Transformation of Self and World

Transformation. That’s our theme of the month for April at Community Unitarian Church: Transformation.

These themes that we explore, in our worship and in our Journey Groups, all interrelate. Transformation is ultimately what we are always about. As I said last week and expect to say again: I don’t think people choose to enter congregational life to stay the same. We’re here to transform. Not to deny who we are, but to become who we are, to realize our most authentic selves. Every theme we explore is in service to our transformation. This month we take a look at transformation itself.

The actress Nia Peeples put it well. She said:

“Life is a moving, breathing thing. We have to be willing to constantly evolve. Perfection is constant transformation.”

Perfection is constant transformation.

The idea of perfection with which we are constantly bombarded -- the consumerist model that presents perfection as just one more product or service purchase away – actually makes us less satisfied. The “work, buy, work more, buy more” cycle pulls us away from our true nature and our unique gifts. The consumerist model presents perfection to us as a destination at which to arrive. Alternatively, suggests Nia, perfection is actually “something we move through one moment at time, allowing us to discover it again and again.”

It’s not somewhere else, it’s always right here. It’s not in some special experience you need to buy a ticket for. It’s right there in every ordinary moment. Perfection is constant transformation. And transformation is what we are here for.

Look at our mission. We need to keep coming back to our mission – keep coming back to what we’re here for. We’re here to:

nurture each other in our spiritual journeys; foster compassion and understanding within and beyond our community; and engage in service to transform ourselves and our world.

Prior to the mission there’s the fact that we are a religious congregation, and we’re to do what religious organizations generally are for. We’re here as a congregation:

• To have collective worship and celebration.
• To provide a certain kind of education to our children, to our youth, and to adults.
• To care for each other.
• And to engage collectively with the world on behalf of peace, justice, and basic needs for all.

We’re here to do those four things. And everything else we do – maintain a building and grounds, and a website and a newsletter, establish and follow bylaws and policies, hire a staff and call a minister, elect a board – all of that is what we do only because that’s what allows us out our reason for being, it’s what enables us to have

• Worship & celebration
• Education
• Relations of caring for each other
• And collective action for peace, justice, and basic needs.

With our mission statement, we then go one step further. With our mission, we say that what we’re here for, the reason we have worship, education, relations of care, and action in the world, is: to nurture each other in our spiritual journeys, foster compassion and understanding within and beyond our community; and engage in service to transform ourselves and our world. Nurture, foster, serve. That’s what we’re here for.

And to go still one more step further, to sum it all up in a single word: transform. The reason that we nurture spiritual development, that we foster compassion and understanding, that we engage in service is to transform. The third part of our mission explicitly says so – “engage in service to transform ourselves and our world.” But of course nurturing spirituality and fostering compassion and understanding is also in order transform ourselves and our world.

There are other ways than congregational life to nurture your spirituality. There are books and videos and spiritual counselors and yoga and meditation classes. You can journal on your own and you can study the great wisdom literature of the world’s traditions on your own or in various classes – and I hope that you do. Congregational life allows a crucial further channel for the learning and the practice that nurtures that development.

There are also other ways than congregational life to engage in the work of peace, justice, and basic needs for all. You can engage in volunteer service and political action through a variety of organizations that have nothing to do with this congregation. And I hope that you do.

But only in a faith congregation are those two things brought together. In congregational life, nurturing your spirit and helping heal our world come together. You can be active down at the soup kitchen, active in organizations advocating for peace or justice or the environment, and you won’t hear much there about nurturing your spiritual development. You go to classes and counselors that focus on your spiritual development, and you won’t hear anything about working for justice, social action. The unique power of congregational life is this integration. It’s why I’m here. So that the work we do for spiritual development doesn’t stop at the door, but carries over into service and justice work outside. So that the work we do for service and justice outside can be deliberately, intentionally, and explicitly be brought back to spiritual development.

The best slogan that our denominational headquarters has ever come up with for advertising Unitarian Universalism was seven words: "Nurture your spirit, help heal our world." Yes. I think that’s as good as it gets in expressing what Unitarian Universalism is all about in seven words or less. Nurture your spirit, help heal our world. Great. And whenever I get more than seven words, I want to point out that what congregational life allows is that those aren’t two things, but one thing.

We nurture our spirit BY helping to heal our world. And we help heal our world BY nurturing our spirit.

As long as nurturing spirit and healing world are two separate things, you can go off and do them through various noncongregational channels. To live them as one thing, we need to do it as a congregation.

Engaging in service is an essential part of our spiritual development. Activism does not inherently do that. The pitfall of activism is that it’s so easy to get angry – angry at the people who we see as perpetuating the injustice and the violence. The energy of anger has a legitimate place, I believe, but if anger is all there is, then despair and burn-out will follow.

Direct service to the needy also does not inherently facilitate spiritual development. It can be condescending. I can hand out blankets to the homeless on a freezing night thinking all the while of how superior I am – my own charity a further proof of my superiority.

Together, as a faith community, if we’re realizing what our congregational organization makes possible, we gently help each other cultivate humility. We help each other shift our activism from fighting against evil to working for love, remembering that "a positive future cannot emerge from the mind of anger and despair.” Through our work on our spiritual development we can let go of attachment to outcome, understanding that to the extent that we are attached to the results of our work, we rise and fall with our successes and failures. There is always a larger wisdom at work than our own opinions, and, as Gandhi said, "the victory is in the doing," not the results.

The reason for transforming our world is that it transforms us. It connects us with a wider world, it grows our hearts. Expanding our circle of care and concern, embodying that in our service and our activism, increases our own peace and joy. Moreover, the work will teach us things. For example, getting outside our bubble, teaming up with other congregations, predominantly Hispanic, or African American or Moslem or lower income puts us in touch with those we might not otherwise ever have a conversation with. Being a part of Westchester United, sharing the work, standing shoulder to shoulder for justice on the issues that we do agree on, empowers us and them. This is about personal transformation. Our ability to create social transformation is linked with our willingness to go through personal transformation in the process. We cannot expect the world to change if we‘re not willing to. The reason for transforming our world is that it transforms us.

And the reason for transforming ourselves is that it transforms our world. The more peaceful and loving we are, the more our lives inherently contribute to a peaceful and loving world, and the more ready we are to offer our time and resources to help heal our world. We have always been a people who said we must live our faith.

Through the centuries, the ideas and the work of Unitarians, Universalists, and Unitarian Universalists has influenced US culture and politics. As the morning dawned on Sun Apr 12, it found Community Unitarian Church ready – as ready it would ever be likely to get – to begin forming Social Justice Teams. Any effective social justice team will address their issue in five ways.

1. Service: Direct assistance to those in need.
2. Education: Classes and collective study of the complexities of a social issue. We have to know what we're taking about.
3. Organizing: Forming coalitions with other UU congregations, with other faith institutions, and with secular organizations is crucial both for our own learning and transformation and for maximizing our effectiveness in the world.
4. Advocacy: Lobbying, letter-writing, and anything else that brings our voice to our elected officials, or to others who change and make policy. We cannot advocate for or against a particular candidate or party – but we can and must advocate for policies that are more just, better promote peace, and better meet basic needs.
5. Witness: Using the media; publicizing the issue and our efforts. Press coverage when we can get it. Occasional advertising. Getting out the word is a part of the justice work.

Based on the conversations at our February 8 Congregational Conversation, and the "dot voting" we did on March 15, our Social Justice Planning Committee has discerned that we are interested in possibly as many as nine social justice teams. The advantage of more teams over only one or two is that it will allow more of us to choose a team on an issue we already have passion for. The world needs your passion. It will allow more of us the opportunity for the tranformative work of leadership in one of these teams.

Each team will need a leadership core of five -- and ready supporters of possibly many more. Doing the math, that means that forming all nine teams will require 45 leaders.

The ultimate vision is that every member will be active on one of our social justice teams. Every member. And as many visitors and friends as feel ready and able. That's the vision. In the end, as always, it is your conscience and the reality of your life situation as you judge it, that must determine what you can do. It's up to you -- we are Unitarian Universalists; it could not be otherwise. And when we adopted our mission 15 months ago with a 96 percent approval, we were saying that engaging in service to transform ourselves and our world was one of the things we are here for -- all of us.

To realize that mission takes all of us. As Lauralyn Bellamy urges in words in our hymnal, "If here you have found love, give some back to a bruised and hurting world." The time for that is...now.

This Week's Prayer

Dear Power of Love,

Be with us that we may be creators of a new world. Let there be love, and let it shine from our hearts, from the words of our mouths, and from the work of our hands.

We rejoice in the shining light of renewed hope for more peaceful relations with Iran.

We see a new light in US-Cuba relations.

The human quest for knowledge is unstoppable, and it bears continual new fruit. For example, this week the large hadron collider in Europe came back online after being shutdown for upgrades for over two years. Research to unlock the elemental mysteries of the universe resumes.

We see light from our President’s administration announcing its support for a ban on conversion therapy for “correcting” sexual orientation.

The spread of light is slow, yet we do see its signs in many places. There remain so many dark corners where the light of love and understanding is so terribly needed.

We were stunned yet again this week by a white police officer’s murderous callousness. Officer Slager shot 50-year-old Walter Scott eight times in the back. Let there be light to let us all see there is systemic racial bigotry. Let us all understand, whether or not we built it, we live in it – and it is the moral obligation of those most empowered, those most benefited, to be most active in stopping it.

We grieve the violence in ISIS areas, in Yemen, in Kenya, in Pakistan.

We grieve the loss of four neighbors -- found dead from carbon monoxide in a home in Queens.

And we remember, with both gratitude and sadness, the haunting voice of Billie Holiday. The inspirational, and troubled jazz singer who died at 44 would have turned 100 this week.

Dear power of love, be with us, that we may sing a truer song and be creators of a brighter, kinder world.

Free Religion and Free Speech

When does "free exercise of religion" constitute a license to discriminate? When does the public's interest in reducing discrimination justify curtailing religious freedom? To think this through, consider these 10 hypothetical cases.

Case #1: Plaintiffs claim employment discrimination, that they were not hired because they eat beef. Defendant, the owner of the factory, acknowledges his company's explicit policy is not to hire beef eaters. Defendant, a lifelong Hindu whose commitment to his faith is sincere and energetic, claims that being required to hire beef eaters is 'forced speech' since hiring them would be approving of what they do -- and approving of beef eating would be a violation of his faith.

Case #2: Just like case #1, except that Defendant is a Hindu landlord refusing to rent housing to beef eaters on the grounds that this would be approving of actions of which his religion requires disapproval.

My answer: In both cases, Plaintiff is right. Hiring someone does NOT, in fact, imply approval of their personal, off-the-job, behavior, nor does renting to someone imply approval of what they do, so it isn't forced speech. (Employers may choose to limit what foods are offered in the company cafeteria, but if any employees are allowed to "brown bag" their lunches, then beef items in the lunch may be prohibited only if they can be shown to be disruptive in the workplace -- not on grounds of 'forced speech' approving them.) Moreover, the state has a compelling interest in constraining employment discrimination and housing discrimination. This interest outweighs all other considerations in these cases. (Obiter dicta: Plaintiffs should visit some CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] to be aware of the horrible conditions the beef industry imposes upon sentient beings. They should also also read up on the tremendous water, land, and resource use the beef industry requires and the massive output of greenhouse gases from that industry.)

Case #3: Plaintiff Elaine sues Defendant Soup Nazi for unfair denial of service. (See Seinfeld, "The Soup Nazi," originally aired 1995 Nov.)

My answer: Defendant is right. Restauranteurs are allowed to establish their own procedures, and Elaine's denial of service is not based on her membership in a protected class.

Case #4: Plaintiff is a Yemeni national who sought to acquire a cake for a Houthi support party at his home. He claims unfair denial of service from Defendant, a baker. Defendant is Jewish and refused to make a cake with the requested words, "Death to Israel," on it.

My answer: Defendant is right. Bakers don't have to put words on cakes that they disagree with or find offensive. That really would be "forced speech."

Case #5: Defendant, a baker, is arrested for tax evasion. Baker made a cake to order from a customer who wanted the words on the cake to say, "Stop paying taxes. I don't pay mine." Zealous IRS attorneys argue that the baker, in choosing to write these words on the cake, has thereby expressed them -- and admitted to tax evasion.

My answer: Defendant is right. While bakers may refuse to make a cake with a message of which they disapprove, if they do choose to make the cake, they cannot be presumed by the law to have personally endorsed the sentiment (unless the sentiment constitutes hate speech -- see case #6)

Case #6: Defendant, a baker, has produced a cake at the request of a customer, a "Grand Titan" of a local KKK chapter. Customer requested, and the baker produced, a cake with the words "Get out of town, [racial slur]." Defendant agreed to produce the cake knowing the purpose to which it would be put. The cake was then presented in a mock "housewarming" to Plaintiff, an African American who was a new resident in what had previously been an all-white neighborhood. Plaintiff claims the cake is hate speech, and is suing both the individuals who brought the cake and the baker.

My answer: Plaintiff is right. "In law, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group" (Wikipedia). Defendant knowingly participated in speech that disparages or intimidates a protected group

Case #7: Plaintiff, another Yemeni national seeking to acquire a cake for a different Houthi support party at his home, sues for denial of service. Plaintiff went to another Jewish baker to ask for a cake. Unlike case #4, however, Plaintiff did not ask for any words at all on the cake. Plaintiff mentioned what the cake was for, and Defendant then refused to make the cake. Defendant claims that his skill and artistry are distinctive -- that his cakes are instantly recognizable upon sight as being his because of his unique stylings. Moreover, Defendant notes, his cakes come in boxes and rest upon platters that clearly identify the bakery from which they originate. Defendant does not want his product associated with Houthi support.

My answer: Plaintiff is right. Bakers may decline to write requested messages on their products, but the presence of the product itself does not speak support for the context in which that product is used. Bakers may decline to endorse an idea, but may not discriminate in the sale of their services against people who may have that idea.

Case #8: Plaintiff is a same-sex couple seeking the officiating services of a Baptist minister to officiate at their wedding. Defendant is the Baptist minister who refuses to perform the wedding because he disapproves of same-sex marriage.

My answer: Defendant is right. The minister officiating at a wedding is endorsing the wedding. (Bakers and florists who provide accouterments for the wedding are not.) The minister may not be compelled to give an endorsement s/he does not want to give.

Case #9: Plaintiff is a same-sex couple seeking to get married at a nondenominational "wedding chapel" on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Defendant, the proprietor of the wedding chapel, denies service on the grounds that he does not approve of same-sex weddings. The wedding chapel neither performs nor hosts any religious services other than weddings.

My answer: Plaintiff is right in part, and Defendant is right in part. The key distinction between case #9 and case #8 is that the wedding chapel is, in fact, not a religious institution. It is simply a business -- its business happens to be doing weddings. As such, these wedding chapels may not discriminate. However, the proprietor himself is not required to officiate (for the same reason that Baptist minister in case #8 cannot be compelled to officiate). If the couple provides their own officiant (which, in Nevada, may be any notary public who has also obtained a Certificate of Authority to Solemnize Marriages, or any minister, religious official, or military chaplain), the space and other services of the wedding chapel may not be denied.

Case #10: Plaintiff is a same-sex couple wanting to rent the sanctuary of Defendant, a Baptist church, for holding their wedding. Defendant regularly and frequently rents its sanctuary to the general public. It also advertises on its website the rental availability of its sanctuary for weddings. The church, however, denies Plaintiff's rental application on the grounds that church by-laws prohibit use of the church's space for same-sex weddings. The church's by-laws, in fact, forbid the rental of its building, in whole or in part, to groups, organizations, or individuals whose evident purpose in using the space is inconsistent with the church's mission. The by-laws then list "promoting or fostering socialism, atheism, or homosexuality" as examples of purposes inconsistent with the church's mission.

My answer: Defendant is right. Unlike the Vegas wedding chapel, this is an actual religious institution, and this exercise of its religious freedom to adhere to the principles in which it believes is within its rights under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

Discussion

Proprieters of restaurants or bakeries enjoy a number of rights. They may deny service to unruly customers, or to any customer that doesn't follow a set procedure for ordering. They may decline to produce messages they don't like -- or they may choose to produce such messages, as long as the message isn't hate speech, without bearing responsibility for the opinion expressed.

They may not, however, deny service on the the basis that service signals approval when, in fact, the service does not signal approval. Does hiring a person indicate approval of the person's particular or general non-work-related habits? No. Does renting housing to a person indicate approval of the person's particular or general habits? No. Does producing and selling a cake (with no message on it, or with only a generic message like "Congratulations") indicate approval of the context in which it will be displayed or eaten? No.

Does officiating at a wedding signal the endorsement of that wedding by the individual officiant? Yes. This is true whether the officiant is ordained clergy whose officiating is primarily a matter of carrying out religious duties, or a notary public whose officiating is primarily a business. Thus these agents, entirely at their own discretion, may decline to provide officiating services as they choose.

Does providing space for a wedding indicate endorsement of that wedding? If the provider is a business, it does not. Such businesses must provide the service of their space fairly and without discrimination. If, however, the space in question is owned by a religious community whose home includes that space, that community is allowed to choose not to provide its space for weddings of which they disapprove.

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Disclaimer: All cases are, as far as the author knows, hypothetical. Opinions expressed are the author's and may not be construed as legal advice.

Easter Is Not About What You Think

I love this cartoon! Because I am a minister, I laughed and laughed. And then I began to notice a really good point here: You can't act out substitutionary atonement! It's an unlivable theology.

What is "substitutionary atonement"? It's the account of Easter that, somewhere along the line, you probably learned. It goes roughly like this:

The Easter story tells us that Jesus' suffering on the cross is redemptive. He suffered and died that we might have life (i.e., he substituted for us in order to atone for us). Real love manifests as complete submission and self-sacrifice. God required of Jesus -- and may sometimes require of us -- passive acceptance of violence.

That's a very common interpretation of the Easter story. I don't think this is really the message of that story. In charades, as in life, you need to show something -- be active. Easter is about transformation, not passivity; self-realization, not self-sacrifice.

I don’t believe people come to church to stay the same. I don’t think that anyone joins a faith community and enters into congregational life as a conservative strategy for maintaining their status quo. If we wanted to stay the same, we could just stay home – just stay in that . . . tomb.

The Easter message is to be risen, to be resurrected, to be transformed. A congregation must be about facilitating and bearing witness to one another’s personal transformations. A congregation must be about transforming its members, transforming itself, and transforming the world around it.

I don’t believe you’re here to stay the same. But I don’t see you as here to deny who you are, either. The transformation is not about rejecting yourself. It’s about becoming more fully who you are.

The point is expressed in our third principle: acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth. Our covenant is to accept one another – to take each other exactly as we are, for each of us is complete, beautiful, and perfect, lacking nothing, requiring no change. And: our covenant is to encourage change, spiritual growth. For perfection is not static. Your ongoing growth and change is a part of your perfection. Accept ourselves and each other exactly the way we are – and at the same time transform.

At work in this process is the interplay between what is shared and what is unique to you. We share values, expressed in our principles, and encourage each other in living up to them. At the same time, becoming who you are is not simply a matter of getting better at exemplifying the values we share. It’s recognizing and living into the truth that only you see – as, in the Gospel of John, Mary, in her aloneness, comes to recognize Jesus.

This is no easy thing, becoming who you are. But why isn't it easy? Why should it be hard? Nurtured by learned and shared values, supported by the love of family, friends, community, should not becoming who we are be a flourishing as natural and abundant as the flowers in spring?

It’s hard because we carry shame. We are afraid. We have, in various ways and in varying degrees, been silenced from the full expression of who we are.

Make the courageous choice to break the silence, tell your truth, rise up out of shame. Bear witness to the stories of others as they seek to break silence imposed by perhaps greater fear and shame. This finally is where the Easter story takes us. The death from which we may rise, from which we can help others rise, is specifically an entombment in fear and shame.

Crucifixion was designed to inflict optimal physical pain, dragged out over many hours. The executioners sometimes even gave wine mixed with morphine to the victim, not to ease his suffering, but to keep him from passing out from pain so as to have to endure it longer. More than that, crucifixion was designed to humiliate. The person was stripped naked – lifted up to public view, gasping, fully exposed, utterly powerless. At the moment of death, his bowels would loosen, for all to see. It was violence, displayed as extremely as the Roman imagination could conceive, designed to instill fear, and to make anyone associated with the victim feel ashamed of themselves.

“Crucifixion was used against the underclasses and slaves and was regarded as so shameful that even victims’ families would not speak of it. It functioned to fragment communities, tearing the fabric of even the strongest bonds of connection and commitment.” (Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire 50)

For some of Jesus’ followers, it worked.

“Many of them abandoned Jesus and scattered after the crucifixion. They simply couldn’t connect this kind of humiliation with glory, divinity, and triumph.” (Ron Rolheiser, "The Humiliation of Crucifixion")

In their fear and their shame, they fell silent about the promise of a new social order, a Kindom of God.

Others, though – women, at first – broke silence. They broke silence first to simply lament what had happened. Giving voice to our lamentation begins to reclaim our own dignity and worthiness in the face of our loss. They broke silence to remember, to say a name, against all the shaming, fear, and humiliation that would bury it in silence. They broke silence to begin to tell stories that represented that the hope found in this man lived on. They broke silence to transcend fear and affirm community, to overcome violence by sustaining hope. They transformed humiliation into the strength of connection and in so doing resurrected life from death.

Rita Brock and Rebecca Parker write:

"The Passion narratives broke silence about the shame and fear that crucifixion instilled. To lament was to claim powers that crucifixion was designed to destroy: dignity, courage, love, creativity, and truth-telling. In telling his story, his community remembered his name and claimed the death-defying power of saying his name aloud....The Passion stories brought testimony before a higher court of appeals than the bogus trial of Jesus they indict. The purpose of such writing is assuredly not to valorize victims, to praise their suffering as redemptive, to reveal ‘true love’ as submission and self-sacrifice, or to say that God requires the passive acceptance of violence. Such interpretations mistakenly answer the abusive use of power with an abnegation of power. The story of Jesus’ crucifixion, in marked contrast, asserted that the answer to abusive power is the courageous and decisive employment of the powers of life – to do deeds in Jesus’ name....To break silence whenever violence is used to shame, instill fear, fragment human community, or suppress those who advocate for justice is life-giving. Just as Jesus, in John’s Gospel, stood before Pilate and said, ‘you have no power over me,’ the Passion narratives defied the power of crucifixion to silence Jesus’ movement. In doing so, they placed before his movement the choice to tell the truth and live by ethical grace. They said life is found in surviving the worst a community can imagine, in lamenting the consequences of imperialism, and in holding fast to the core goodness of this world, blessed by divine justice and abundant life." (51-53)

Against all violence to body or to spirit, against all fear and shame endured by us and by others, against all the protective strategies we ourselves devise to be safe, there is rising to accept and affirm and speak who we are. There is yet the possibility of transformation into who we are, unobscured by fear or shame. There is yet the possibility of justice, an end to violence, a new social order, a Kindom of God. Here is a livable theology, a teaching that we can act out. Here is the message and the hope of Easter.

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This is part 2 of 2 of "Easter and Transformation"
Part 1: How to Realize the Kindom of God

How to Realize the Kindom of God

In Zen circles, an oft-retold parable relates that two monks, each from different monasteries, happen to each be out on a pilgrimage. They encounter each other along the road, headed in the same direction for a while. They walk along together, telling about their home monasteries. “The master at my monastery,” says the first monk, “levitates in seated meditation. He can write in the air with his brush and th characters appear on paper a hundred yards away.”

“That's nice,” says the other monk.

“What can the master at your monastery do?” asks the first.

“My master,” says the second monk, “eats when he is hungry, and sleeps when he is tired.”

Zen people love that story. The point of it is: you don’t need magic tricks. The trick of life is to be present to your situation, and respond appropriately.

The Unitarians, going back to Faustus Socinus, in Poland in the late 1500s, distinguished our faith tradition as the radical wing of the Protestant Reformation. Socinus’ version of Christianity emphasized Jesus’ teachings and the moral example of Jesus life. The first Unitarians were Christians who emphasized Jesus’ life, not his death.

A couple hundred years later, Unitarians in New England in the early 1800s began describing themselves with the phrase, "the religion of Jesus, rather than the religion about Jesus." It’s not the magic trick of resurrection that is the important matter. It is the presence Jesus had, and his genius for apt response to situations. By 1841, Unitarian minister Theodore Parker was saying that none of the miracles attributed to Jesus had any importance.

We are the people who put Jesus’ life not his death at the center. But Easter is all about his death. The roots of Unitarianism are in the religion of Jesus – that is, the religion that he himself taught and practiced – rather than religion about Jesus. But Easter is about the period when Jesus was beyond doing any teaching. It’s a story about him.

Of course, Easter is a springtime celebration. The resurrection is the resurrection of life after the death of winter. We celebrate new life and new growth (sometimes in new places).

Resurrection is a general metaphor for spring. Beyond that, the four gospel stories each provide us with a different story, which we can read as parables. Different numbers of women, different numbers of young men in white or angels, different encounters between Jesus and his followers. They were written by different authors at different times, to different audiences, for different purposes.

Mark’s parable is about encountering fear. Three women approach the tomb. When they see the stone rolled back, they are nervous. Is this some kind of trap?

“As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.” (16:5)

Is he secret police? Is he a Roman agent?

“But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.’” (16:6)

These words do not reassure the three women. They turn and flee from this creepy guy.

“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” (16:8)

Mark’s gospel represents the continuing fear of political repression faced by Jesus’ followers.

John’s parable, is about discerning our true nature and true place. Mary goes in solitude to see the empty tomb. No one is there. She returns from the tomb; speaks to some trusted others. Some of them went back with her to the tomb again, but then left her alone there, crying. Then she turns around, and there’s the truth, right in front her, but she still doesn’t get it. She thinks it’s the gardener. But it is the truth, and it calls her name -- and in that moment she realizes it, realizes herself.

Matthew’s parable is about the courage to live into your truth in the face of enemies who oppose it. Some of Jerusalem's rulers catch wind of the news that Jesus' body has gone missing. They concoct a story, which they bribe the guards to affirm, that some of Jesus' followers came in the middle of the night and took the body away. People will tell you that there is no new life, no new truth for you to discover. “There is no transformation, no greater wholeness,” they will say. But Mary knew better – and so do we, in our hearts.

Luke’s parable is not about our enemies but our friends. Mary goes to speak to the apostles about this frightening yet promising new reality she has discovered.

“These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (24:11)

Liberation? Wholeness? It is an idle tale, our friends may think. But the truth of your life is not for your enemies to define, nor is it determined by your friends.

Four gospels, four different parables, all about a truth, this reality which you are prone to overlook, to mistake for the gardener, but which comes to you when you are alone – this truth that your enemies discredit and your friends find idle – this truth that might even make you persecuted – was personified as a man, Jesus of Nazareth – a teacher, a healer, a prophet within the Jewish tradition, a mystic, and a social radical. He taught a message of transformation – that we have the ability to transform our lives – by loving one another, by loving even our enemies, by living simply and not placing faith in money, material things, status, and power.

Following his model and his teachings is transformative. Jesus lived and taught about a new social order – what he called “the Kingdom of God” – what we might call the Kin-dom of God, or Beloved Community – a society based on love and compassion. People thus transformed become agents of transformation of their communities and of the world, realizing the Kin-dom of God on earth.

This, then, is a Unitarian Universalist Easter message: Our community can be a community of transformation. That's how we realize the Kindom.

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This is part 1 of 2 of "Easter and Transformation"
Part 2: Easter: It's Not About What You Think

This Week's Prayer

The ancient Germanic goddess Ostara, or Eostre, from which we get the name Easter, brings renewal, rebirth from the death of winter. New life, from death. Blessed be.

The Torah tells of the escape of the Israelites from Egypt: a new life of freedom from the soul-death of enslavement. Blessed be.

The Christian Testament tells of a resurrection after crucifixion. New life, from death. Blessed be.

Every day there is news of death, violence, injustice, persecution.

Every day our faith, our hope, our trust in the possibilities of love calls us to live into new life. Life and love are risen.

Our hearts grieve the world’s sadness:

• The 147 university students killed in Kenya by al-Shabob. 
• All the victims of violence in the middle East: the battles of the Islamic State, and of Houthi rebels and their allies in Yemen. 
• The thousands made homeless, with uncertain food, from a monster cyclone in Vanuatu. 
• The people of Chile, enduring an eighth consecutive year of major drought; 
• and of California, instituting water restrictions; 
• and of Bangladesh, where climate change is raising sea levels and making drinking water much saltier; 
• and of Oklahoma, rattled by earthquakes, probably caused by wells used to bury vast amounts of wastewater from oil and gas exploration deep in the earth near fault zones.

Our hearts grieve all the world’s sadness.

Our hearts celebrate signs of progress for peace and democracy:

• An Iran nuclear deal could have a lasting positive impact on the Middle East. 
• Nigeria elected a new president and saw a peaceful transition of power from one political party to another through the ballot box – something extraordinary for that country.

We pray that light and love may indeed arise, and that we may make ourselves into the instruments for a world made whole and all her people one.

Inherent Worth

Who (or what) has inherent worth and dignity? Only humans of my race? Only humans of my gender? Only humans of my nationality? All humans? All primates? All mammals? All vertebrates? All animals? All living things? All things?

Well, yes.

What is “inherent worth” anyway? Inherent worth contrasts with instrumental worth: something with only instrumental worth is valuable only as a means to an end; an entity with inherent worth is an end in itself.

On what grounds, then, can we say any being lacks inherent worth?

Vertebrates, nonhuman as well as human, are subjects of their own lives. They have a biography, not just a biology. They care about their own lives, have the capacity to experience pain and suffering, and can be harmed. Their lives can go better or worse for them. If human pain and suffering counts morally, then so does the pain of other vertebrates, and we should never cause them harm without a sufficient reason.

“The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?” (Jeremy Bentham)

Because they can suffer, and are subjects of their own lives, we cannot legitimately use then solely as instruments for our own purposes. The world is not a stockpile of resources for human exploitation.

All animals, including humans -- indeed, all lifeforms -- share a common biological ancestor. Advances in our scientific understanding have shown that neither rationality nor intelligence is uniquely human, nor is having language, nor is exhibiting morality. (Besides, as Bentham pointed out, these aren't the pertinent questions anyway.) The work of biologists and ethologists (Marc Bekoff, Jonathan Balcombe, Frans De Waal, and Jane Goodall, among many others), challenges us to expand our understanding of nonhuman animals’ amazing cognitive, emotional, and even moral capacities.

Humans are in some ways more advanced, or at least more complicated, than any other species when it comes to cognitive, linguistic, social, and moral capacities. These differences, however, are not morally relevant. First, they are differences of degree not of kind. Second, every species has its uniqueness. After all, humans cannot echo-locate like dolphins or bats, nor track scents like canines, nor photosynthesize like plants. Different beings aren’t better beings any more than different humans are better humans.

Can we not affirm, then, that “all beings have inherent worth and dignity”? This would not mean all beings have the same value or have equal worth. It simply says that even tapeworms, cockroaches, and dustmites have some worth that is inherent and not instrumental. Indeed, even plants and fungi warrant moral concern, for they, too, are integral parts of the interdependent web of life affirmed in the Unitarian Universalist seventh principle, as well as in Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic:

“A land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it...it implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”

The world into which we are born is much older, complex, and complete than we are. We are just beginning to understand the complex balance and intricacies of our planet’s ecosystems. We are increasingly realizing that the web of life as a whole has intrinsic, inherent value far beyond merely instrumental worth.

I'm not saying we are never justified in using some beings for our own vital needs. We are within our moral rights to eat carrots, cut down trees to build a house, or use antibiotics to cure an infection. Arne Naess, founder of the Deep Ecology Movement, acknowledges that

“any realistic praxis necessitates some killing, exploitation, and suppression.”

I'm not asking for an unrealistic praxis. We must harm to survive. I'm just urging that, along with our needs for instrumental use of other beings, we also recognize they have inherent worth. Let us expand our circle of moral concern and compassion. Let us celebrate the truth that we are members of the larger life community that has value in its own right. The beings of that community had value before Homo sapiens arrived on the scene, and they still do now.

When our legitimate interests conflict with the interests of other beings, we must make difficult decisions. We face such difficult choices not merely when human interests conflict with other human interests, but also when human interests conflict with nonhuman interests.

When human interests conflict with interests of other beings, factors to be considered include:

1. Sentience (the ability to feel pains and pleasures.) Cows? Yes. Carrots? Probably not.

2. Consciousness (self-awareness). Conscious beings have a sense of self that persists over time and interests in how their lives go. Ten species so far have passed a particular (human-devised) self-awareness test (humans, orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, rhesus macaques, bottlenose dolphins, orcas, elephants, and European magpies), but many others may also have a form of self-awareness.

3. Sociality. Social beings have more complex capacities for relationships and experiences. It means that a harm to a member of the society causes pain to other members. The death of a social being is occasioned by mourning among survivors.

4. The importance of the interest to the being who has it. Vital interests trump non-vital interests. The interests of beings with sentience, consciousness, and sociality count for a lot – but not all their interests are vital. The human interest in eating a cow, when alternatives are readily available, is a preferential taste. That interest would normally be outweighed by the cow’s interest as a sentient and somewhat conscious being.

Recognizing the inherent worth of all beings entails recognizing that the rest of nature has value which does not depend on what use humans can put it to. Spiritually, affirming that principle expands our circles of compassion by opening our hearts and our arms to embrace the more-than-human world in which we live.

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(Appreciation to Mark Causey, whose "Inherent Worth" essay [CLICK HERE] also makes most of these points, and at greater length. In particular, I'm indebted to Mark for the Leopold and Naess quotes and the factors to consider when human interests conflict with interests of other beings. Thanks, Mark!)

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See also other posts by Rev. Meredith Garmon related to animal issues. Click on title:
"Does 'Appeal to Nature' Justify Eating Meat?"
"The Spiritual Path of the First Principle"
"Expanding the Circle" (Sermon posted in 4 parts)
"Instead of Guilt" (Sermon posted in 4 parts)
"On Being Animal"
"Engaging Jennifer"