On Thursday 8 September 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died.
On Sunday 11 September 2022, we gathered in that light of that event, but also recognising that 21 years had passed since the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York.
These were both events that drew many people closer together, in recognition of the many more things that we hold in common, as compared to the smaller number of things that separate us.
Thus it was good to meet. To pray, and sing, and keep silence together, as well as to hear readings and some thoughts on them.
Unitarians are never shy of using scissors and paste on texts, to make them relevant and useful. Both the readings were compilations, firstly from the book of Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach after its author, Jesus ben Sirach) (2:12-18, 3:26-31, 4:2-10) and secondly from the books of Mark (3:1-5) and Luke (18:9-14), in the Christian Bible (Roman Catholic version).
The Sirach reading evidenced the Graeco-Jewish wisdom tradition in the centuries BCE, in which the people of the region we now know as Israel/Palestine would have been soaked. Sirach enjoined the wise to keep the law, with humble and prepared hearts; to pay attention to those in poverty; to support the needy; to be courteous to the destitute; to give alms; "Save the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor, and do not be mean-spirited in your judgments."
"The course of this winter is looking quite bleak for people in UK, with households and small businesses quite frightened by the prospects of rising fuel costs.
There's an unimaginable catastrophe pending, owing to the re-setting of the climate and its weather systems into a highly energetic state, by our continued abuse of the planet through our use of fossil fuels. People in Pakistan are the latest to suffer with the extreme and widespread floods, but we will go down like dominoes, one land mass after another, and all eventually be affected — even those nations that are currently in denial.
We see people pulling up the barricades against other people who are simply enterprising people trying to make new lives for themselves. Fear or dislike of the person viewed as 'other' is rife.
We see the effects of pay systems that have traditionally relied on artificially cheap labour now rippling through the whole of the economy. Even our lawyers now cannot make ends meet, meaning there is a loss of legal aid for those victims who had thought that our justice system would see them right.
We see our loved ones being nursed by people who are made to feel unwelcome through their skin colour, and we hear of medics at all levels being faced with constant stress, and at risk of catching COVID again and again and again. COVID is by no means over.
We see the loss of honesty and transparency converted into a breakdown of trust between the electorate and those who have offered themselves as representatives.
Not all of us may feel directly affected, at present, by all or indeed any of these. But sooner or later, we will be, whether directly or indirectly. And already, those of us feeling untouched ourselves may be seeing the difficulties facing our families and friends; and we may rail at the injustices they face.
We need to do that — we need to rail against injustice — because society cannot afford for everyone to not look at how our country works, ‘under the bonnet’. Those who can need to be part of tackling root causes; or if not tackling root causes then those who can must be part of the action that locally relieves pain and struggle. If we don’t then who is there who will come and save society?"
She went on to suggest that we need to notice the gap between how the two authors 'Jesus' gave advice, advice which in both cases was aimed at making community life better.
"Our first reading from Jesus ben Sirach shows that the Hebrew Bible contained layer upon layer of wisdom and advice on how to behave in community together. This advice went into some detail and encouraged minute examination of circumstances, in order to decide exactly what to do. Men (in particular) made a real study of these texts, and one can imagine the style of advice in those books suffusing the whole public space and flavouring the dealings between people. All with the aim of trying to make life better. Nonetheless, in this world of community and layers of wisdom, many people were neglected and abused.
Jesus of Nazareth lived later, in a turbulent, brutal, oppressive and restive time. He by turns (1) got angry about it and (2) did something else quite remarkable: he learned how to achieve peace within himself in the face of his anger. This is a lesson we could all do with learning.
In Mark, we heard how Jesus was angry with those concerned about the finer points of Sabbath behaviour while a fellow was suffering in front of them. And in Luke, we heard him dismiss the educated, genteel way of praying. In essence, Jesus said: “Don’t be complacent and taken up with yourself like the Pharisee, the lettered man striving in his silent prayer to follow the details of the Law. Life’s too short and change is so crucial. Cut instead to the chase. Recognise your fundamental woundedness and incompleteness. We are all wounded and incomplete. Pray by confessing that, simply and single-pointedly: keep that focus, like the tax collector. Ask to receive the healing mercy that is there for you. Then from that focus, love your enemies, people just like you. Pray for those who persecute you.” "
Our president suggested that Jesus' way of praying was a way of getting back to wholeness, or, if you like, getting into wholeness. Remarking that Jesus was unconventional in his use of metaphors to reveal something of God, she listed some other metaphors she has come across or found useful:
~ Source
~ Eternal Realm
~ Life
~ Underlying Order
~ The Great Unfolding
~ Overall Dance
~ The Silent Whisper
~ Truth
~ Field of being
And then she said:
"But also this: Complete Entirety.
Everything all together is God
God is everything all together
All that there is
Complete Entirety
Complete Entirety means 'all of us together, all that we live in together, all that underpins the universe that we live in together, and all that lies beyond those underpinnings, all together and more than we can imagine'; all of that together can be pointed at by the word ‘God’.
That places us all in the same essential spot, the same spot as each other. Much though we would all like to distance ourselves from some people, there can, in essence, be no ‘othering’ between us.
Each of us taken as a person is an incompleteness — we are the universe experiencing the woundedness of incompleteness.
Erazim Kohák (1933-2020), a philosopher has said: "Our pains and woes are not so much removed from us as we are reconciled to them as we suddenly see them as if from under the perspective of the whole.” (A)
So what Jesus’ instruction about prayer turns into is this:
“Pray like this:
Lord have mercy on me, someone who misses the mark by the very nature of my humanity, my essential woundedness
Lord have mercy.
And have mercy also on all my fellows, on every other human, being in the same essential spot as I am
Lord, have mercy.”
Jesus’ way of praying is a way of bringing interior peace, even in the face of exterior suffering."
The gathering closed with recent words by Rev Philip Waldron, currently Minister with Unitarians in Merseyside, who said:
“It is time to work on our fragmented inner world; if we don’t our external world will be broken, fractured and in pain. When our inner world is unbroken, our external world is healing for those we meet, and in our presence, we become a blessing to those who travel with us on our journey.”
(A) Erazim Kohák (1933-2020) The Embers and the Stars, University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 42-46, via 'Caute' blog
