Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bennington February 25, 2018 Outlandish Love Rev. Kathy Duhon
Outlandish Love Annie Dillard wrote this outlandish comment on how worship should be: It is madness to wear ladies straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. Really, Annie? What is it, that we here, altogether, could possibly be doing and saying that would so wildly rock our lives? Justice? Maybe we d need crash helmets. Faith? Hope? I ve talked about them here lately, and no one has needed to be lashed to their seats. What about love? When the Apostle Paul named faith, hope and love as being so central, he said that the greatest of these is love. Yes, Paul, but greatness isn t so wild, is it? Where there is great love, there are always miracles, Willa Cather said. Okay, Willa, but that s so sweet, not too exciting. Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place, Zora Neale Hurston wrote, and that s pretty powerful, but then what happens, Zora, once you are exposed by love? Apparently I need a really big voice, something that recalls signal flares. I know - I ll channel Martin Luther King, Jr. He said, WHEN I SPEAK OF LOVE I AM NOT SPEAKING OF SOME SENTIMENTAL AND WEAK RESPONSE. I AM SPEAKING OF THAT FORCE WHICH ALL OF THE GREAT RELIGIONS have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. Really, Martin? You started out so strong, but then you went from your prophetic-baptist-preacher-voice to that open-unifying-big concepts-unitarian Universalist side of you. (Folks, you do know that King worshipped with the Unitarians when he lived in Boston as a young man, don t you?). Martin,
we get it that love leads to the ultimate reality, but that doesn t sound like we need crash helmets, and yet you handed out life preservers and lit signal flares for all to see. I ve just come from being with my first grandson, Isaac, and his parents were crashing with tiredness, especially during the 4 days they slept with their little baby in a hospital room - he had a serious respiratory virus - and there were life preservers - in the IV and oxygen and monitors and nurses and Grandmawmaw (me) and his outlandishly loving parents. If we all had that much love all the time, it would be a tsunami force for good in the world. Outlandish love: Love your enemies, Jesus said, and do good to them. You ve got to be kidding, Jesus. Of all the Jesus teachings, this has to be one of the toughest, one of his most outlandish. But, if we could love our enemies, maybe then we would need to get ready for floods and crashes; we d find ourselves in the thick of the hard stuff - natural disasters, and emotional disasters, where love is so very needed. Love your enemies - enemies sometimes we think of the far-away enemy ISIS, white supremacists, or whoever is the most recent face of violence and hatred. Sometimes we think of the person near to us who has done us wrong betrayed us, abused us or, the one we have hurt in some significant way and have not been forgiven by who turns away. I am going to start with an entirely different face of the enemy. A couple of summers ago, a friend, Julia, with whom I was enjoying the James Taylor concert at Tanglewood, unexpectedly called our nearest lawn neighbors who were strangers to us our enemies. Now, before you go judging Julia how petty or start sympathizing with her yes, you have also been annoyed by strangers, when they cut you off in the car, when they have
been unsympathetic to your concerns on the phone, when they have been too loud, too whiny, too rude, or whatever, and you have had at least the temptation to think of those strangers, pains in the derrieres, as enemies, but let me explain. It all started when we were having a wonderful Tanglewood picnic together - many friends and family. Then, a stranger from behind us rudely said that our table was blocking her view of the stage and we should take it down. This was an hour before the show, and Julia assured her that we would take the table down before the concert. By the way, we had the best seats on the lawn. We were next to a side entrance of the shed with a great view of the stage. We did see a number of people come and go from the shed all through the concert. Most had shed tickets, but there were always a few with only lawn tickets who would saunter into the shed to get a better view and try to hang out in front of us, or meander toward the stage. Ushers were there to stop this kind of behavior. The worst offender was that complaining woman from the lawn behind us, who tried to sneak in 4 times before intermission. Once, she stood right in front of me and I was harboring enemy feelings towards her only a little bit on my own behalf, but mostly, in righteous indignation for the poor ushers whom she was clearly giving a workout. And isn t that just the way that enemy stuff escalates we can indulge in the feelings even more so if we decide that we are being avengers for someone else s concerns. (Of course, sometimes, the folks who are being avenged for are actually not all that bothered.) Julia spoke to this enemy woman in a reasonable way, about how she had been concerned about us blocking her view, but she was blocking our view. Julia even mentioned that she could
get her a ticket for a seat in the shed from among our group, since there were a few who chose to be in this coveted lawn location and not go to their seats at all. The enemy was unresponsive. Intermission came and we set up our table again and put out the desserts cookies and fruit and more pies than most people have at Thanksgiving far more food than we could possibly eat. Julia invited some friends who were sitting not far away to come have pie. And then it happened. The enemy, that complaining woman, barged into our space. I thought she was going to help herself to pie, or fuss about the table again, but she said that if she was annoying us she would take that shed ticket. Julia got the ticket for her and she left. Then Julia went to the people behind us several families of lawn folks and invited them to come have pie! I asked Julia about this, wondering if she knew all these people. That s when she explained that the people she d invited for pie were our biggest enemies, (not the woman I d been thinking of as an enemy). Our nearest lawn neighbors were the ones who waited in line with her, all through the summer, to race in to get these coveted spots. And Julia always bagged the best one fleet of foot willing to show up hours before the gates opened, carrying only the enormous tarp hubby would come later with the farm wagon full of stuff, including several pies. Julia and these other early arrivers had gotten acquainted with each other over time and she felt it was important to keep her enemies happy and what better way than to feed them pie? She literally baked extra pies for that purpose! Totally outlandish! I m not suggesting that you give your enemies shed tickets at Tanglewood, or feed them pie, but why not be kind? Why not pray for them or hold them in the light? Why not try love,
outlandish love? You will not only be making the world a better place by increasing love in general, and for your enemy in particular, but you will make your life a great deal easier. When we have enemies we tend to hide out; we are fearful and angry and guilty and spend too much time alone inside our heads and broken hearts. We are so consumed that we burn ourselves and others in the process. Come on out, and love, and in so doing, your enemy will not trap you any longer. You can love a friend who has betrayed you, a family member who hates you for what you did you can love them, even if you can t change them or your relationship. You can love a Republican, a Democrat, a terrorist, a cop, a cop-killer, a KKK member, a Nazi - I know - this is truly outlandish. It won t be the same love as you have for your dear ones, even Jesus admitted that, but it will be born of Love Eternal, which is available for even the most rotten among us merciful love, kind love, love born of the Spirit. Jesus didn t ask folks to change enemies into friends. We get to keep them as enemies. That s something of a relief. In a teaching from Judaism, the Talmud says, Who is a hero? One who turns an enemy into a friend. We could be a hero, but that s not the expectation. The Apostle Paul even gives us this delightful verse that sounds almost wicked being good to our enemies may even feel to them like heaping burning coals on their heads and that s okay. We re not trying to appease our enemies or make them feel good or justify what they did or do, when we love them it might even frustrate them when we are kind and that s all right. Jesus was a realist and a dreamer when he said, Love your enemies. Realistically, we are usually stuck with enemies you may even deserve their hatred, you may not ever like them
as friends or defeat or overcome their oppressiveness, but the dream is that, what you can always do, is love them, the kind of love born of the Spirit. I have spoken about loving your enemies as a way to examine outlandish love, but truly, all love is wild, remarkable, unbelievable, and out there in so many ways in our lives. I imagine that people here have outlandish stories of love from their lives. There is nothing more remarkable, or dangerous to the status quo, than love. So put on your crash helmets, strap on your life preservers, take those signal flares, and go forth into this world with love, outlandish love.