Oh, Beautiful
An Independence Day Service
Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
July 5, 2015
Call to Worship
[not recorded]
I would go to the ends of the earth for you, for each of you. I would go to the ends of the earth and I would put my life on the line in your defense. I would defend your honor, your pride, your integrity…your families. I would defend your very lives…and hold it as dearly and as bravely as I would my own.
Coast of Oregon—July, 2015
Sermon
I went to the ends of the earth last week when I was in Oregon. I went to the end of the earth (or to what sure seemed like the end of the earth) and it scared me to death. It sacred the hell out of me. Or, to be my appropriate from a religious standpoint, the end of the earth scared the hell I don’t believe it out of me. And let me tell you what I mean by that, if you would permit me.
In our tradition of faith, in the practice of Unitarian Universalism, we have worked through and beyond the idea of hell, through and beyond the notion of a God so unforgiving that hell would be a part of the great design, the master plan. In fact, we worked a good deal beyond even the idea of the great design, beyond the notion of a master plan. We worked beyond them because we were forced to work beyond them by the function of our own minds. We were forced by the power of our imagination. The idea of a great design implies the existence of a designer. The notion of a master plan implies the existence of a master planner, a great architect of some kind consciously arranging for the world we know to be thus and so. So, without actually giving these ideas and these notions up entirely, we struggled with them as a religious movement and we tried to get beyond the ways that they limited the imagination.
Now, when these ideas first developed, when these notions began to appeal to our language and our sense of storytelling, the concept of the great architect was more salient than it is now. It was more accepted—not more accurate, but more accepted—precisely because the idea, the notion, that something so infinitely exquisite as the beauty of the world (to say nothing of the solar system, the galaxy and the universe within which this world makes its yearly cycle around the sun), that something so infinitely exquisite could be designed and crafted by a single entity boggled the mind, stupefied the sense and woke to the tangible mystery that echoes and resounds in familiar figures as well in this world below as it does in the heavens above.
So, let’s suspend the mind for a spell, shall we? Let’s not come first with our critiques, impressing ourselves and one another with our intellectually fabulous understandings of the world…our gender-nuance, non-binary, undifferentiated, racio-constructionist, postmodern, terminally educated hypotheses. Let’s just give ourselves over to the poetry.
Far beyond the grasp of hands or light to meet the light
Past the reaches of the mind
There, find the key to natures harmony
In an architecture so entwined
Like the birds whose patterns grace the sky
And carry all who join in love expanding
The message of peace will rise in flight
Taking the weight of the world upon its wing
With the oneness of everything
Jim Scott offers us these words, his song, written into our hymnal…but more importantly, written into our lives. Written upon the heart and upon the soul of those who journey to seek the bravest truths is a singular poetry. We see only its reflection in the arts that we appreciate but the poetry that I am speaking of is deeper still. You can’t find it in the hymnal. You can’t find it in anthologies. It is not indexed, not even in the darkest reaches of the Library of Congress. No search engine can find it more quickly than can your mind…and no computer ever will…as long as we breathe and sing and live and love and laugh…over and past our differences we live into a greater harmony—unsacrificed and unsacrificable on any altar or crucifix.
Far beyond the grasp of hands or light to meet the light
Past the reaches of the mind
There, find the key to natures harmony
In an architecture so entwined
We, with it and it, with us. In and out and through and beyond and beneath and above all the heavens, there is something so precious, so beautiful to behold and the meaning of my life depends upon it and, dare I say, the meaning of your life depends on it too. And I would go to the ends of the earth and I would put my life on the line for its defense. I would defend its honor, its pride, its integrity. I would defend these things and hold them all as dearly and as bravely as I do my own life.
I remember when I first got to seminary. I was headstrong. I knew what I wanted and I knew exactly how to get and I chose not to because the headstrong path that I was on was not holy. I was not surrendered to life, to love, to spirit. I was masculine and determined and misguided and unhealed. I knew that of myself but I did not yet trust my teachers, even though I had given up my academic career to be with them. On one afternoon, in ECO—which stands for Educating to Counter Oppressions—I had the pleasure of being in a small group with the Reverend Dr. Rebecca Parker, the president of the seminary and the first female president of any seminary in the country. Each small group was asked a series of questions that were designed to solicit religious beliefs and moral values. The questions were designed to prompt and to encourage conversation about how deeply we were invested in such things. What do you believe in? What do you deeply value? How strongly to you cleave to these and how do you live that out?
I was headstrong. I wanted others to know that. I didn’t feel like I had time to mess around. So, I started fashioning my answer as soon as the questions were asked and I failed to give my complete attention to my classmates who were speaking from their hearts. I presumed that they were, at any rate. I couldn’t know. I couldn’t evaluate their sincerity because I was stuck in my own head. I wanted to say something that would impress my teachers, my colleagues and myself—if I am truly honest. I was nervous because we were going around the circle clockwise, speaking in turn, and to my immediate right was Rebecca Parker. She was going to be impressive and I wanted to be impressive too. So, I failed to pay full attention to my colleagues until after I answered the question.
I wanted to be impressive and I wanted to be cool but I blew it because Dr. Parker messed me up. What I remember went like this (and I am reconstructing this exchange almost entirely):
What do you believe in?
She said, “I believe in the Starr King School for the Ministry."
What do you deeply value?
She said, “I value its tenants of faith and its moral contribution.”
How strongly do you cleave to these and how do you live that out?
She said, “I would defend this school with my life.”
And I blew it. Any pretense of composure went out of the window. I gasped audibly and I told her that I thought that was extreme. I had just left the academy—one year at Brooklyn College and another six years at Duke University. I knew first hand how corrupt and deceitful institutions of higher learning can be and I did not want for her to suffer unnecessarily. After all, and this part I said aloud, “Dr. Parker, this is just a job.”
Now, the good and right Reverend Dr. Rebecca Parker is from the Pacific Northwest. She is not from New Jersey, like I am and I am grateful. Had she been from New Jersey, I would like have two fewer teeth. So, she didn’t punch me in the mouth like, perhaps, she should have. She looked at me and saw the depth of my injury. And I saw her see that and her seeing of it broke my heart and I truly almost cried. I misunderstood the meaning of the questions. I misunderstood the power of that meaning. The power and the meaning of the questions that we were asked lay not in the impressive answers but rather in the life we choose to live on the basis of them. It is not important that we are eloquent. It is important that we are wise and, unfortunately, wisdom is not always eloquent. It is not always impressive. But it is the thing on which our lives depend.
She said it so softly that my ears fell off and my heart was broken wide. And she said soundlessly, with just her eyes. She said, “Why spend your time doing anything less than the most important thing that you can do from where you stand?”
I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was worried about impressing people. My own pretenses were helping me destroy the ways I could make meaning in my life. Why spend time doing anything less than the most important thing that I can do from where I stand?
From where we stand, what is the most important thing that we can do? Or more intimately, ask the question on the individual level: From where I stand, what is the most important thing that I can do?
I will never forget the power of that moment. I am still deeply affected by it. So, when I consider what it means to go to the ends of the earth for someone else, to put one’s life on the line in another’s defense, to hold another’s life as dearly and as bravely as I do my own, I think about those four questions:
What do I believe in?
What do I deeply value?
How strongly do I cleave to these
And how do I live that out?
I think about those who have answered and who continue to answer these questions in my name—the soldiers in the military who fight and lose and win the wars that I, for the most part, do not believe in (because I have the luxury of talking about what I do and what I do not believe). I think of the soldiers in the military who fight and live and die. I think of those, most hauntingly of all, who escape physical death only to suffer it at their own hand, after they have returned from the battlefield. They suffer from a moral injury—22 times each day.
I want go to the ends of the earth for them. I want to go to the ends of the earth and put my life on the line in their defense. I want to defend their honor, their pride, their integrity…their families. I want to defend their very lives and hold them as dearly and as bravely as I do my own.
Two Starr King professors of mine wrote a fascinating book called Soul Repair—Recovering from Moral Injury After War. Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini, two of the brightest women I have ever known, spoke from their experiences of war. Both of them have dealt with moral injury in their families. They write,
When veterans return to our communities after war, we owe it to them and to ourselves to do our best to support their recovery. To do so, however, we must be willing to engage the same intense moral question that veterans undertake about our own responsibility as a society for having sent them to war. This book is an invitation to accept that transformational process.
The military, which trains people to kill, also teaches moral values to all who serve. Soldiers are instructed in the principles of just war and legal and ethical conduct of war, including the need to protect non-combatants and to refrain from torturing prisoners. People in the military often understand the principles of just war and international standards better than members of the religious and philosophical traditions that espouse them. Paradoxically, current military regulations require soldiers to fight all wars, regardless of their moral evaluations, which can create profound inner conflicts for them.
This inner conflict, as they explain, creates a moral injury from which it is very difficult to recover. Often, returning veterans use drugs and alcohol to escape…and 22 times a day, they choose far more drastic measures and they take their own lives.
I went to the end of the earth—as far as this country is concerned, at any rate. I went to the coast of Oregon and I touched that Pacific Ocean. General Assembly had taken place in Portland. About 5,000 Unitarian Universalists had gathered for a week to find community and to do the affairs of the denomination. As a body, we learned of the tragedy that befell Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. We learned, joyfully, of the Supreme Court’s decision to truly recognize a more beautiful definition of marriage. We grasped in horror as the fires of Ferguson and fires of Baltimore transformed themselves entirely and burned like Hell itself in the town of Knoxville, Tennessee on the 21st day of June 21 and in Macon, Georgia and in Tennessee’s Gibson County on June 23 and in Charlotte, North Carolina on the very next day and in Elyria, Ohio on the 25th of June and in Tallahassee, Florida and Warrenville, South Carolina on the very next day and on June 26 in Greeleyville, 60 miles northwest of Charleston, just five days ago.
And we rejoiced online, having learned that a 30-year-old, African American woman named Bree Newsome changed the world all by herself. Strike that. She did have a partner on belay. As DemocracyNow! reported on the 29th of June,
On Saturday, Bree Newsome, a 30-year-old African-American woman, was arrested at the state Capitol after scaling the 30-foot flagpole and unhooking the Confederate flag. As police officers shouted at her to come down, Bree Newsome shimmied to the top, took the flag in her hand and said, "You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today!" Newsome recited Psalm 27 and the Lord’s Prayer as she brought the flag down. As soon as she reached the ground, she was arrested, along with James Tyson, who had stood at the bottom of the pole to spot her as she climbed. The action went viral and was seen around the world. Bree Newsome said the Lord’s Prayer and recited the 27th Psalm.
The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked advance against me to devour me,
it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall.
Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.
One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.
Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord.
Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me.
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”
Your face, Lord, I will seek.
Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior.
Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
Teach me your way, Lord; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.
Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations.
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
The Ware Lecturer at General Assembly this year was Dr. Cornel West. He preached a message of integrity calling on a four-part exercise that was introduced by W.E.B. DuBois in 1957 in a novel called The Ordeal of Mansart.
Exploring his comments is the subject for another time but after he was through, after the thunderous applause had died down a bit, President Peter Morales announced next year’s lecturer. As we are turning more and more toward interdenominationalism and the sharing of wisdom from all traditions of faith, next year’s lecturer will be Krista Tippett. She teaches us how to stretch into the fullness of ourselves…because it’s hard to bloom. It’s hard to become all that you truly are. It’s hard to become yourself. It’s hard to be all that you can be.
But to begin, be brave enough to answer three questions for yourself.
What do I believe in?
What do I deeply value?
How strongly do I cleave to these
And how do I live that out?
Don’t answer them to seem impressive. Don’t answer them for anyone but yourself. Be loyal to the spirit that is within you that is singular in all the world. If independence means anything, it means this.
Agree this day, this 5th day of July, in this month named after Julius Caesar, agree this day to be true and loving to this land—as troubled and as triumphant as it is and e’er will be. Go to the ends of this earth for that love, if truly that is where the Spirit guides. Listen to a thundering silence so loud. Listen until your ears fall off and love this life while you can. That love brings real peace to us all. Realize the beauty that is within you.
Closing
There was a young girl who was once asked to sing a patriotic song. As I remember the story, she was very excited to be chosen and she said yes and started singing before she rehearsed. She wasn’t ready. In fact, she only knew for sure the first two words. So, rather than throwing in the towel, she muscled right on through repeating what she knew right through the melody.
Bailey, would you come and join me. Unfortunately, for Bailey, we’ve also not rehearsed. But we will muscle through together and lead you musically as we do. Won’t you join me in the singing, true and clear and right out loud?
Oh, Beautiful, oh Beautiful, oh Beautiful...
I would go to the ends of the earth for you, for every one of you. I would go to the ends of the earth, putting my life on the line in your defense. I would defend your honor just as dearly and as bravely as I would my own.
It is a delicate thing we share with one another, this life we live out loud. It is an intimacy, a fidelity, truly a faithfulness. For we are a tribe of humble warriors…and our cause is just…our mission…our vision of what can be…our church held tenderly in our hands.
Know we our best excellence, our wisdom for courage and for beauty. May we blossom into fullness. Beauty is better off when we do.
May it be so blessed be and amen.
