January 3, 2010
Rev. David Boyd
Here's my first sermon for a new year and a new decade, the decade of the teens. Does that mean that we can become teenagers again? I wish! I know that it is a truism to say it, but my how time has flown by. It seemed like yesterday I was turning 40 rather than 50, we were hoarding food and going back to the land because there was going to be no electricity and no computers with Y2K looming. And now, I'm turning 50, and people are still talking about going back to the land and living "off the grid".
As I think back on the 10 years that have passed, I think of that old saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." We're still hearing about how important the environment is and yet we don't seem to have the political will to make substantive changes to our lives and the way we use energy. We still hear about ongoing struggles for human rights in places like Myanmar or Burma, in some African states, in Tibet, in the Middle East, in some Central and South American states, in Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. We still struggle with multi-nationals controlling much of the agenda of the world and the growing gap between rich and poor. We still struggle with polarization in politics and, despite the promises of some politicians to change things, business as usual in the legislative places of the world. (Rest assured that this sermon isn't a rant about the state the world. We're hearing enough of that in the media!)
I say all of this because I have a firm belief that the beginning of a new year is our invitation to begin with the slate wiped clean. The beginning of a new year is our opportunity to begin with a sense of hope and the possibility of life. And that's why I think that the Christmas season and the New Year belong together. I couldn't imagine having the year start in June for example, or September, or any other time of the year. Christmas sets us up to start the New Year with grace, with hope and with the understanding that things can change – that we can change! And that's really what's at the heart of New Year's resolutions – the idea that we can change, that bad behaviour doesn't define us for the future.
In the beautiful passage from John's gospel – one of my favourites – John gives us the theological meaning of Christmas, that God's Word, God's Wisdom, took on human form and became one of us as a means to show the world that the light of God is real and lives among and within us. Whatever we believe about the Christmas story, it is a story about the fact that God became human, that God took on human flesh, suffered as we suffer, laughed as we laugh, struggled as we struggle in order to assure us of God's love for the whole universe. This is why it is possible to enter the New Year with a sense of possibility and hope that things CAN be different in our own personal lives, in the way we live in communities together, and in the way we govern ourselves and our world.
I subscribe to the online e-zine, Tikkun. Tikkun olam is a Hebrew phrase that means "to heal the world." The community of Tikkun is an interfaith community of spiritual progressives headed by Rabbi Michael Lerner. Recently, during December, Rabbi Lerner was in an exchange with Christopher Hitchens and David Brooks. Both of these men, along with Richard Dawkins, are the leading atheist evangelists of today's world. They lampoon religious and spiritual people as believing in fairy tales and nonsense. Christopher Hitchens is the most vitriolic in his language and dismissive attitude toward Christianity in particular. Recently, Hitchens wrote a piece lampooning Chanukah. Rabbi Lerner responded with his usual humour, gentle strength and firm belief that you don't hurl insults as a way of debating. In his defence of the right of religious and spiritual people to believe and of the work that he and his organization has been doing, Rabbi Lerner said this:
"...a spiritual progressive embraces science and rationality, though it also embraces forms of rationality that have been developed by women and that integrate aspects of emotional, spiritual, and ecological literacy into our conceptions of rationality... But a spiritual progressive also embraces 'a new bottom line' in which institutions, social practices, corporations, government policies and even our own behaviour are judged 'efficient, rational or productive' not only to the extent that they maximize money or power (the Old Bottom Line), but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity, enhance our capacities to experience others as embodiments of the sacred and enhance our capacities to respond to the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of all being." (Rabbi Michael Lerner in a Tikkun e-zine email dated December 14th, 2009.)
I've been in my own little debate these past few weeks. I edit our presbytery newsletter and I included some articles from the United Church of Canada and Kairos about climate change; we rang bells on Sunday, December 13th, with other churches around the world as a means of highlighting the need to get CO2 levels down to 350 parts per million. Within 10 minutes of sending the newsletter, I received an email from someone who claimed that human-created climate change is a hoax and a fraud perpetrated by the likes of Al Gore and David Suzuki who stand to make billions of dollars... so the claim went. We wrote back and forth about anthropogenic climate change, as this person called it. What disturbed me about the claims of this individual who denied that human beings are hastening global warming was the way in which the arguments were put; my partner in this email debate threw slogans around, compared climate change advocates to Adolph Hitler and Nazi fascism of the 30's and 40's, and generally made arguments through name calling and put-downs. After the last rather insulting and demeaning email, I stopped replying; I indicated that I wasn't going to participate in the discussion anymore as there was nothing to be gained by it.
Here we are, a few days into 2010 — that's going to take some time to get used to! — I feel hopeful about the year to come and what might unfold. In spite of Christopher Hitchens' attack of Chanukah and Christmas, in spite of climate change naysayers, in spite of the way we do politics and engage in debate, I feel hopeful. God is with us and, as the angel said to Mary that fateful day many, many years ago, "with God, all things are possible." I take hope from the many, many young people and peace-making organizations around the world who are taking a pro-active approach to climate change and justice making. My own kids are taking an increased interest in politics and how to effect change in the world. And that's hopeful! This year for Christmas gifts, we did some awareness-raising around endangered species, poverty and health care in Africa and Central America, and justice in the Middle East. That's hopeful!
And so, we step out into the world, this new year, with hope, with a sense of God's presence among us, the Word become flesh, with a fresh sense that we can heal, transform and change the world so that all creatures and all human beings can enjoy clean water, clean air to breathe, blessings and love. To this end, I leave you with a quote from King George of England in the middle of the last century. George VI, Elizabeth's father, hampered by a severe speech impediment, was scarcely a man noted for what he said. Yet when he quoted an obscure war poem that year, he captured the public imagination as few Royals have done. He concluded his message by quoting anonymously Miss Minnie Louise Haskins, 1875-1957, a retired lecturer at the London School of Economics, who had written these words as the introduction to a poem called The Desert in 1908:
I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied, "Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way."
One can imagine how the nation collectively responded to the King's difficult delivery of these words – especially given that this was the first Christmas of the Second World War. The King added: "May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all."
So, let us put our hand in the hand of God and tread out into the unknown of this year. Let us embrace the possibilities that come with God's love and grace. Let us meet the challenges of this year, 2010, with hope and love, with a sense of justice and peace, working together as progressive spiritual people. With the Word of God, we go out into the world.
Amen.