Only Love

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same?" (Matthew 5:43-47)

On this day, January 15, in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr was born in Atlanta. He went to Atlanta’s Morehouse College, and got a BA at age 19. Then: Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he got a Divinity degree at age 22. Then directly to Boston University for doctoral studies.

In 1954, he was called to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. The next year, 1955, he finished his PhD, and began organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which brought him to national prominence. He was just 26.

Martin Luther King’s book, “Strength to Love,” came out in 1963. It’s a collection of 17 of his sermons on a wide range of topics, including love, nonviolence, racism, and social justice. The book is widely considered one of King's most important works and continues to be read and studied today for its powerful message of hope and change.

Chapter 5 is a sermon called, “Loving Your Enemies” – which was probably originally delivered in 1957. In that sermon, King takes as his text the passage from Matthew where Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” About half-way through that sermon comes the passage that has become one of the best-known King quotations. I will quote more than is usually quoted, to give you a little more context:

“Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why. Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”

Only love can drive out hate. Only love.

King goes on to speak of the damage that hating does to the one who hates. He says:

“Another reason we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality.”

It certainly harms the hated – and,

“is just as injurious to the person who hates. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity....Psychiatrists report that many of the strange things that happen in the subconscious, many of our inner conflicts, are rooted in hate. They say, ‘Love or perish.’ Modern psychology recognizes what Jesus taught centuries ago: hate divides the personality -- and love, in an amazing and inexorable way, unites it.”

King then adds:

“A third reason we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate. We get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.”

So far, what King has said seems anodyne. We have heard it many times. For most of us, grasping King’s point so far does not seem a difficult challenge.

We can’t be sure how challenging it was for Jesus’ audience when he said “love your enemies.” Jesus was definitely calling for a shift. He says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies.”

Jesus is referencing Hebrew Scripture with which his audience would have been familiar. The love your neighbor part is Leviticus 19:18 --

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This, however, does not apply to enemies, such as Ammonites and Moabites, about which Deuteronomy 23:6 says:

“You shall never promote their welfare or their prosperity as long as you live.”

And, concerning one’s personal enemies, Psalm 41:10 beseeches,

“But you, O Lord, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them.”

Other passages of Hebrew scripture point in a different direction. Leviticus 19 also says:

“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

So Jesus, within a tradition that sometimes seemed to endorse animosity, sought to overthrow those parts of his tradition, which he could do by drawing on other parts of the tradition.

In a context where his people were terribly oppressed by Romans, Jesus told his people to love their enemies. Love the Romans. That is the tradition King draws on when he urges loving even the white racists. Now it gets a bit more challenging.

King cites the example of Abraham Lincoln, who appointed some of even his bitterest critics and enemies to his cabinet. King then says:

“It was this same attitude that made it possible for Lincoln to speak a kind word about the South during the Civil War when feeling was most bitter. Asked by a shocked bystander how he could do this, Lincoln said, ‘Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?’ This is the power of redemptive love.”

For King, what it comes down to most fundamentally is:

“We are called to this difficult task in order to realize a unique relationship with God....We must love our enemies, because only by loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of his holiness.”

We might prefer to say that only by loving them can we be whole.

Anytime you hate, any time you reject, any time you simply cannot accept another person, that person represents a part of you that you are seeking to excise. Our own wholeness requires that we accept all parts of our ourselves, accept all of who we are.

Nowadays we don’t like to use the word “enemies.” I don’t know if I’ve ever in my life identified someone as an enemy, except maybe in a facetious reference to my opponent in some game we were playing. Even our military now prefers to say, “hostiles.” And, yeah, maybe you can’t, or wouldn’t, identify anyone as an enemy, but you can think of times when someone was hostile toward you. You may have felt some hostility back.

There are people who you find difficult. And I’m suggesting to you that what you don’t like about them is a reflection of a part of yourself that you don’t like. Accept them, welcome them, love them. For only then can you accept, welcome, and love all of who you are. Even a certain former president is manifesting parts that are in all of us, and any part of ourselves that we try to excise and exile simply goes subterranean and becomes more powerful. But what we accept, welcome, and love can play its useful role and stay in its place. Only when an inner voice is heard and respectfully acknowledged will it, in turn, acknowledge and be willing to bow to your other and countervailing voices. Only love -- inward and outward not distinguished -- brings us into our wholeness.

Accepting, welcoming, and loving does not mean complacency or quiescence in the face of harm. It does not mean complicity with injustice. Dr. King’s “Loving Your Enemies” sermon made this point -- a point he reiterated many times in his career. He said:

“This does not mean that we abandon our righteous efforts. With every ounce of our energy we must continue to rid this nation of the incubus of segregation. But we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege and our obligation to love. While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community. To our most bitter opponents we say: 'We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you....One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.'"

The victory to which King refers is not a once-and-done conquest, but an unfolding victory the earning of which is never completed. Under his leadership, the victory unfolded some. Yet “Chains still there are to break; their days are not finished. Metal or subtle-made they’re still not diminished” (Belletini, Hymn #220)

May we, with our lives, unfold further the double victory. Only love can do that.

Afflicted or Comfortable? Yes.

BLM & UU, part 3

Comfort the Afflicted, Afflict the Comfortable

It has been said that the job of a congregation – and of its minister – is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. When I heard that in divinity school, I thought: "Great! That’s what I’ll do. When I’m a minister, I’ll find out who is afflicted, and comfort them. And I’ll find out who is comfortable and afflict them."

It didn’t take me long to realize that there is no easy way to divide people into the afflicted and the comfortable. The truth is, we’re all afflicted – and we’re all comfortable. We’re afflicted with stress or shame or anguish or loneliness or depression or insecurity or various physical ailments. We’re afflicted with unfulfilled yearnings and undefined anxieties. We all could use some comforting.

And at the same time, we’re all kinda comfortable. We’ve got houses, clothes, food, and we’re sometimes a little complacent. We allow ourselves to ignore other people’s pain – or our own.

Sometimes we find our comfort being challenged, and that’s a little uncomfortable. A faith institution that doesn't occasionally make you uncomfortable isn't doing its job. A certain amount of discomfort is what prods us to grow.

And here’s the amazing magic of faith community: the very thing that afflicts us in our comfort is also the thing that comforts us in our affliction. Are we finding that life is getting narrow and fearful? Are we scared of people’s judgments, or reactivity -- or of our own? That’s an affliction. Finding the courage to risk stepping outside our norm on behalf of better treatment for all our neighbors is the balm for that affliction. At the same time, it is also the antidote to our comfortable complacency.

The third part of our mission statement turns out to also be the first part. Engaging together in service to transform ourselves and our world turns out to also nurture each other on our spiritual journeys. Standing together to build wholeness in our world builds wholeness in ourselves. That’s the Unitarian Universalist way.

Engaging the world around us -- living our faith in our actions -- is a core aspect of what Unitarian Universalism has been for the last century. UU congregations stood up for civil rights. UU congregations stood up to oppose the Vietnam War. UU congregations stood up for reproductive rights. UU congregations stood up for same-sex marriage and LGBT rights. In every case, those congregations also had some members who were uncomfortable about those stands. But we lived our faith and helped bring justice, peace, and healing to our nation – and thereby to ourselves.

Of course, just to clarify, a vote by the congregation to say that the congregation takes a stand on an issue of social advocacy does not require that the members individually take that stand. We don’t do that – that’s NOT the Unitarian Universalist way.

And now UU congregations are standing up for the Black Lives Matter movement. We’re doing it because entering the public sphere as a voice for peace and justice is what we do. It’s our way. It’s how we heal our world and at the same time nurture our spirits.

Why now? Because it really matters now. Some sort of tipping point was reached when Trayvon Martin’s murder in Florida in 2012 was followed two-and-a-half years later by Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson. And then Eric Garner. And Freddie Gray, and Walter Scott, and Sandra Bland and . . . well, the list is too long. Finally, the conscience of a nation stirred. It was long overdue, but it has begun at last.

We stand at the brink of bringing about some real change. Indeed, already, changes have begun. Unitarian Universalists, small in numbers though we are, have a role to play in making sure our country doesn’t go back to sleep -- in making sure our country follows through with much more meaningful progress toward treating all lives as mattering.

Do we agree with everything that every supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement says or does? No. I don’t. Very few of us would. Whoever your favorite candidate for President is, you don’t agree with everything said by every one of that candidate’s supporters. But you agree with the basic principles and agenda of your favorite candidate, and that’s why you support her or him.

Indeed, try this thought experiment. Imagine a list of 50 or so things that most Unitarian Universalists agree with – let’s say each item on the list is agreed with by 90 percent of Unitarian Universalists: general UU-ish statements about religion, karma, God, responsibility, ethics, values, hope, peace, justice. Don’t you think that we would find that very few of us agreed with everything on that list? The vast majority of UUs don’t agree with everything that the vast majority of UUs agree with. But we agree to stand in solidarity together, despite our disagreements. We can share our criticisms of each other, encourage one another to transcend any approaches or tactics that we see as ultimately counterproductive – and still we stand in solidarity together.

Across the country, Unitarian Universalists are not letting fear deter us. Who are we? We are a people of compassion, hearing and responding to the world’s pain. Who are we? We are a people of courage, praying, with Tagore, not to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them. What is this thing that we do here, this thing called Unitarian Universalism? We stand on the side of love – and on the side of justice, which is what love looks like in public.

Amen.

* * *
This is part 3 of 3 of "BLM & UU"
See also
Part 1: UUs and BlackLivesMatter
Part 2: White Supremacy is a Spiritual Wound

White Supremacy is a Spiritual Wound

BLM & UU, part 2

Not Just Unitarian Universalists

Faith institutions are getting involved with the Black Lives Matter movment because white supremacy inflicts spiritual harm. It’s not just Unitarian Universalists.

The United Church of Christ supports the Black Lives Matter movement. Their website declares:

“When a church claims boldly 'Black Lives Matter' at this moment, it chooses to show up intentionally against all given societal values of supremacy and superiority or common-sense complacency. By insisting on the intrinsic worth of all human beings, Jesus models for us how God loves justly, and how his disciples can love publicly in a world of inequality. We live out the love of God justly by publicly saying #BlackLivesMatter.”

It’s not just Unitarian Universalists.

At the national website of the United Methodist Church, I read:

“Protests and riots have erupted in several large cities where unarmed black people were shot or died in the custody of police. United Methodists are joining the voices proclaiming 'Black Lives Matter.'”

In the Journal of Lutheran Ethics, I read:

“That black lives matter should be obvious but unfortunately it is not. Black Lives Matter is not simply a rhetorical expression coined by a few. It is in fact an existential cry with deeply spiritual roots. Born from the depths of centuries of collective oppression (remember slavery, indentured servitude, Jim Crow,) it is an expression of the groans of the Spirit of which Paul spoke, the collective prayer of a people demanding their right to exist, their inalienable right to be.”

It’s not just Unitarian Universalists.

Jews United for Justice flatly declares:

“JUFJ stands against police brutality, and for a world in which Black lives truly matter. We will not stand idly by when Black people are targeted in our cities and our communities. We continue to seek ways to be in solidarity with local Black-led efforts and will keep our community informed. Let's kindle a flame within our hearts that can keep burning as we rededicate ourselves to this struggle.”

The Catholics are a bit more muted, from what I could find, though the National Catholic Reporter ran a piece titled “Everyone wins when black lives matter.”

It’s not just Unitarian Universalists.

The Presbyterians, PC-USA, last July launched an antiracism campaign. Their announcement says:

“The campaign is a churchwide effort to recommit Presbyterians to racial justice and faithfully proclaim that the lives of people of color matter.”

The announcement goes on to quote their director of Racial, Ethnic & Women’s Ministries saying,

“This campaign affirms the Black Lives Matter movement, and will work to raise awareness of institutional racism in our society and the church.”

The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists posted an official Statement in Solidarity with the African American Community.

“Today, the regular, tolerated and societally sanctioned killing of black and brown bodies by police has reignited a rebellion that we, the leadership of the Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists, support as a “voice” crying in the wilderness. We pray that the marches now happening all across the USA and the world on behalf of those who are subject to injustice at the hands of the ‘justice’ system will awaken the hearts and minds of those with power and privilege to make a way forward from this wilderness into a free and just society.”

The statement goes on to declare their commitment to:

“Stand with the brown and black bodies as they continue to seek equality, freedom and justice in the USA; [and] March in solidarity with the brown and black bodies recognizing that centuries of the obliteration of personhood leaves a unique mark on the soul.”

I have mentioned only predominantly white denominations -- I have not mentioned any of the historically African American denominations. I also haven’t mentioned any of the most conservative, evangelical churches, who don’t support the Black Lives Matter movement -- which is part of the reason that it matters that we do.

It’s not just Unitarian Universalists, but it is especially Unitarian Universalists. UUs make especially central the proposition that faith must be lived, that the values we teach and stand for must be manifested in our public lives, that standing up for what is right is not something we do only within the safety of our sanctuaries.

A Spiritual Issue

There’s a widely recognized spiritual issue here. The spiritual issue is one that Cornel West alluded to when he addressed the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Portland last summer. I was there to hear him say:

"I've got a lot of vanilla brothers and sisters that walk with me and say, Brother West, Brother West. you know, I'm not a racist any longer. Grandma's got work to do, but I've transcended that. And I say to them, 'I'm a Jesus-loving, free, black man, and I've tried to be so for 55 years, and I'm 62 now, and when I look in the depths of my soul I see white supremacy because I grew up in America. And if there's white supremacy in me, my hunch is you've got some work to do too.'"

The assumptions of white supremacy -- tacit, maybe, unconscious, perhaps -- are in every soul in this country. Black or white, we are all taught that white is better. That's a spiritual issue because it wounds our spirits.

Faith institutions are standing in support of Black Lives Matter because spiritual healing is their business. It’s our business. People show up at our door as they show up at the doors of thousands of congregations of many denominations across this country. They arrive heart sick for beloved community, torn inside by the stresses of negotiating a world that demonstratively holds that white lives matter more than black lives.

We come to places of worship seeking inner peace, for there is no peace for our spirits when millions of our neighbors are singled out for mistreatment, and have been for generations. A faith institution concerned with healing spirits that does not turn its energies to address the social causes that wound both white and black spirits is incompetent. It commits spiritual malpractice.

Our congregation, Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation at White Plains, two years ago, voted overwhelmingly for a mission that says that what we, as a congregation, are here for is, among other things, to "engage in service to transform ourselves and our world." Standing up for justice is part of what that looks like. It’s what we do. It’s our mission.

If the peace of worldwide beloved community is not available to us, then the peace of living lives committed to building that community for future generations is. The service that transforms the world transforms ourselves, as our mission recognizes.

Justice and inner peace go together. Each requires the other. Justice activism without inner peace might succeed in being disruptive but it will ultimately fail to actually build justice. On the other hand, inner peace without justice activism will prove fleeting. For peace to last, compassionate caring for others has got to be a part of the picture -- because we really are an interconnected web and we really are all in this together. And compassionate caring for others includes challenging the systems that are harming those others.

If, week after week, we came here and enjoyed philosophical, spiritual, and reflective worship, but always turned a blind eye to others' pain, it would be hollow. It would fail to truly nourish.

If, week after week, you came here for inspiration and that inspiration never shook you from any complacency, then it wasn’t inspiration. It was a sham. And something deep inside you would know that it was.

* * *
This is part 2 of 3 of "BLM & UU"
See also
Previous: Part 1: UUs and BlackLivesMatter
Next: Part 3: Afflicted or Comfortable? Yes.

UUs and BlackLivesMatter

BLM & UU, part 1

Prayer

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers. But to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain. But for the heart to conquer it. Let me not look for allies in life’s battle-field. But to my own strength. Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved. But hope for the patience to win my freedom. Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone. But let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.” --Rabindranath Tagore (SLT #519)

A Nationwide Movement Among Unitarian Universalists

What I’m really going to talk about is Unitarian Universalism. In two weeks (on Sun Mar 13), we’ll have a guest speaker here, King Downing, who will preach during our service and offer a forum after the service. Mr. Downing will provide a more insider’s perspective on the driving forces of the Black Lives Matter movement itself. Today, I’m going to talk about Unitarian Universalists.

Who are we? What is this thing that we do here, this thing called Unitarian Universalism?

And why are Unitarian Universalists across the country drawn to support the Black Lives Matter movement? We really are so drawn. Black Lives Matter is sweeping Unitarian Universalism like same-sex marriage did starting about 15 years ago, only this time, it’s taking a little more courage. At our denominational website, uua.org, there’s map showing the more than 130 congregations across the country who have put up Black Lives Matter banners for public display. (See it HERE.) We have reason to believe a lot more congregations are doing this but haven’t gotten on the map yet.

Right here in the New York Metro district, which extends as far north as Kingston, and as far south as about 2/3rds of New Jersey, the latest report from our district executive, Andrea Lerner Perry, is that the following congregations are displaying Black Lives Matter banners:

Plainfield, NJ
Fourth Universalist in Manhattan
Community Church, Manhattan
Princeton, NJ
Lincroft, NJ
Montclair, NJ
On Long Island, our Huntington, NY congregation reports “our board voted yes, . . . the banner is ordered and going up soon.”
Our Staten Island, NY also reports: voted yes, not yet hung.
In Garden City, NY there’s a wayside pulpit sign saying “Black lives matter because all lives matter”

Right here in Westchester County, banners are up at our congregations in:
Hastings-on-Hudson,
Mt. Kisco, and
Mohegan Lake.

Congregations in the Metro New York District where putting up a banner is under consideration include:

Paramus, NJ
Ridgewood, NJ – they’re voting in April
Summit, NJ – also voting in April.
Brooklyn, NY
Danbury, CT
Here in Westchester: Croton-on-Hudson. They’re voting in June.
Westport, CT says they plan to focus on racial justice next year, and this year they’ve been focusing on immigration.
The Somerset Hills, NJ congregation sent in this report:

“not at a point of either board or congregational vote. Energies and leadership are focused on launching and executing a successful Beloved Conversations series this spring -- out of which we hope enthusiasm for BLM activism will emerge more organically. There are black lives matter, black lives matter to unitarian universalists, bracelets available for people to pick up and wear, as well as black lives matters stickers for church name tags.”

And also in the “under consideration” column for the Metro New York Unitarian Universalist District is:
White Plains, NY.

Why is this movement taking hold in our churches, fellowships, societies, congregations? Because it’s an important movement that really is advancing the cause of equality and justice, because equality and justice are Unitarian Universalist values and we believe in living our values, and because Unitarian Universalism has a chance here to make a meaningful contribution.

There is endemic and invidious discrimination against African Americans. Over and over, in a multitude of ways small and large, policy and practice in this country presupposes that black lives don’t matter – from the way we segregate our schools, to the way we segregate our housing, to the way we segregate water quality – from the different treatment by police to the different treatment by bankers, salesmen, legislators, and many media.

* * *
This is part 1 of 3 of "BLM & UU"
See also
Part 2: White Supremacy is a Spiritual Wound
Part 3: Afflicted or Comfortable? Yes.