Selfishness or Selflessness?

Selfishness or Selflessness?

(Lay sermon by Bill Peche - Bradford Community Church UU, Kenosha WI - December 7, 2014)

        During the week of Thanksgiving, Tom’s 94-year-old mother, Annamae, came to stay with us in Kenosha at Tom’s home. She, like many people her age, has her share of aches and pains, and while she was visiting us, I had to take her to the emergency room 2 weeks ago today due to a pain in her arm that she said was like having sciatic pain between her elbow and shoulder. Thank goodness her pain was relieved a day later after receiving a cortisone shot.

        Annamae is not like most of her peers, however, in that she is very mentally alert. I gave her an Android tablet as an early birthday and Christmas gift a month or so ago, and during Thanksgiving week I got to teach her more about using it. She has even said that it is “fun!”

        Annamae is also a devout Catholic, so a week ago today Tom and I had to take her to mass at St. Anne Catholic Church in Pleasant Prairie near where Tom lives. To be truthful, I dreaded going, but I dutifully accompanied Tom and his mother anyway.

        Last Sunday was the first Sunday in Advent, and the priest, Father Bob, gave a homily that I actually enjoyed hearing. He stated that “Advent is the time when we take time to think about our lives…for reflecting on our lives” during the past year as we look ahead to Christmas Day and the year’s end. It’s a time to take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re heading.

        How appropriate, I thought, since that is exactly what I had planned in my talk today—to take some time to reflect on some of the messages we’ve heard from this pulpit at Bradford during the last year and to take stock of how we’ve responded through our actions to these messages.

        As you may remember, Bradford’s own Kay Wikel, who essentially is UU-ism personified, imparted a rousing message in January on “Standing on the Side of Love” in our first lay-led service of 2014. Let’s consider some of the stirring remarks from her sermon.

        During her talk, Kay reflected on her beginnings in Unitarian Universalism after becoming a UU member in 1966 and then stated:

        “Fast forward to 2014, and let’s take a look at how we as Unitarian Universalists are standing on the side of love.  Take a moment to reflect on this particular time in your own life, in the lives of your family and friends, and in the state of our community and our world.  Who needs us to stand with them on the side of love?  What moral questions does our commitment to love call us to address in the coming year?”

     In her closing remarks, Kay quoted Fred Small, UU minister at First Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who wrote:

     Standing on the side of love means treating each other well, whether ally or adversary. Standing on the side of love means being more committed to being reconciled than to being right. “A religious person,” Rabbi Abraham Hershel taught us, “is one whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.”  His friend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., added “I have decided to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

     Kay concluded her talk with this exhortation: “As we leave here today, I hope each of us will ask ourselves how we can be more vigilant as we stand on the side of love.  Does it mean responding when we hear a racist, sexist, or sexual orientation joke?  Does it mean taking the 2 to 3 minutes to make that legislative phone call?  What will standing on the side of love mean as we enter this new year?  My hope is that each one of us will go boldly forth to stand on the side of love, maybe even as we shout it from the rooftops.”

        Before moving on, take a moment now to reflect on how you followed through during the past year in response to her exhortation.

        Next, I’d like to remind you of another stirring sermon that we heard this year, which turned out to be the final sermon ever given by our late minister, Rev. Georgette Wonders. On April 6, Georgette gave a sermon entitled “Facing Death: The UU Book of the Dead” in which she contemplated what a UU Book of the Dead, if it were to exist, might tell us about preparing for death.

        Georgette told us:

        “The way we prepare for the day when we must say goodbye to a loved one is to live each day as if it were the only day—which it actually is.

“Overcome your resentments and learn not to accumulate them. Be useful and light upon the earth. Live a grateful life. As Forrest Church writes, ‘Death is not life’s goal, only life’s terminus. The goal is to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for.  This is where love comes into the picture. The one thing that can’t be taken from us, even by death, is the love we give away before we go.’

She sums up by saying, “So begin now or continue on.  Love as if our lives depend on it, for they do!”

My question to you, then, is whether you loved as if your life depended on it during the past year.

Finally, as we stroll down Bradford’s memory lane of past sermons, so to speak, I want to re-discover one that our interim minister, Rev. Lillie Henley, entitled “Vengeance” and gave on November 2. Lillie made some very forceful comments in her talk, and I quote:

“As far back as the human story goes, in writing and back further to the oral tradition, our story is about vengeance and war.”

“Vengeance and war, is it genetic or cultural? As far as I can tell, none agree. I do know an author, Chris Hedges, who wrote War is a Force that Gives us Meaning. According to Hedges, it is society that creates the circumstances that lead to war, perpetuate it, and preserve it.”

Lillie goes on to say:

“I’m all for peace, but I also believe that war and vengeance are not only cultural phenomena, but they are also individual phenomena.

“We may not call them by those words when we are consumed by them, or even challenged by them, but we reflect our culture. Just as we are a mirror image of society’s racism, we are a mirror image of our society’s propensity for war and revenge—no matter how enlightened we are. When war and revenge are intrapersonal, we call them…well…war and revenge. Actually, we call them estrangement, family feuds, friends who murder, family with issues, friend from hell, and I could go on and on.

When war and revenge are intrapersonal, it means we are hurting and we want to hurt someone we care about. War and revenge.

I don’t have to ask, “What do war and revenge do to us?” We see it every day. And many of us experience a more personal version in our own lives. Some form of war and revenge exists within each and every one.

There will always be someone, somewhere, somehow, sometime, who will hurt us. Letting go, loving despite the pain, helps. It helps us to carry on, move on, live on. “Letting go,” as Buddha says, “Let go and let God,” as some of my relatives say! Letting go of the pain and replacing it with love is the answer.

I have no answers to the war and revenge perpetrated today around the world, and certainly do not know how to “cure” our own American need to participate in and even perpetrate the violence.

What I do know is that each person in all the world suffers just as the world suffers. If we practice, practice, practice letting go, then we can move on, live on, and love on.”

What powerful words are they! And something to which Lillie would probably say, “Let the Congregation say ‘Amen!’”

Now, you may remember that my sermon today is entitled “Selfishness or Selflessness?” and you might wonder why I’ve chosen that title rather than something about love or peace.

You see, as I contemplated the words of Kay Wikel, Georgette Wonders and Lillie Henley from this past year, I reflected on why 3 different people at 3 different times of the year chose to exhort us to follow a path of love.  Certainly, as Unitarian Universalists, if we are to follow our 7 principles, it should already be part and parcel of us, right? Why keep on repeating this message and seemingly beating us over the head with it?

I surmised that we need to be constantly reminded of this message because we are all inherently selfish at heart. As babies, we craved attention. As we grew up, our egos grew as well. We learned the necessity of “looking out for number one.” We like to get our way, if at all possible, and to always have the last word at any cost. Despite our UU principles and our cultural upbringing that prompts us to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” we many times fail to follow the lovely precepts that our faith tradition promotes. It is therefore because we are human that we need the likes of Kay, Georgette, and Lillie to speak to us throughout the year.

In 1971, I turned eighteen and graduated from high school. It was a time of war and anti-war demonstrations. There were still racial tensions despite the work of Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. It was during this time period that I, salutatorian of my senior class, spoke at the high school commencement ceremony. I chose the words of Cathy’s solo today as the unusual theme of a high school graduation speech — “Peace: Let it begin with me.”

I still have the speech which I had typed with a manual typewriter on 7 note cards and tucked away in an airmail envelope. I’d like to end today with part of the speech I gave 43 years ago, and it is my fervent wish that its exhortation will impact how you live out the rest of this year, choosing a spirit of selflessness over one of selfishness.

“Peace…and let it begin with me”—how simple! For how else can peace become a reality unless it first begins with me—unless I am a part of it—unless I am doing my share to help it become a reality?

“The more I thought about it, the more I realized that people are not letting peace begin with themselves. Sure, they can say how much they dislike war, they can participate in demonstrations for peace, or even fight to gain peace. Yet these same people may be prejudiced against blacks or other racial groups; they may feel that other nationalities or cultures are inferior to their own; or they may destroy property or hurt and possibly kill others in a social activist demonstration. Yet they want peace. But can they—can we—obtain peace with such an attitude? I doubt it, and therefore believe people should take to heart this quote by Albert Camus, a noted French writer, who said, “For a thought to change the world, it must first change the life of the person who carries it.” How true that is, for how can peace become a reality between nations unless it first becomes a reality between men?

It is rather surprising that all the major religions of the world—Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism, as well as Christianity—emphasize love for one’s fellow man. In spite of this, peace and brotherly love are not abundant in our world today. Consequently, every religious doctrine concerning brotherly love is virtually worthless—and will continue to be so—unless and until it is put into effect.

In my speech, I mentioned that graduation night marked a new beginning for my high school class as we left behind the protection and helping hand afforded us at school and ventured ahead, having to make our own decisions and go our own way.

So it is with us today at Bradford. We must leave here this morning and continue onward during this holiday season and into 2015. May we use the Advent season to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going; let us check our selfish egos at the door as we depart. May we all, from this time forward, truly let peace begin with ourselves.