Centering Words:

"You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt." ---Exodus 23:9

The Letty Pogrebin reading that Bill shared with us is telling. It opens the door to the inner sanctuary where the deepest beliefs and commitments of Judaism reside---burning brightly and perpetually in a simple oil lamp. It also opens the door to a deeper understanding about Judaism's role in pointing the way for our white, affluent, largely heterosexual, able-bodied and middle-aged Unitarian Universalist Association as we strive to address issues of oppression: Oppression of the Earth, of persons of color, of women, of Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-and-Tran gendered folk, of those who are physically challenged, of the old and the very young, of those among us living on the margins of economic survival.

Listen: You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.

If liberation is at the core of one's experience, because oppression has been a reality, felt and lived, then authentic touch with all of human kind is possible. For most of us, living in the protective shelter of this suburban valley creates an illusion of security and well-being. I say illusion because even though we may be financially secure, even though we may have supportive family and friends, even though we may have work that is meaningful, even though our spiritual life may be developing richly, our felt sense of security and well-being is based on a false sense of separateness and a naive conception of freedom. Unless . . . unless we include the marginalized. Unless we realize at the deepest core of our beings, that if anyone, anyone, is marginalized on this planet, then we are all marginalized; then we are all powerfully marginalized away from the true center of human well-being.

What the Jewish consciousness of liberation, and of suffering, is telling us is that in one particular sense, in one particular sense that forms the foundation for our consciousness and the true liberation of our spirit, there is no such thing as individual well-being.

One of the greatest of religious gifts: The understanding of our profound interconnectedness. So profound is our inextricable interweaving of spirit, heart and mind with all of humankind and with the planet itself, the UU Association of congregations chose to lift it up as our Seventh Principle.

Listen: We the member congregations of the UUA covenant to affirm and promote: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Passover celebrates having escaped. Passover celebrates that liberation from the overt power of oppression can be won. But Passover also is a reminder. For it is in this sacred celebration that we are reminded of the denigration of the human spirit under the oppression of slavery. It is here, in the words of Letty Pogrebin, that emotion enters history, here that personal experience dictates compassion and justice, here that all excuses for evil behavior disappear in the intimate truth of known human pain.

. . . the intimate truth of known human pain. Our connection with others through the intimacy of our pain is one of the deepest intimacies that we can know. When we deny pain, when we choose to slip by it, our pain or that of others, we deny to ourselves, and to our relationships, the deeper reaches of intimacy. Virginia Woolf told us that Intimacy is a difficult art. Much of the difficulty of it is the automatic pilot we set that steers us away from pain, from understanding that steers us automatically away from our unconscious privilege---privilege that is bound and determined, that is specifically designed, to keep us living in the comfort zone. A comfort zone that is purchased with the costly money of denial.

And, equally as deep and significant, is the fact that justice is not possible without intimacy. Without an intimate sensibility with, and in regard to, those who are experiencing injustice, as well as with those who perpetrate it, we lack the power to create an authentic moral compass that can guide us in our actions to mend the injury, to right the inequity, to recreate the restorative justice, the wholeness we all crave in our depths. To be whole all parts must be in intimate relationship with one another---that is, all of us must be in intimate relationship, through our respect, and respectful boundary setting, if we expect our community to be a whole one. One of the surest guides to wholeness is the intimate truth of known human pain. But let me return to quoting Letty Pogrebin for in the further words that continue the previous quote, she lays out the commandment of the Spirit, of the Spirit of all Life, that cannot and will not let us settle for any attempt at permanent individual comfort when the whole is fractured, when others suffer injustice: We are told to act justly not because it is right according to some moral abstraction, and not because God says so and will punish us if we don't, but because we know what it feels like to be treated otherwise.

We know what it feels like . . . . So what? So what if we know what it feels like to suffer? Why should that motivate us? Why can't we go on and live our own lives. If others are suffering, so what?

It is perhaps one of the most persistent streams that has ever risen up to the consciousness of humankind, perhaps one of the strongest currents that has ever stirred the human heart. The call that we feel to respond to the suffering of others, the call that arises within us to heal our own suffering, that call is the call of the whole: the whole of our hungry psyches seeking to be made whole once again; the whole of humankind; the whole of the earth, of which humankind is a unique and powerful expression. What we feel within us when we respond to pain we see and feel that others are experiencing is a direct expression of the vastness of what we are: we are the earth, conscious and loving; the earth, acting with compassion, and knowing, as we mature, that there is no one who is not a part of us---there is no one who is not our relative, our family, in the truest sense of the word.

Unitarian Universalists are a people, and have always been a people, who not only challenge the prevailing theologies, paradigms and philosophies of our time, committed and proactively---we are also a people who are fully embedded in them. In this Sunday service, as we honor the tradition of Passover, and of our Judaic roots, it is a good and right thing to acknowledge our deep connection to, and participation with, that tradition. It is a good thing to acknowledge, as well, the continued connections we share with the Jewish people, and with Judaism, a people, and a tradition, strong in their religious dedication to liberation.

On this Sunday, it is good to acknowledge that there are codes of behavior that can guide us, not by moral commandment, but by the luring call of our own empathic hearts; a luring call that has been tested in the cauldron of human experience, tested and found true and lasting and trustworthy; a luring call that has survived thousands of years; a luring call that is also preserved in the particular religious tradition of Judaism that has itself known the tragic lash and the crushing forces of persecution.

Out of that tradition has evolved A code of behavior. registered in, as Pogrebin says, in a single verse: You've been there, so you know better. And then she italicizes her words: Remember the pain. Remember the pain!! And then she goes on: Remember how it feels. And then take that ritual of empathy one step further. Besides repudiating the role of the oppressor, resolve to identify with the oppressed---and to act with them and for them. Whew! Makes me want to go to Synagogue!

And notice, Pogrebin is such a careful and accurate writer, she writes, besides repudiating the role of the oppressor. . . . She does not write, repudiating the oppressor! She makes a clear distinction between the person and the act, which is, as well, right in the flow of what UUs have ever espoused. Our first principle is that we covenant to promote and affirm: The inherent worth and dignity of every person. Even oppressors have worth. And how could it not be so, we ourselves, unwittingly, unconsciously, have not escaped contributing to oppression. So many of the privileges we enjoy are bought on the backs of the lower classes and the poor, those of deeper hue, those who live and die in Third World countries, and the third world zones of our own country, like East Palo Alto, whose resources have fed our economy since the very creation of our nation state.

In the midst of this tangled and difficult complexity, in the midst of our trying to get things right, then, it is good and it is important to celebrate together. And to remember together. And to affirm our own worth and dignity, and our own inseparable participation in the whole of this wondrously living planet. It is good to know that our strength is strengthened, our love is deepened, our justice making is furthered when we both celebrate and remember. It is one of the great paths for lives of meaning and depth and intimacy---a way we can be truly whole---a way we can be fully human.

May it be so for each of you, and for me . . . and for all of us together.

Ashé. Amien. Shalom. Blessed Be. Namasté.

What is your reaction to this sermon? Please send comments to Reverend Kurt Kuhwald