The Second Sunday of Advent: Prepare the Way

12/5

season of light

On the second Sunday of Advent, I was with the Beverley Church community again.  Here si my reflection.....

This is always one of my favorite Sundays of the year.  The Second Sunday of Advent.  The Sunday John the Baptist comes back to the stage again. But before we get to him, first a few words about Advent…Advent comes from the Latin to come…we’re talking about what’s to come…and specifically, we’re talking about the coming of Jesus.  And every year when  we enter Advent, we’re entering a season, a time of preparation for the celebration of 3 comings at the same time. 

First, there’s the very existential celebration of this year’s Christmas with who you will be with …family of origin or family of choice, friends, loved ones….the unique circumstances of this particular year as they are for each of us. And as we live in together as a community.   And as the world around us is inundated with the secular Christmas season, Advent can become for us a place for us of respite, of peace and refreshment for our soul. 

Second, we look back to the historic birth of Jesus, millennia ago, and try to make sense of God’s choice to enter into our world in human form. And what significance that might have for us today. 

And finally there is that coming yet to come, that so-called second coming when Jesus comes back to wrap things up, sing the 11 PM grad finale song  and pull the curtain down on this production.  But in a recent conversation with my friend Naim Atik from Jerusalem, he suggested that another way to translate this is not second coming, but Jesus comes again. Again because in fact, Jesus never has left us. He has been here  with us all along, amen, 

So now we’re ready for John. I want you too notice something….how very specific Luke is about time:

1In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 

He wants to be very specific.

Like hear this:

The first year of the Presidency of Joseph Biden, the last year of the mayorship of William De Blasio in the last month before the mayoralty of  Eric Adams in the year that Kathy Hochul succeeded Anthony Cuomo when Francis is Pope in Rome and Bob Brashear about to be installed as Moderator of New York City Presbytery (had to work that in) the word came to the people of Beverly in Brooklyn, See? Like that…

Now who was this John the Baptist? According to Luke, he was the son of Zechariah…Zechariah, a priest of the Jerusalem Temple.  That means John came from privilege, like being the son of a tell steeple preacher. From the heart of the religious establishment. This is the one who will head out to the desert, dressed like the most radical of hippies, and go way beyond vegan diet wise. 

I recently watched the new movie The Eyes of Tammy Faye.  It was the story of famous Tammy Faye Baker, wife and ministry partner of PTL Club founder televangelist Jim Baker. She of course famous for her make up and high gloss finish. Actually, she rocked a lot of boats by not simply accepting a woman’s role as “helpmate”, openly talking about what Christian couples could do to improve their sex lives to bringing an openly gay pastor on her show. The evangelical establishment was scandalized.

This was all before their empire came crashing down because of Jim's conviction for mail fraud and his hush money  sex scandal. But here’s what I’m getting to…several years ago, I had an encounter with their son Jay.  Turned off by what he had seen of religion, he walked away from it entirely. Got his hair punked out,  got some serious  tattoos and dived into the world of alternative culture.

Where I encountered him was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he had felt called to be a pastor of his own unique style and far from the Bible Belt in the urban wilderness he created the Revolution Church at Pete’s Candy Store preaching a gospel of love, non-judgment and acceptance. And social responsibility. He had special heart for young people who were runaways or throw aways or otherwise outcasts. And there’s a special place in his heart for the LGBTQ community who had surrounded his mom with so much  love as she was dying of cancer.

When I think of a modern-day John the Baptist, he’d look a lot like Jay Baker. 

So what was John the Baptist up to?  proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins…. Telling his community that it was time to turn around, go a new direction …and accept forgiveness. 

Quoting from Isaiah, he called the people to join him in the work of messianic preparation ….leveling the mountains, lifting up the valleys, making the way clear…serious accessibility…curb cuts and elevators and kneeling buses…that kind of smooth path ..like they say on the subway, this is an accessible station…the road to salvation is barrier free….

That’s what Advent is for us….a time of preparation, for getting ready,,,we should start our service with Prepare ye the word of the Lord from Godspell and finish with People Get Ready there’s a Train a Comin…

What dies that mean for us today? We live in a time of great stress and tension. The greatest income disparity since the 1920’s. A global pandemic that shows no sign of ending soon. Hurricanes on the coast, firenados in California, the greatest flowing stream of refugees and migrants the world over close to half our people don’t believe in democracy anymore. My oldest son said to me, dad, I’m not sure I believe in God, but if he was trying to gat our attention it would  look something like this…

But I also remember my friend Father Duffell who said, For most of us, reflecting  on our own death, our own mortality is apocalypse enough. If we take care of our own lives, God will take care of the rest…

Advent is a time of preparation. For the coming Kingdom (Kindom) of God. And we do that by stepping into and living in the kingdom that is already here. The community of those who  choose to gather in the name of Jesus. And practice then ministry of forgiveness of sins. There is a story about a man who asked his rabbi, Rabbi is it necessary to pray for forgiveness every day?  And his rabbi responded, No.not at all.  Only on the day before you die…

And so it’s time to get ready, to get prepared. The best Christmas gift we could give the coming baby Jesus …and each other…and ourselves..would be to truly live out a life of repentance and forgiveness of sins…beginning  with the one we have the most difficult  time forgiving, mainly ourselves.

In the very particular circumstances of this very particular year, let us prepare the way, let us prepare the way…

Let those with ears to heart, hear….

                                                                               *****

 1In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

'Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

5Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth;

6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

Yom Kippur 5782 (2021): Reflections.....

 9/20

with Rabbi Steve at the Bitter End

The Jewish High Holy Days are coming to an end. After a totally "virtual" celebration last year, this year congregations struggled to figure out exactly what they could do. All kinds of creative  hybrid concoctions emerged. My friend Rabbi Steve and his Sim Shalom congregation (a pioneer in online worship) held a pre-fast dinner then Kol Nidre service at  one of our favorite local clubs, Silvana. (Owned by an Israeli and African couple.)

Kol Nidre at Silvana

On Yom Kippur, we returned again to the Bitter End, the iconic venue that has somehow survived the pandemic. Both services were live on ZOOM.  In person  attendance was significantly down.  A lot of anxiety remains in the city. Here's what I had to say in Yom Kippur morning:

It’s good to be with you here today. I realize that it’s been two years since I set foot in the Bitter End.  At a Yom Kippur service. It’s always an honor and privilege to get to share in this service  with you and to get to share some of my  thoughts. 

I was thinking that I have been participating in Jewish High Holy Day services for 44 years now. First with colleagues, then friends, ultimately family and now here with you my Sim Shalom chaverim.

I’ve really come to appreciate the arc of these days. Celebrating a new year at just the right time. I mean this is when  school starts again. The time when vacation is over and when people come back to work. New season for TV and Broadway and football. And given how we do with New Year’s resolutions, it’s always good to have a chance not go back and start again. Most especially in a year like this one. 

And then the days of awe. A chance to review your life and make corrections. The spiritual liturgical narrative is even more serious than that….it’s when names are being written into the Book of Life. I love the drama of the repetitive warnings that the doors are inexorably swinging shut …. Here on Yom Kippur morning, the morning after Kol Nidre, midway through the fast, this service is kind of like the two minute warning. And as far as getting yourself into the Book of Life, if you’re not there yet, you’ve just got about enough  time for a spiritual Hail Mary…well, maybe I could use a better metaphor.

The real content of that spiritual work has to do with repentance and forgiveness. I’ve appreciated learning that in Judaism, you can’t ask God  to forgive you for something you did to someone who is still around. You have to go to them. It’s almost like if you really want to make Yom Kippur meaningful, you need to try to take a first step towards healing at least one relationship before you come here. And if you haven’t done that  yet, well the fast isn’t over yet.

In Christianity, our defining ritual, perhaps our most important sacrament, is Holy Communion.  I’m not about to try and explain that now. The point is, we used to have a part of our liturgy that told everyone that anyone who had anything against a brother or sister  should  leave the table and go take care of it before communing. (Not that anyone ever really left..) But it’s the idea….

What’s at stake here is repentance, t’shuvah, turning around, going a new way.  In my tradition, we use a Greek word, metanoia, changing your heart, your spiritual being. If you think about it, metanoia is like the opposite of paranoia. Because the greatest impediments to changing, to repenting, taking that  first step towards reconciliation, is fear.

In Christian scriptures, we have a saying, Perfect love casts out fear. (I John 4:18) But I’ve learned that the opposite his equally true, fear can cast out even perfect love. You got to get rid of paranoia to get to metanoia,. 

I taught my boys that when you go somewhere and see someone you don’t want to see, it’s like they have an evil spell over you. The only way to break that spell is to walk across the room and offer your hand.  Whether they accept it or not doesn’t matter…once you take the first step, the spell is broken. 

In this divided country, now more than ever, we have to find the courage to take the first step, to simply learn to talk to one another again.

What I’ve learned from participating in the annual High Holy Day cycle has made me a better person, made me a better Christian.

Okay.  Book of Life. What a time to be alive…we’re still in the midst of a killer pandemic…and yes, vaccines help big time…but we still die…there are wild fires, firenados on the west coast, hurricane after hurricane on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts…we just finished our endless war in Afghanistan right before the 20th anniversary of  9/11…I watched the Spike Lee film last night on HBO and relived that time when we had no idea what would happen next.....and how many mass shootings this year? More than one  a day…so common they’ve practically stopped reporting them.

It’s like we’re living the unetenahtokef…..,  who by fire, who by water who by virus and who by a crazy man with an ak47….and as Leonard rewrote it,  

Who in mortal chains, who in power

And who shall I say is calling? 

We have more than enough to remind us of our mortality…..

I want to leave you with this….the one thing Covid…and losing friends… did was make me think of my mortality .

You never know, you know? So I decided to not leave anything unsaid. I made a list of everyone I felt I had hurt or wronged and not acknowledged it. And when we could  see each other again, I started making  appointments.  I discovered something amazing…in most cases things hung more heavily on me than the the other person.  The usual response was you’re still worried about that? I learned that there is a deeper well of grace and forgiveness in the world than we realize, and the most difficult person to forgive ourselves…

Maybe that’s the deepest mending of Yom Kippur…you can forgive yourself and live on…that’s what it means to be written into the Book of Life…

May your fast go swift. Leave nothing unsaid. Take the first step.And may this year be filled with sweetness and light….

On the first Sunday of June

 6/6

Art, Morningside Park

On the first  Sunday of June, this was my reflection for the Beverley congregation...

The sun is out. It’s warm. Like turtles in the parks, we’re easing our heads up out of the water, bit by bit, ready to feel those sun rays.  I’m sitting in the ballpark again, making plans for summer travel. At my mothers’  assisted care facility, I can take her outside and wheel her around the little lake. More and more of us are vaccinated.  Who knows? Some day we might actually be able to meet in person again for church. 

Since we’ve last met together, we have passed the one year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.  And just last week, the 100th anniversary of an event that happened in a city I once served in for 10 years.The Tulsa Race Massacre. Meanwhile all cross the country, legislatures seem to be doing all they can to bring back voter suppression. The situation with homeless people in our city seems to be getting worse. And city elections are coming by  again. 

So what’s Jesus  up to this week? He’s healing people, doing exorcisms, and drawing such big crowds there’s no time to even eat. Even his family seems to think he’s gone too far so that they want him to "tone it down.” People are saying he’s crazy. Religious authorities have come down from Jerusalem to discredit him, saying he’s casting out demons by the power of Satan. 

Let’s stop a second. Last month, May, was mental health awareness month. In Jesus day, people understood mental illness to be “demon possession.” (In some respects, that’s not that far off.) Their claim that Jesus is doing this through the power of Satan makes Jesus just about as angry as he gets. First, he uses logic. “How could I use the power of Satan to drive  out Satan”? Logically, only the power of the Holy Spirit could drive out an evil Spirit. And that’s where he gets really angry…their calling the Holy Spirit the spirit of evil is not only illogical, but blasphemous and to Jesus, the only unforgivable sin. (At least in this chapter..)

This is where another quote comes in…

4If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

These are the words Lincoln used to describe the United States on the eve of the Civil War. The kind division he saw was probably inevitable given that the whole economy and culture of the South (and let’s admit it, the riches of the north) was built on the backs of enslaved human beings. Human beings treated as property.  There is ultimately no compromise between the idea that some human beings can be owned and used as property and the belief that all human beings are inherently to be free people. There is no middle ground. The fact is the whole system of chattel slavery only worked if those enslaved were not viewed as fully human. Any kindness or generosity simply a form of humane treatment of animals. 

I might even suggest that at the end of the day, that original sin if you wish, informs the divisions we have today as resistance to the teaching of race theory grows. 

There are other ways we are and will be divided. Now when you go the game, the stadium is divided between vaccinated and un..There are bars in this city you can’t enter unless you are vaccinated. Laws banning trans athletes are being passed. Our divisions may be as deep as they were during the Civil War. Or the beginning of the Vietnam War. 

The challenge of the next few years will be how do we even begin to understand one another? We can’t even agree on what the meaning of words are. And this divide may be greatest between those of us who clam the name of Jesus as savior. I don’t have an answer for that

(Certainly the apostle Paul gave our Southern Presbyterian ancestors more than enough quotes to support their belief in slavery.)

But back to Jesus and his family. Note that he’s inside the house  and they’re out. You can’t blame his mother for being annoyed, always having a crowd of people you don’t know  hanging around. They have to send word into him to get his attention.  

His response  can seem very harsh. Who is my mother? My brothers and sisters? Then he waves his arm around pointing to his followers and says these are they. 

For people my age, that brings up memories of what it was like during the early years of Vietnam. While cleaning out my mom’s house, my sister found an 8 page letter I had written my family explaining why I had to go to Washington, DC to protest even after they had expressed their displeasure. Those were hard days.

(Let’s be honest…Jesus’ words about family can last be used manipulatively by cults and others.. …)

We understand that we have families by birth and families of choice. New York City, because of its nature, may have a disproportionately large number of families  of choice, because of the numbers of people who come here because they need to get away to be who they truly are. We can over romanticize our birth families. Some are more complex and some just outright toxic or dangerous. 

True happiness may be when your birth family and your family of choice fit together, one the extension of the other. And that’s especially true of Church families.

Jesus makes clear that his ministry is to be about forgiveness of sins, even blasphemy.  That may actually have a lot to do with what heals people. The one person most of us have difficulty forgiving is ourselves;

Recently, the HBO series “Mare of East Town” captured the imagination of a wide audience. It’s a wonderful picture of a small Delaware County (Pennsylvania) town where everyone seems to be related and all kinds of serious family issues exist. A terrible murder of a young woman has taken place and its resolution leaves a deep mark on several families. 

Months later, the whole community is in church. The young deacon who was himself accused of the crime is back after a leave. In his return sermon, he says how good it is that we are all here together after what we have been through.  But not everyone is here. Perhaps we don’t believe they deserve to be here. Perhaps they  don’t believe it themselves. But it’s not our job to determine that. We can’t really know that. All we can do is love them.

Forgiveness may be the most important word in our sermon today,. Maybe that helps heal madness. Maybe they helps heal divisions. Maybe that helps to  heal us. 

Amen

Mark 3: 20-35

. and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. 21When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” 22And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” 23And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 27But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

28“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” — 30for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

31Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. 32A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” 33And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Living in coronavirus world 197: We don't roll that way

 

10/28

Keep on voting

Pittsburgh strong

Today is a day for Pittsburgh. The hat is a Steeler hat, perhaps the most widely held Pittsburgh icon. The logo originally was from the Iron and Steel Institute. The three hypocycloids (curved diamond shapes— alternative name, asteroids— I love that). One for coal, another for ore and the third for scrap steel. Th elements of industrial steel. Adopted by the Steelers in 1964 at the urging of Republic Steel. (Ironically from Cleveland!) The black and gold also represents coal and ore. As well as the colors of William Pitt, for whom the city is named.) Pittsburgh is the only city where all the teams…baseball football, hockey and soccer…all wear the same colors. Black and gold is Pittsburgh. A Chilean soccer team, los Arcereros de Huachipato /Talacahuano, inspired by the Steelers, have borrowed the same logo. 

los arcereros

Romemu

The real reason though is that the symbol was repurposed in  response to the Tree of Life shootings two years ago where a white nationalist opened fire in the synagogue killing 11 and wounding another 7. The adapted symbol became the image for the city’s resistance to hatred. I remain somewhat annoyed that an Upper West Side synagogue, Romemu, has borrowed the symbol for its own messaging. Taken apart form its Pittsburgh context, it loses its poignancy, and in fact, meaning. 

Russ is wearing a hat from Table Mountain, Johannesburg, South Africa. Steve H who lived there’s says the legend is that is where God and the devil sat down to play cards to decide the country’s fate.

Sam tells a story of being inspired by Stephen P’s story in the Yale Divinity School’s Reflection magazine about hope. About being willing to step into the darkness. And embrace it. How she got trapped driving at night when she can’t see and found her way home by following the tail lights of the car right tin front. Hope beyond our power is prayer. 

I quote form the Dead, (New Speedway Boogie)

Now I don't know, but I been told

If the horse don't pull you got to carry the load

I don't know whose back's that strong

Maybe find out before too long

One way or another, one way or another

One way or another, this darkness got to give

We follow the lights in front of us…

We talk about Marilynne Robinson’s New York Time’s op ed on what it means to love a country, especially in our current context. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/sunday/america-patriotism.html) It’s a clarion call to not give up on America. To see ourselves as a family. And have the courage to see the importance of not failing   democracy. 

I see her as perhaps the most articulate interpreter of  Calvinist thought writing  today. Beauty and grace in our inevitable imperfection.

Dre suggest that in our confusion, perhaps the best thing to do is to just set a direction and go. Define a problem and get to work. Knowing we are allowed to question and allowed to explore.

I recall how my mentor Philip Newell, describing his work as a church bureaucrat, said that if God wants something to be done in the world, it is already being done. It is our work to find it, support it and connect others with the same vision. Steve P reminds us that the root of the word organization has to do with bringing together different organs, like Paul’s analogy of the body. (1 Corinthians 12: 1-31.)

And Dre opens  up forgiveness again. And we talk about the difference between shame and guilt, As I’ve been learning, guilt is acknowledgment of something you did, shame is a state of being, I consider it harmful, although Stephen P speaks of the danger of having a shameless President and a shameless Republican Party. How in this country, we began with the concept of correctional facilities, where someone be might be corrected. Penitentiaries  where they might  be reflective and repent, penitent.  Reform schools for troubled children. To be reformed. They all were based on a concept of penitence, remorse, compassion and restoration.  Instead what we have is a system of punishment and social control. 

And in countries, like South Africa with its truth and reconciliation  committees. Peoples’ stories being told is absolutely essential in healing a country. In places like Chile and Argentina where amnesty was declared, the wounds remain unhealed and open years later.

It begins in your family. As my boys said, the way we as parents would say, “We don’t do that in our family.” And by extension, the power of churches that can say, “We don’t do that in our church.”

As I said in my song:

We don’t roll that way.

Chi sis not what we believe, not the way we were raised.

I feel like it’s dar and getting dark every day

All I can say is 

We don’t roll that way.

bienvenidos al barrio

Timmy plays the trombone

saints

I walk to East Harlem to get a free taco. ( A World Series based Taco Bell promotion.) I consider the irony of a Taco Bell in an el Barrio filled with real Mexican restaurants and food trucks. As I reenter my part of Harlem, I see the political street signs. And in anticipation of All Saints Day,  portraits of John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And as I near home Timmy is playing the trombone to welcome me back. 

10/28

A wet and cold rainy day. The  early voting continues. People are so anxious to have it count.  There is another Peoples Music Network "song swap,"  primarily North Americans but two UK friends join us. I share my song "Listen" and it's well received.

...and all the people of the earth will hear the birds sing again..

This darkness has to give. 

YOM KIPPUR 5781

 

5781

Good morning.  I hope your fast is going well.

Wow! It’s been  a year since we’e been together and what a year it has been. I remember at the nend of last calendar year having  a conversation with a friend and saying you know, you just never know what’s going to happen next year that we can’t even imagine right now.And never has that been more true.

My oldest son…and my two grandchildren…live in Berlin. They were supposed to come visit in April. Of course that didn’t happen. We would have visited in August but as my son said, Dad it’s going to be a long time before they let people from the US come here. It’s now been over a year since we’ve  seen them. Like many of you, we have weekly family ZOOM meetings.  So a coupe of weeks ago, we’re talking about our current reality. Orange skies over San Francisco. Temperatures of 120’ in Los Angles and weather reports with the word firenado in it. Ten percent of Oregon burned to the ground. Hurricanes, floods and now “zombie storms.”  Killer  hornets. A virus that has killed 2000000 of our fellow citizens. And armed groups of Americans facing off against each other. My son says, Dad, I’m not sure if there’s a God or not. But if there is, and God wants to get our attention, uh, I think it would look something like this…

What I’m saying is if ever there’s a time for a fresh start, this would be. it. I’m fully ready to let 2020 go and just embrace 5781.

I’m in a Wednesday morning conversation group. There’s a woman who has the annoying quality of always looking at the bright side of things. Just when I’m ready to really enjoy being depressed about everything, she’s got to come up with something good. She keep saying that there have been gifts, new opportunities brought to us by the virus.  And I say, “Yeah, but it still sucks…” But she has a point. I remember, in the middle of the full lockdown, being in Central Park. How blue and clear the sky was. And I heard all these birds singing. I realized there was no traffic. No honking horns. No planes or helicopters. I remember having read that in Wuhan, they heard the birds sing for the first time in decades. With clear skies, many more birds were hanging out. 

I began taking closer notice of nature. The coming and going of tulips in the Conservatory Garden. An egret I saw every day in Morningside Park, sometimes journeying over to the Harlem Meer.  I began noticing turtles. How they look like I do swimming the breast stroke. They can quarantine in place by just pulling in their head. The way they come out and bask in the sun. The gingerly way geese walk on the rough pavement and their web feet then their smooth glide across the water. One day for twenty minutes I watched a squirrel eating pizza.  And one day, I had this realization, that all creation, all creatures, are perfect just as they are. (Well maybe not the platypus..) All creatures are perfectly deigned to do what it is they do and be what they are supposed to be. That thought was is serious tension with my conviction that we must always be involved in tikkun olam, repairing the world. And that  the most sacred part of life is that everflowing prophetic stream that has always fought for a more just, humane, inclusive and sustainable world. 

But then I had an even deeper realization, if all these creatures, egrets, geese, turtles, squirrels, are perfect, then so are you and I, in and with our imperfections. 

This is a season for repentance. And forgiveness, Reconciliation. And getting written into that book of life for another year. I so deeply appreciate and respect that Judaism has taught us that if you have wounded, hurt someone, you must ask them for forgiveness before going to God. Likewise, we are to forgive others. But here’s the thing….I am convinced that the hardest person for us to forgive is ourselves. As a minister, every time I lead a service I lead the prayer of confession and then give the assurance of pardon, “Jesus came into the world not to condemn, but to forgive. Know that who you are, as you are, you  are seen, are welcomed, are accepted, forgiven and loved.”In conversation with my colleagues, many of us struggle to accept that for ourselves.

I’m thinking of Adam and Eve. How they coved themselves because they realized the wee naked and were ashamed. Let’s be clear,,,this was not about not having no clothes. Or not about sex. They had just eaten of what? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil….which means they now knew the dfference…they were adults….the were afraid the seen as they really were…when we are aware of the content of our actions, remorse is good. Even guilt. If we take rseponsibility and act to make amends. Shame? Ah,not so good. It makes us want to hide, which causes all kinds of problems…

When my congregation studied the Torah, it took 2 1/2 years, every Monday, to read every word, we discovered that the “great commandant,” to love your neighbor as yourself, is in the exact center of the Torah, equal before and after. (Lev.19: 18) Like all the mitzvot on either side are ways to do that. But here’s the point….as you love yourself. You can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself.  There’s ample evidence to suggest that people who join mobs, people who join hate groups, proud boys, what not, are people who are not able to love themselves. So my first hope for you on this day of atonement is that you can feel a sense of oneness with yourself. 

But the other is important too. My tradition used to have  a rule that if you came to the communion table with something against someone, something broken, you were supposed to leave and geo take care of it before taking communion. By the same token,I almost feel like people really ought to make healing of relationships part of the Yom Kippur experience. Yeah, I know there’s not much time left. But try this between now and when  you break your fast, try to think of one relationship that is broken, or not right, And try to think of just one thing you might do to begin to open the door to healing. (It’s never easy…a step at time.) Nothing brings more joy to God than healing of relationships.  Being at one with each other is a big step towards atonement with God.

My hope for you this Yom Kippur 5781 I that you might experience yourself as one known and beloved by God and one capable of loving others and engaging in the holy work of Tikkun Olam. That you might feel your onenesss with God, Adonai, Hashem, the Creator, the Spirit, the source, the nameless one…however you experience holy reality….that this may that be yours.

(Now…as Passover seders end with Next Year in Jerusalem, I’d like to say next year at the Bitter End…may God preserve that special place until we can meet again there…)