Sermon preached by Rev. Mary Katherine Morn, 2 Jan 2005
Annie Dillard’s book For the Time Being is a good read at this time of year. I had started thinking about it even before last Sunday’s devastating earthquake and Tsunami struck the Indian Ocean region of the world. Dillard recalls in her 1999 book the 1991 tidal wave in Bangladesh that killed 138,000 people in that country. She asks how we can possibly understand such numbers. Her book is, in part, a meditation on the conundrum of humanity’s relationship with the rest of the universe. She paints a vivid picture of the vast effect our little lives create, and of the seeming insignificance of one life in relation to the vastness of life. The mystery of numbers is a running theme throughout the book. By numbers (and in other themes throughout the book) Dillard “puts us in our place.”
She writes:
One-fifth of us are Muslims. One-fifth of us live in China. Almost one-tenth of us live in range of an active or temporarily dormant volcano. More than 3 percent of us are mentally retarded. We humans love tea; we drink more than a billion cups a day. Among us we speak ten thousand languages.
A hundred million of us are children who live on the streets. A hundred twenty million live in countries where we were not born. Twenty-three million of us are refugees. Sixteen million of us live in Cairo. Twelve million fish for a living from small boats. Seven and a half million of us are Uygurs [the native people of Eastern Turkestan]. One million of us crew on freezer trawlers.
And at least another 140,000 of us died this week when raging waters pounded against the shores of numerous Asian countries.
When we consider numbers of this magnitude, we go numb. I don’t believe we can really understand this. This tragedy, and any of this magnitude, challenges our comprehension. These numbers remind us how small we are. Here today, what do we have, what percentage of the world’s population? Or of the people worshipping on 16th Street this morning? Dillard writes, "Anyone’s close world of family and friends comprises a group smaller than almost all sampling errors, smaller than almost all rounding errors, an invisible group at whose loss the world will not blink. "
Yet still we gather this morning for worship with the understanding that our presence here together is not insignificant. Perhaps the world would not blink at the loss of us—and maybe our desire for such a response is misplaced. Yet our faith assures us that we are, each of us, unique expressions of Life’s abundant love. Or as the Psalmist has written, we believe that God knew us even before we were born. Our religious practice is the work of remembering this and living in a way that expresses gratitude appropriate for this gift of life and love.
We will find an appropriate response only in the most delicate balance of our finiteness and our relationship with that which is infinite. Not such an easy place to locate. And a terribly difficult place to live. For me this sums up the challenge of being a person of faith.
Now is as good a time as any, and perhaps a better time for some of us, to consider how we are doing with this—and what we might resolve for the coming year. I like to do this. I do it sometimes in the fall at Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. I do it around the time our new year rolls around. And sometimes I do it during Lent as well. Repent and resolve. Resolving is actually a part of repentance anyway. Repentance is not complete without a commitment to new behavior. And this new beginning could represent for us the possibility, the hope, that the new year is something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands. Could we really start over? Might we actually have the power to change things? To bring about some measure of justice and peace and wholeness in our world?
Yes. I believe yes. This stunning power is ours. Only, though, because of power that is beyond us, and beyond our ability to comprehend it. Only because we are created in the image of God; only because we did taste from the Tree of Knowledge, we did claim for ourselves the stunning power of being partners in creation with God.
A great deal of our power comes from our determination to make meaning. Did you see the article in yesterday’s Post about the meaning some are giving to the Tsunami? It’s what you would expect, for the most part. Religious leaders are wondering if this is a punishment from God. Some in India have gotten very specific. They believe the tsunami is “’divine retribution’ for the arrest of Jayendra Saraswati, a Hindu religious leader.”
One self-described Christian fundamentalist is promoting the idea that the tsunami is God’s punishment for some of the nations that persecute Christians. On his website he wrote: “What happened, and we see this over and over again, was that Christians, supernaturally, have been able to escape from harm’s way.” This was not the case in Sri Lanka where the Catholics who immigrated there settled on the shore and have sought help from the Buddhists who live inland. But really, there’s no arguing with this kind of belief system. Odd that a force of such great power would inspire people to claim power for themselves, or their individual belief system.
I am more appreciative of the Buddhist leader quoted in the article. He said, “According to Buddhist explanations, life is very short. It is like a dream, but I never expected a nightmare like this.” His reflection on the meaning of this expresses the difficult mystery of life and death and acknowledges our powerlessness.
This is one of the most important paradoxes of the religious life. We have a stunning power in our hands to shape life. And we are powerless to control life at its most basic level. We are created in the image of God; and, our reality is a finite one, our existence is fleeting. That is why it is so important that we get this New Year opportunity every twelve months. It always comes around. And if we use the sacred times of Lent or the Days of Awe to resolve and repent, it will come around for us more often. I don’t think it matters a bit when we recognize the possibility of a new beginning—so long as we do our resolving in the context of a relationship with a higher power. So long as we remember our place. That is to say our divinely human nature.
So, this year, remembering our place, I invite us to consider the possibility of repenting of perfectionism and resolving to be divinely human. Perfectionism is an affront to God. It denies our place. It separates us from a relationship with God. It eliminates any real possibility of love.
I love what Lewis Thomas has to say about perfectionism:
We have evolved scientists . . . and so we know a lot about DNA, but if our kind of mind had been confronted with the problem of designing a similar molecule . . . we’d never have succeeded. We would have made one fatal mistake: our molecule would have been perfect. . . . The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.
And there would be no music. Too often we smile smugly at our tendency toward perfectionism. We take pride in it. Too bad we haven’t learned to take pride in our humanity, as Anne Hillman wrote in our meditation, "daring to be human creatures, learning to love."
Some have called this the blessing of imperfection. Lewis Thomas wrote that we humans “are built to make mistakes, coded for error.” As is the rest of creation. It’s built into the very DNA that is the foundation of all life. Take the amphibians. The first one that crawled out of the water onto the land may not have done so because its feet were so strong, but because its gills were so weak. (Peter Fleck)
Evolution, growth, transformation, all possible because of imperfection. Love: possible because of imperfection. Where would we ever connect with one another if we were perfect? And why? It’s true that we strive for perfection. We resolve, again and again. This is also part of what it means to be human. To always be striving for more. To use the stunning power that is in our hands. To be divinely human.
Let us take a few moments for our own repentance and resolution. Consider what it is you can leave behind with the old year. A resentment, a bad habit, a regret. Can you let go? As we are reminded in the passage from Ephesians, the grace we receive is freely given. We are forgiven. And there is wisdom within us, also given as a gift. We can use it to forgive ourselves and others.
After considering what it is we will leave behind, then we will have room for resolution. Remember the stunning power that is in our hands. And make a promise to yourself. Not for world peace. Probably not even to quit smoking or watching television. Make a promise to yourself that is rich with compassion and acceptance of yourself. A promise that leaves room for your own humanity and for God.
Let us take these moments of silence for our repentant and resolute prayer. (SILENCE)
Tenderly and Mightily may we accept our place in creation as divinely human creatures. May we forsake perfectionism and embrace forgiveness; may we strive for growth and smile at our clumsy attempts; may we embrace the vulnerability that makes love possible. Amen.
Benediction:
We stand at a new doorway, awaiting that which comes. May we dare to be human creatures who are learning to love.
May faithfulness to the good of each become the unfailing virtue of us all. Go in Peace. Amen.
Reading:
Ephesians 1:3-14
Posted by Sue Mosher at January 2, 2005 09:53 PM