are
those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of
heaven.
Blessed are
you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all
kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for
your reward is
great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the
prophets who were
before you.”
Jesus seems
to be suggesting here that things are not as they appear to be; what matters
more than the externals, is the state of one’s heart and motivation. This also
seems to be a central message for us as Unitarian Universalists. One of the sources from which we draw is: Words
and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and
structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of
love. To me, Jesus serves as a
prophetic man whose teachings thus challenge us to live out the values we hold
dear as Unitarian Universalists. This, in many cases,
means challenging the status quo, and turning the world upside down. Are we, like the Unitarians in 1401, willing
to put our lives on the line for our beliefs?
If so, how can we challenge the status
quo? How can we even see what
needs to be done? In Zen it is called having“Beginner’s
Mind”- having no assumptions or preconditions, but seeing things fresh, as
they are, fully, in this moment. It
requires great discipline to do this.
Unless we reset our priorities, we just fall into the default setting.
I grew up with the habit of putting
everything away when I was through with it; if everything was in it’s proper place, I could easily find it the next time I
needed it. Sounds
good. Maybe a bit rigid, but practical. Of course, things didn’t always get put away
properly- maybe I was sometimes in a hurry, distracted, or couldn’t get to the
normal place to put it away. Or maybe I put something important in a safe place
I felt sure I could find it when I needed it, only to find that I couldn’t
remember where I’d put it. Maybe you’ve
had that experience.
When I was in Ithaca doing my
ministerial internship I lived with a parishioner there. One Saturday night we were about to sit down
to dinner. I couldn’t put my cane where
I usually did, so I stashed it between the microwave and the counter and then
sat down for supper. I got around the
house pretty well at that time, and didn’t miss my cane until the next morning,
when I was getting ready to go to church.
I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember where I had stashed my cane,
and it was out of sight. My hostess had
a cane she wasn’t using, so she offered to loan it to me. When I returned to the house after church, I
remembered where my cane was, but was grateful to have had someone help me out
in the meanwhile.
Putting
things in their proper places is great, as long as
that is there we put them. But if we put them somewhere else, it requires that
we use a different part of our memory to find them. It can become frustrating if we hold to the
old ways too rigidly. As many of you
know, I recently moved to a new home after living for more than twenty years in
my previous home. I had gotten pretty well habituated to putting things in
their places in my house in Parish. But
when I moved to Central Square, the arrangement of everything was different-
rooms, cupboards, drawers, closets, and so on, not to mention all the boxes
full of who knows what. In some ways it
was disorienting to move into a new place and not know where many things
were. I could visualize where something
was in Parish, but that didn’t help.
But, it was also exciting to start in a new place, to figure out where
to put things, and to choose places to make things easily accessible. There is
something to be said for starting with a clean slate.
At the beginning of the New Year, many
of us set New Year’s resolutions- a commitment to try new things, or to do
things in a different way. Sometimes we
just dust off the same old resolutions from the previous year, and hope that
this year we will actually be successful. But what is it they say about doing
the same thing, and expecting a different result? Somehow we need to change our hearts and
minds and strategies. We don’t have to wait until next year, but we can try
this right now, during Lent.
I have found that when I have a
habitual way of thinking or doing something, it can be very difficult to
change. That’s called the status quo,
and is supported by the law of inertia- a body which is in motion continues
to move in the direction and at the speed at which it is already moving; A body
which is at rest continues to be at rest. In other words, it’s hard to
change directions or speeds, or to get going in the first place. So how do we do it?
The Nike ad says, ”Just
do it” But I think it takes more than that.
I would argue that intentionality, commitment, and community all play a
role.
Intentionality- we have
to have a goal, an intention, I might say a resolution. We need to decide on what direction we want
to take. We have chosen to be here this
morning, so that is a start in making our intention clear.
Commitment- we have
to be committed to our chosen direction.
This will often mean that we will have to make choices, sometimes
difficult choices, about what to do. As Unitarian Universalists,
we have principles to guide us. We have
covenanted to promote and affirm that which is laid out in our principles. That means we have committed to live those
principles in our lives. We also have our consciences, the still small voice
within, to guide us when we are unsure.
We must have faith in, or commitment to, this inner guidance. as well as the principles.
Community- we are
all in this together. We have covenanted
to each other to affirm and promote the principles, to affirm and support each
other in our responsible search for truth and meaning, knowing that all persons
have inherent worth and dignity. All
people, those within this church and those outside the church. But those within this church have committed
themselves to living lives guided by the common values as stated in the
principles, and to supporting each other in living such lives. So we can begin here.
In this season of Lent, I would like
to encourage all of us to revisit our New Year’s resolutions. Are they still desirable? If so, are they
achievable? If not desirable, how can we change them to make them what we want
to work toward? If not achievable, how
can we revise our strategies to make it possible to achieve them? If we haven’t
yet made resolutions, it’s time to think about what we really want to do this
year. What do we need to do to clear the
slate and make it possible to focus on our dreams? Is there someone we have
hurt to whom we need to make amends? Is
there someone we need to forgive in order to move on? To what are we attached which is getting in
the way, keeping us weighed down, unable to move forward? What is contributing to our inertia?
Lent is traditionally considered to be
a period of preparation for Easter which is a time to celebrate the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this
church, many people don’t put a lot of stock in the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, but can resonate with the idea of resurrection, or new beginnings. But this is not an Easter sermon, but a
Lenten Reflection. As such, let us focus
on the traditional Lenten practices of preparation. They include fasting,
or giving up something which we really like, or are attached to. Perhaps it’s not eating meat on Fridays
(hence all the fish dinners available at local Fire Halls and Catholic churches
on Friday nights during Lent) or chocolate.
Being a vegetarian, it’s not a hardship for me to give up meat on
Fridays; I just enjoy the plethora of fish dinners! If we renounce something we don’t want
anyway, there’s no meaning in that. The
idea behind renunciation during Lent is to help us get out of our ordinary way
of seeing and acting, so that we can have a new view of life. It’s really difficult to see in new ways as
long as the old ways are in place- it’s like fighting against the laws of
inertia.
From what I read on the Web, and
consistent with my experience of Lent in years past, Christians use Lent as a
time for introspection, self-examination, and repentance. During Lent we can contemplate what we are
feeling and where we are stuck. Once we
have identified ways in which we have been hurt by others, or things we have
said or done which have served to hurt others, we can seek to make amends. We
might choose to forgive someone in the privacy of our own hearts, even writing
a letter as a way of processing our feelings and letting them go, and not
actually mailing the letter. Or, we
might feel that it would be better to forgive the person by talking with him or
her directly, or by sending a letter. We might feel the need to apologize for
something we have said or done which hurt someone else. Carrying hurt feelings or injuries can take a
lot of energy, spiritual as well as emotional.
Lent can be a time of consciously letting go, or renunciation, which
makes us lighter and more available, to ourselves and to each other.
I also read that Lent has
traditionally been marked by penitential prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We have already talked about repentance and
self-examination, though not directly about prayer. Various people in this congregation have
different ideas about prayer. My feeling
is that prayer is a way that we clarify our own thoughts and feelings, and
communicate them with a larger Spirit, which some think of as God. I think of penitential prayer as admitting,
to ourselves and the Universe, that we have been wrong in some way, and that we
want to change. Putting it in terms of a
prayer helps us see that we need help, beyond our own efforts, to manifest this
desired change. In my mind, prayer does
not negate our responsibility for making changes, but enlists us as co-creators
with a great Spirit to enable those changes to happen.
Almsgiving, or making an offering to benefit the church or those in need, is a
traditional practice during Lent, and is one way that we can communicate our
desire to put our intentions into action and to benefit the larger
community.
As I have been contemplating Lent, I
realize that Lent can be a time of letting go of anything which weighs us down,
anything which contracts us and doesn’t allow us to be ourselves fully in the
present moment. We can do this anytime,
not just at Lent, but Lent is like a practice session for life, an opportunity
to practice letting go and being the people we want to be. This letting go takes intention and regular
practice, so let’s begin today. May it
be so.