Sermon by Rev. Victor Carpenter, November 23, 2007
First Religious Society, Carlisle, Massachusetts
Two weeks ago a photograph appeared in the New York Times that broke my heart. Dateline: Flint, Michigan. The photo of a six year old boy who had severely beaten a six year old girl (photo also included). Two little faces, twisted and distorted and grim. Two children of violence in a world they did not make and for which they bore no responsibility, but whose cruelty had been visited upon them.
I looked at the photograph and thought of poet Seamus Heaney’s words,
Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
There is something terrible about the adult world’s tensions and struggles and nightmares being visited upon and acted out by children. It is as if we are witnesses to the field of our most precious hope - which our children represent – being destroyed, salted, burned over.
Our children, those wonderful kids who gather up here each Sunday morning and then pass to their classes, but ALL our children - its not just that children are important to us objectively - we are important to ourselves as the children we once were.
Our own individual “child self” is precious. Our own “child serf” is with us, each one of us, all the days of our lives; it is with us and we can always recall it - at will.
You can remember yourself as a child. Just watch anyone tell you about some discovery that she or he made as a child and you’ll see that person’s child-self revealed - the person is rejuvenated on the spot; the eyes brighten and twinkle; the lines on the forehead vanish. The long ago child greets you, shining through the adult countenance.
Our own individual childhood is a constant and continuing wonder to us.
No matter how happy or sad or lonely we were, it was in our childhood that we like ourselves the most.
It no mere happenstance that childhood and child-like figures are so prominent in religious art. Think of the myriad artistic expressions of Jesus as an infant, or Jesus the young child cradled by Mary.
Jesus, in a sense , was symbolized by childhood BEFORE he demonstrated his goodness as a man BECAUSE that goodness was simply presumed to be a natural component in the makeup of the infant.
Goodness, innocence, truth - such is the child. And so it is that one of the most quoted lines in Christian Scripture is the admonition in Mark’s gospel to “suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God”.
It is a deep irony that today the word “suffer” when it is linked with children, takes on quite a different meaning that was intended by scripture.
Today “suffer” indicates the nightmare quality of so many children like those two six year olds in Flint Michigan or in Dafur, Somalia, Iraq, Roxbury.
Again the poet’s words,” No poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted and endured”.
Several years ago, Cathe Carpenter and I were in South Africa as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission held its final hearings in Cape Town. As we were leaving a session of the hearings we passed an open office door and I spotted a poster on the wall proclaiming, “ Don’t let our nightmares become our children’s “. I entered the office, asked the hearing’s commissioner (whose office it was) if I might have the poster. Graciously she removed it from her wall and gave it to me.
POSTER DISPLAY
Given what this congregation has been going through to resolve its conflicts about being a “welcoming congregation” I think the poster’s message transcends its place of origin.
POSTER DOWN
South Africa continues to deal with the residue of its nightmares. The commission’s work is both bold and painful. That work underscores the truth of poet Heaney’s line that “no poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted and endured”.
A couple of years ago the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s chairperson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu published an account of the Commission’s work, the title of which could serve as a corollary to the message on my poster; “No Future Without Forgiveness”.
Without forgiveness the future is foreclosed and the adult nightmares will continue to be visited upon the children forever.
In his book Tutu introduces the African word “ubuntu”. It comes from the Sotho language ( one of South African 11 offical languages). Its hard to render the meaning of “ubuntu” concisely . About the closest we can come is to say that when someone has “ubuntu” that person is generous , hospitable, caring, compassionate. It means that your humanity is tied up with my humanity and that we are all inextricably bound together in the whole fabric of life.
Where we of western rational culture say, “ I think therefore I am” ; a person of “ubuntu” culture would say, “ I participate therefore I am”. My self-assurance comes from belonging to a greater whole - and that “whole” is diminished when others are humiliated, oppressed, degraded as if they are less than who they are.
‘Ubuntu” then indicates harmony, friendship, community; “ubuntu “ is the key to achieving forgiveness.
As Tutu says, forgiveness is not just altruism; it is the best form of “enlightened self-interest”. Forgiveness gives people resilience; forgiveness enables us to survive and emerge from life’s nightmares with our humanity intact.
Last Sunday’s exercise with the feathers was an exercise in “ubuntu”. As those who attended know, we sat in small groups and passed a feather from hand to hand, giving each person who held the feather the opportunity to speak and be listened to by others. The process wasn’t perfect but I think we made a good start in moving off “dead center” on the taxing “welcoming congregation” issue.
And it put me in mind of another time when I served as minister of the Arlington St. Church in Boston. It was the 1980 and Boston was still struggling with the effects of the “bussing” crisis which had set citizens at each other’s throats.
The moment was a mayoral election ( yes, there were elections before Menno). This one pitted Ray Flynn, a white South Boston “boyo” and City Counselor against Mel King, also a City Counselor - and black.
I was deeply involved in the Mel King campaign and disappointed when he lost.
The day after the results were announced Cathe Carpenter, who was working at Children’s Hospital at the time, was still wearing her “King” button. A stranger passed her in a hospital corridor, glanced at the button, made a face and snarled “ Flynn WON you know !” “Yes”, she said, “ too bad” and walked on.
Several days later both Mel King and I were participating in a local TV newscast. While we waited in the studio, I told King of Cathe’s encounter with the Flynn supporter. I called the guy” a sore winner”, expecting a chuckle from King.
But Mel didn’t chuckle. He became very serious and said,” Life is really hard for people who see everything in terms of winning or losing. Those people are always disappointed because the “win” is never big enough to keep the possible “Loss” from threatening them. You really have to look at life NOT as winning OR losing BUT AS caring and changing. We lost the election but we changed Boston because we cared about something that was bigger than an election.”
How does one move from a Win/lose mindset to a Care/Change mindset? A bit of “ubuntu” , and tad of “forgiveness”.
As Tutu said “Forgiveness gives people resilience; it keeps our humanity in tact.”
And add poet Heaney’s words,
History says, Don’t hope
On This side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime,
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
Forgiveness is the name of miracle, the cure. It is the miracle/cure that churches and their people are called upon to perform. We are the witnesses when hope and history “rhyme”.
Call miracle self-healing
The utter, self- revealing
Double take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.