First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia Rev. Abbey Tennis November 13 th, 2016 11:00 AM Description: We often look to others when we yearn for change. Surely, there is someone else who could do a better job than us someone more skilled, more prepared, someone who knows more, someone who has more power. Yet, as the Margaret Mead quote goes, Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. No matter who our new President is, the better world we yearn for will only come about when we roll up our sleeves and get to work. Morning Prayer: O Holy Spirit of Unity, Strength, and Love, Be with us this November morning love that crosses our borders fill us with compassion that we may not put up a wall against you. We have entered a time of deep division in our country division built from the fear of that which is different division cemented into place by assertions that some people are better than others division that is antithetical to all that this loving religious community holds dear. And yet we too are fearful fearful of the barrage of unconscious slights that marginalized people face daily will become a barrage of threats. Fearful that we will lose our rights to reproductive choice and justice; fearful that we will lose our rights to stay in this place; fearful that we will be torn away from our loved ones; fearful that our bodies will be violated; fearful that our voices don t matter that nothing we can do will make a difference. There is so much fear. So much anger. So little hope. This week, despair has sunk like lead into our stomachs, closed our throats, brought flashbacks of the last time a hate-filled political leader was elected; the last time we were bullied; the last time someone put their hands where we did not want them. We have slowly put away our daughters T-shirt with Future President in cheerful letters across the front; held the tear-splashed hand of our grandmothers who now may not ever see their hopes for the highest glass ceiling shattered. Yet, with every dashed hope, we have reached out some to Facebook, or to the news seeking stories of kindness amid the images of racist graffiti, we have reached out to friends to vent and grieve, we have reached out to this church to sing and to hold each other in simple rituals of prayer and fellowship together. We have reached out because we know that 1
the beloved community we dream about is not built in bitterness or isolation, but in love and connection across difference. This week has been full of the stuff of life history unfolding in our country while we keep going to work or to school, keep washing the dishes, making the coffee, walking the dog, cuddling our children, breathing in the crisp autumn air. Life-threatening diagnoses have been received this week; long-desired pregnancies have begun this week. Births and deaths, endings and beginnings, and a whole lot of day-to-day minutia. Spirit, we ask to be held in the historic moments and the commonplace. Help us to build our resilience and face into our grief. May we hold fast to the threads of love that bind us, each to all, stitching new hope together where the fabric of our optimism has been torn. We who believe in freedom cannot rest. Help us to find the stamina to carry on until all are liberated, until all are safe, until all are given what they need to reach the fullness of their potential. Help us to love. Amen. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sermon: There is a life-size statue of Jesus outside of the Christ the King Church at the corner of 32rd and Imperial avenue in San Diego. This corner of San Diego experienced a great deal of crime and vandalism in the 1970s and early 1980s, and in a bout of vandalism in 1980, someone broke the hands off of the large plaster statue. One morning, the devout church goers came in to find their symbol of hope - arms stretched wide to welcome the stranger, the oppressed, a better life - their symbol of connection to all that mattered most to them, broken. No doubt they were shocked and devastated. No doubt this wasn t the first time their hope had been shattered. No doubt some of them considered just packing up and going somewhere else somewhere where things like this wouldn t happen. The broken statue could have been a symbol that the people of the church had given up; that the vandals had won; but they chose not to repair it. Instead, the pastor Jesuit Father Robert Fambrini placed a sign at the based of the broken statue. 2
It reads I have no hands but yours. 1 No hands but yours. No hands but ours. ~~~ This past week, our country elected a new president. And unless you have been living under a rock for the past many months, you don t need me to tell you what this new presidency will mean. Elections are never about individuals they are about vision for a future. Or, as Donald Trump s slogan Make America Great Again would indicate, sometimes a vision of the past. Trump has campaigned against immigrants, Muslims, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, and Transgender people. His policies would seek to limit the rights and protections of people of color and people with disabilities. His language has been sexist. His behavior has shown that he not only commits sexual assault, but he then brags about it. He denies that climate change exists, let alone that it poses a dire threat to the future of our world. He promises to take health care away from 20 million people. You don t need me to tell you that our new president-elect has promised to attack nearly all of the core values of this religious community. Over the past week, you have wept with me, told me that you are nauseous about the election results, held my gaze through red puffy eyes and told me you can t sleep. We have gently told our children the results of the election only to have them burst into tears because they think he will send them away or hurt them or those they love. Survivors of sexual assault have watched trauma symptoms returning. Immigrants fearing deportation, those with chronic health conditions fearing the loss of healthcare, transgender people, Muslims, and people of color fearing increased hate violence, women fearing increased sexual assault and violence. Even if we hold none of these identities, we fear for our loved ones who do. There is an atmosphere of fear not only about the policies expected in a Trump Whitehouse but an increase in violent acts from strangers who feel the election results condone an increase in hate crimes. We have already begun to see some of it in our city since the election, we have seen swastikas and the Nazi salute spray-painted with Trump s name on a building in South Philly, and black freshman at Penn have been targeted with violent racist messaging. And those are just the incidents reported by the news here. Reports of a KKK rally to celebrate 1 http://www.thecompassnews.org/2013/10/immigrants-open-arms/ 3
Trump s victory in North Carolina have been circulating, as have countless stories on social media of white children chanting build the wall at Latino and Latina children; of women wearing hijab being physically threatened; Queer and Transgender youth attempting or succeeding at taking their own lives in despair and more. I think we have every reason to expect that these kind of hateful acts will continue and likely worsen in the coming weeks, months, and years. Those of us who are targeted by Trump s rhetoric have real reason to fear. And all of us who yearn for a country united across divisions where all people s rights are honored, all people are supported in making their own decisions about their own bodies, where strangers reach out to each other in kindness not hatred, where we seek to heal the damage our industry has caused the earth all of us have reason to grieve, to fear, to be angry, and to be devastated. You don t need me to tell you this. When the members of Christ the King Church found that Jesus s hands had been broken off, something sacred was violated. But instead of accepting defeat or trying to go back to the way things used to be, they changed the story. Instead of new hands for their statue, they rededicated themselves to the work of bringing peace, love, healing, and justice to the world with their own hands. 16 th Century nun and mystic theologian St. Theresa of Ávila wrote: Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours, Yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ's compassion to the world Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now. 2 This is central to many Christians theologies when Jesus died, he passed the work of creating justice and peace, of healing one another and speaking truth to power, on to those of us still here. If one yearns to look through compassion to the world, to go about doing good, to bless those around us, than we must use our own eyes, our own feet, our own hands. And while many of us in this room maybe most do not identify as Christian, like any people, we can all fall into the rut of placing too much of our hope and expectations for a better world onto a symbol - an authority figure a leader. 2 http://www.journeywithjesus.net/poemsandprayers/teresa_of_avila_christ_has_no_body.shtml 4
It goes both ways I watched it happen when my friends and I expected President Obama to be our savior, and then watched our disappointment nearly crush us when he could not deliver all that we wanted. I have watched it happen with teachers and professors, CEOs, Executive Directors, Police Commissioners - and I have watched it happen, to some extent, here with me. It is easy to place ones hopes in a promising leader. It is easy to place ones fear, anger, and despair on a leader who is cruel or incompetent. And yet, any leader is only as successful as their people. Any leader is only a failure as much as their people allow them to be. I am not saying the President of the United States doesn t matter. Far from it. What I am saying is that the work of making this world better the power to create real change still lies with, has always lain with, us we the people. There are no hands but ours. Some of you have asked me this week if it s extra challenging to be a minister in times like these times when so many of my people are devastated and despairing times when I too am afraid, angry, and in shock. And while ministry is never easy, I am enormously grateful to be a minister this week. Much of what I care about, and work for day-in and day-out, has received a shattering blow. But I have the honor of serving a religious community built for loving across division, fostering spiritual resilience in frightening times, and cultivating transformative justice in the world. This is exactly where I want to be as we face what is ahead of us. Here, grounded in beauty and openness, everyone from our youngest children to our oldest elders are engaged in the work of compassion and justice. Here, strangers lift their voices in song together. Here, diverse people who would otherwise never even meet support each other in open grief crying or asking for a hug and celebrate together the gifts of life smiling and breaking bread together. Here, we are able to put into action the values our country just voted against. Do you fear our children will face increased bullying and threats in the next 4 years? Especially our queer and trans children, our children of color, and our immigrant children? Then contact our Director of Religious Education to volunteer even one Sunday a month to teach our children that they are loved, they have inherent worth and dignity, and they can help make the world a better place. Do you fear increased division and isolation? Reach out to someone near you in the sanctuary and invite them to join you for coffee and a meal after church at our potluck. 5
Do you want to work for justice from a place of love and healing rather than bitterness and anger? Reach out to one of our social justice projects or find others to join you in new justice work here. Do you fear the weight of your own despair? This church is only what its members make it to be. Become a member here and help us to make this community a place that renews spirits, grows souls, and transforms the world. Are you afraid of increased hate incidents against people of color, Muslims, and GLBTQ people? Many on social media are encouraging the wearing of a safety pin as a visible sign that you are a safe person if someone near you is being threatened. Some of you are already wearing them today, as am I, and we have a basket of safety pins up on the altar up front here if you would like to take one at the end of the service to wear yourself. This is not a symbol to take lightly. The trend only began this week, and we don t yet know what it will mean out in the world. Wearing a safety pin might give comfort to someone near you who feels unsafe. Wearing a safety pin might serve as a reminder to you to speak up, step up, and show up when another is in harms way. But wearing a safety pin might call you to intervene in a situation that is dangerous, and you may be putting yourself at risk. Wearing a safety pin may make you feel heroic and in your efforts to support another, you may disempower them, or worse, escalate the situation and increase the risk of harm. Or wearing a safety pin might allow you to feel that you have done your part and that you do not need to do any more. If you choose to wear a pin, educate yourself on how to de-escalate threatening or hateful situations, and make sure you have reflected deeply on what risk you are willing to take one for another. And if you are only here for today, find another community where you can roll up your sleeves and participate in heart-centered justice work. ~~~ American poet, author, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes: My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement 6
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for. 3 The times ahead of us may not always be safe. The work ahead of us will most certainly not be easy. But look around you - you are not alone. In our reading this morning, Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker said this: You must answer this question: What will you do with your gifts? Choose to bless the world. 4 My friends, we were made for these times. ~~~ There are no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no eyes but ours. May we choose to bless the world. Amen. 3 http://www.grahameb.com/pinkola_estes.htm - accessed 11/12/16; originally written 1/28/2008 4 Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now, by Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, Benediction poem: Choose to Bless the World, p. 163 7