From Stone to Fruit Sunday, October 1, 2017

Transcription

1 From Stone to Fruit Sunday, October 1, 2017 I was in the Square at St. Peter s Basilica this past Wednesday morning to hear Pope Francis deliver this message. Every Wednesday morning he gives a homily and a blessing to the crowd of visitors from many lands. On the day we were there, his words and greetings were offered in Italian, French, Spanish, English, German, Arabic, and Polish. I hadn t really wanted to go to hear him I thought it would just be a mob scene but my sister really wanted to go, and since tickets are free and we were able to get the eight we needed for our extended family group, we went. Almost as soon as we got through security and into the square I was glad my sister had pushed for this. The energy of good will and joy was powerful. And when Pope Francis buzzed around the square in his little golf cart, blessing people, kissing babies, and catching gifts one handed! even I felt I was in the presence of a person of Spirit. His words confirmed that. In Italian, I could only understand the repeated word esperanza or hope, but when a cardinal gave a translation in English, I realized that his homily gave me a framework for understanding things I d been observing since we d arrived in Italy a week earlier. Pope Francis speaks of hope not as something we do individually but as an animating force of life. Hope sustained Pandora and her community against the evils of humanity. Hope enabled women and men to come together to build civilizations. Hope gives people the courage to work for radical change and to stand for freedom. Hope carries us into the future. We traveled to Italy for my cousin s wedding in Amalfi to a woman whose family is from that area. Amalfi lies on the coast, about four hours drive from Rome, at the base of the Lattari Mountains. The roads over and around the mountains offer beautiful views of gorges, the Mediterranean, and of villages and farms built into the cliffs. The driver who brought us from the airport in Rome to Amalfi was from the next town and enjoyed telling us about the history of his region. When I asked about the small terraced gardens which lay above and behind almost every house we passed, he explained to me that they were the family s vineyards. They weren t natural terraces but had been carved and built up by the family. Four generations from stone to fruit, he told us. Four generations coming home at the end of a day of subsistence farming, moving boulders, bringing in dirt, building up soil, planting trees to hold it there against the washes of rainstorms, cultivating vines, and finally harvesting the fruit. Four generations. The generation who began that work would never even see the vines, much less taste the wine, and yet they had the vision to take on this grueling work to feed great-

2 granddaughters and great-grandsons they would never know. One of my favorite hymns not in our hymnal begins Faith while trees are still in blossom plans the picking of the fruit. This faith planned the picking of the fruit before there was even soil to hold a tree. And still, many more than four generations from their inception, these vineyards are still producing grapes, and families are still harvesting them, making wine for themselves and to share with friends. The hope and the labor of those who went before, perhaps now nameless to them, still feeds them. This faithful looking toward the future isn t unique to the people of Italy. There is a Zen saying, No seed ever sees the flower. The book of Deuteronomy says We build on foundations we did not lay. We warm ourselves at fires we did not light. We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant. We drink from wells we did not dig. We profit from persons we did not know. The Iroquois nation lived by the rule of seven generations that any decision should be good not only for those in the present but for those yet to come. And a Greek proverb says: A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. It was this looking to the future which struck me during our stay in Italy. We talked about it over dinner one night. My sister and nephew are gluten intolerant at least in the United States. In Italy, they could eat pasta and bread without adverse effects. I ve heard this from other people too. Is it the way our grains are grown? Is it the additives we use? I don t know the science, but I do know that the production of food isn t governed by the need for profit there as it is here. In Italy even Coca-Cola is still made with sugar rather than the cheaper corn syrup used here. (Chuck was happy!) I am not glorifying Italy it is by no means a perfect country but our stay there got me thinking about the long view. In our country we do not plan for seven generations or even four. In our economics we look to short-term gain, the quarterly profit, rather than what will offer the greatest good to the greatest number of people. We are taught to look out for ourselves in the present rather than work towards goals we will never enjoy. Even when we try to align ourselves with the moral arc of the universe we can be easily discouraged when the good we seek is slow to come.

3 The spiritual writer Megan McKenna tells this story: There was a woman who wanted peace in the world and peace in her heart and all sorts of good things, but she was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart. She would read the newspapers and get depressed. One day she decided to go shopping, and she went into a mall and picked a store at random. She walked in and was surprised to see [the guru she revered] behind the counter. [Perhaps it was the Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed.] She got up [her] nerve and asked, 'Excuse me, are you [Mohammed/Jesus/Buddha]?' 'I am.' 'Do you work here?' 'No,' [he] said, 'I own the store.' 'Oh, what do you sell in here?' 'Oh, just about anything!' 'Anything?' 'Yeah, anything you want. What do you want?' She said, 'I don't know.' Well,' [the guru] said, 'feel free, walk up and down the aisles, make a list, see what it is that you want, and then come back and we'll see what we can do for you.' She did just that, walked up and down the aisles. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, clean air, careful use of resources. She wrote furiously. By the time she got back to the counter, she had a long list. [Buddha/Jesus/Mohammed] took the list, skimmed through it, looked up and smiled, 'No problem.' And then he bent down behind the counter and picked out all sorts of things, stood up, and laid out the packets. She asked, 'What are these?' [He] replied, 'Seed packets. This is a catalog store.' She said, 'You mean I don't get the finished product?' 'No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. You plant the seeds. You go home and nurture them and help them to grow and someone else reaps the benefits.' 'Oh,' she said. And she left the store without buying anything. (from her book Parables) But what if we change the story? What if the woman understood herself not as an individual who deserved the world she wanted now but part of an on-going story, a story she was part of but whose end she would never see? The Unitarian religious educator Sophia Fahs used the metaphor of the old story of salvation to talk about how all religions offer a framework for people to understand themselves as part of a greater good, as part of an unfolding process of wholeness and life. But with the decline of religious affiliation and with so much of what passes for Christianity these days focused on individual salvation rather than the good of all people, we have lost that sense of being part of a larger story. And our politics indicate that we have also lost the sense of ourselves as citizens together in a national story. How can we put ourselves again in a story which gives us hope to act for the future?

4 For Unitarian Universalists this can be a hard question because we no longer have one common story to hold onto. But that also gives us the freedom to see the larger story all the particular stories point to, the story of a greater good for all which is worth giving one s life to help further. Whether you find your meaning and metaphors in the story of the Buddha offering enlightenment through nonattachment, in the story of Jesus willing to give up his life to stand for justice, in the Rebellion fighters sacrificing themselves to get the plans to the Death Star and save the Galaxy, the story of Harry Potter and his friends offering their lives to save wizards and muggles from Voldemort, or of Pandora finding hope in the bottom of the box, all these stories give us examples of faith in the on-going good of the universe. They guide us to think less of our own personal fulfillment and more of planting seeds now which will grow, blossom, and fruit in four generations, or seven, or nineteen. Nineteen that s the number of generations ago our ancestors in Scituate founded this congregation. They could not have foreseen us here today but in a certain way they did. Seven generations ago the then church of the First Parish in Scituate which was on this spot burned down and our ancestors of that time re-gathered and built this building which has housed us longer than any of the previous ones. As we think about our care for our church, for our town, for our nation, and for our world how might it change our perspective and our actions for us to think seven generations out? What foundations might we lay? What seeds might we plant? What wells might we dig? And what fruit that we take for granted today might we give thanks for? Let us, like those who went before us, act in hope, so that generations to come may give thanks for the wells they did not dig and for the trees they did not plant. Readings: Hope by Liesl Mueller It hovers in dark corners before the lights are turned on, it shakes sleep from its eyes and drops from mushroom gills, it explodes in the starry heads of dandelions turned sages, it sticks to the wings of green angels that sail from the tops of maples. - Pamela M. Barz

5 It sprouts in each occluded eye of the many-eyed potato, it lives in each earthworm segment surviving cruelty, it is the motion that runs from the eyes to the tail of a dog, it is the mouth that inflates the lungs of the child that has just been born. It is the singular gift we cannot destroy in ourselves, the argument that refutes death, the genius that invents the future, all we know of God. It is the serum which makes us swear not to betray one another; it is in this poem, trying to speak. From Pope Francis General Audience, Wednesday, 27 September 2017 Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning! At this time we are speaking about hope; but today, I would like to reflect with you on the enemies of hope because hope has its enemies: just like any good in this world has its enemies. The ancient myth of Pandora s box comes to mind: the opening of the box unleashes so many catastrophes in world history. Few people however, remember the last part of the story which reveals a glimmer of light: after all the evils have come out of the open box, a tiny gift appears to turn the tables on all that evil that is spreading. Pandora, the woman who had the box in her custody, sees it at last: the Greeks call it elpis which means hope. This myth tells us why hope is so important for humanity. It is not right to say that while there s life there is hope. If anything, it is the contrary: it is hope that supports life, that protects it, safeguards it and makes it grow. If men and women had not nurtured hope, if they had not held on to this virtue, they would never have

6 come out of the caves and they would have left no trace on the history of the world. It is the most divine thing that can exist in the heart of mankind. A French poet Charles Péguy has left us beautiful pages on hope (cf. The Portico of the Mystery of the Second Virtue). He says in a poetic way, that God is not amazed so much by the faith of human beings and not even by their charity but what really fills [God] with wonder is the hope of the people: That those poor children, [Péguy] writes, see how things are going and believe that they will be better tomorrow morning. The poet s image recalls the faces of many people who have transited through this world farmers, poor labourers, migrants in search of a better future who have struggled tenaciously despite the bitterness of a difficult present, filled with many trials, enlivened however, by the trust that their children would have a more just and serene life. They fought for their children; they fought in hope. Hope is the force that drives the hearts of those who depart, leaving home, their homeland, at times their relatives and families I am thinking of the migrants, in search of a better life which is worthier of them and their loved ones. And it is also the impulse in the heart of those who welcome: the desire to encounter, to get to know each other, to dialogue... Hope is the force that drives us to share the journey, because the journey is made jointly: by those who come to our land, and by us who go towards their heart, to understand them, to understand their culture, their language. It is a joint journey by two parties; but without hope, that journey cannot be made. Hope is the drive to share the journey of life. Brothers and sisters, let us not be afraid of sharing the journey! Have no fear! Let us not be afraid of sharing hope!