Searching for the Sunshine:
On Groundhogs, Sabbaticals,
and Re-Engagement With a World Near War
A Sermon by the Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
February 2, 2003
I am very happy to be back in this pulpit today! I have been on sabbatical, as most of you know, since last July 1, and during parts of those five months, I have felt a little like a groundhog hibernating through the winter, waiting for February 2 to come so I can stick my head out of my hole and see what the weather’s really like. That’s an analogy, of course. I’ve actually been back to work since January 6, with a week of final celebration in Hawaii thrown in the middle, but as one of you put it to me last Sunday, I’m “not back until I’m preaching!” So, now I’m “back” in probably the most important sense of my ministry, preaching the Sunday sermon, leading the Sunday Celebration of Life. Yes, I’m very happy to be back in this pulpit today.
This pulpit is a free pulpit. The tradition of Unitarian Universalism is that of a free pulpit. In other words, the minister is invited, encouraged, compelled to speak her mind, just as our guests are given free reign within the parameters of having invited them in the first place. As a groundhog, my ministerial voice has lain quiescent, though I have been spying on the goings on in the world, keeping up with the news, thinking deep winter-time thoughts. Today, I have poked my head out of my metaphorical hole, and the shadow I see that frightens me is not my own shadow. No, it’s a different shadow that frightens me, and darned if I’m going to go back and hibernate through six more weeks of cold. There are things to be said and actions to take. The shadow I see is the shadow of our nation readying for war. This free pulpit compels me to tell you what I think, whether you agree with me or not. That is our right and obligation as a Unitarian Universalist religious community. We do not spout doctrines and we encourage individual freedom of conscience. That is what the free pulpit is about.
Last time I expressed my pacifist views in a sermon was after September 11, 2001. In spite of trying to acknowledge that my views were mine and to recognize the conflicting ways we all were feeling about 9/11 and going to war in Afghanistan, there were people who were upset enough that Sunday that they left the congregation. Only after months did one of them, at least, get up the courage to come talk to me about how it felt to disagree with the minister, and our conversation about war and peace and disagreement with religious leaders was an uplifting and reconciling one. We need to talk to each other as we go through difficult times with difficult decisions. We will not all agree, and we need to trust to our own integrity even while we entertain and respect the opinions of others, including the opinion of the minister.
Did you hear that clearly? We do not have to agree, but from this pulpit, and in all my relations with this religious community and the larger society, I must speak with integrity of heart and mind. I hope that you will, too.
One of the questions I pondered on sabbatical this summer as I traveled through Transylvania is the question, “What turns an enemy into a friend?” Transylvania is one of the birthplaces of Unitarianism, and today it is part of Romania, a former Communist country, although I think it is still communist in that their free elections voted in a communist-dominated government. Just because our wonderful tour guides were Unitarians didn’t mean they weren’t former communists. I didn’t get into discussing politics, much. Today, they are my friends and fellow Unitarians, passionate and concerned about their new government with hopes for a better economic society and reveling in the freedom to pursue their religion without fear that the government would destroy any more Unitarian churches in the name of progress. I’ll tell you about that trip and the Partner Church council and show you the video I made sometime in March, I hope. It was wonderful, the best experience I’ve had traveling. Now, I want to reflect on the fact that our dear friends and tour guides, Csilla and Denes, live in a country that we the United States could have destroyed in our deep concern to save them from communism and the horrible atrocities of their dictator.
Enemies become friends when we get to know each other. We live in a world filled with different viewpoints and goals. Some values we hold in common and some we fervently disagree about, such as forms of government, women’s rights, ethnic rights, economic rights, religious rights. Over time, our so-called enemies become our friends, not because we bombed them into it, although that seemed to work in Germany and Japan. I can’t say what should or should not have happened in World War II. Even Afghanistan! As much as I was against going in to bomb them, I was glad for what I hope has been a release for the oppressed women and men and children in that society. I just think we have to be beyond bombs in this technological age in which people the world over are connected in real ways and the effects of violence are visible to the entire world. Surely we have a common goal in a healthy world community! Nuclear holocaust, which very well could be the result of attacking Iraq, is too frightening to contemplate.
Just like the Al Qaeda terrorists are doing, we have to turn our enemies into monsters in order to justify killing them. We, the Americans, are the evil ones to the fundamentalist Muslims in power. Our way of life and the history of our international actions lead them to condemn us as evil. They claim Allah to be on their side, just as we claim God to be on ours. Poor God! Everyone claims the righteous path in order to do evil in the world. Yes, our government has done many evil things, but that does not mean others in the world have the right or obligation to come in and bomb us for it. We struggle constantly to keep our leaders on a compassionate and just path, whether in regards to Vietnam, or Central America or the Middle East. If we want peace, we have to live in peace.
There are people who want revenge for the attacks on the two World Trade Center towers. The Two Towers. I find it interesting, serendipitous, that at this time there is a movie of the same name and similar horror. Here is a suggestion to all of you. Go see Tolkien’s “The Two Towers,” and contemplate the war scenes in regards to our current world situation. It’s amazing. Tolkien, as I have heard it, was writing about the transformation of Europe from the agrarian age to the industrial age, with analogies to the fighting of World War I. His war scene in Helm’s Deep is a compassionate commentary on the horrors of war, and the director of the movie played on that very well. The war is one NO ONE WANTS! It is horrible. Children’s faces show agony and fear. They are dirty and starving. Older children are given breast plates and helmets that almost cover their eyes and swords that are practically ruined they’re so old, all to fight the evil monsters of the enemy. In Tolkien’s story, the enemy is the personification of evil, creatures created out of the deeps of the earth, the filthy residue of mining. The evil creatures hate all of humanity (and elves and dwarves and wizards) and all that is beautiful in the earth. They are not human, and are against everything good for humans. They are out to destroy the good creatures of Middle Earth, so there is no choice, it seems, but to fight back. They, in turn, must be destroyed. A clear case for fighting, yet everyone wishes for the days before the world was broken, before evil came to demolish all that is good and beautiful. Everyone wishes for peace.
We have peace, here and now in our own country. Many parts of the world are at war, starving, dying of aids, living in fear. How can we bring another war upon a people -- and even upon ourselves? There are children in Iraq. We know our bombs are not so accurate as to believe that they will only hit munitions centers. And how can we afford to show the Arab nations that we are just as much war-mongers as the Al Qaeda? We are on a very dangerous path right now, on the brink of war. We need to act for peace, now.
The internet is flying with emails against the war, petitions by women in the Congress, letters by our UU leadership. One email regards a protest with rice. I’ve received four versions, one from the district ministers, one from my daughter and two from members of our congregation. So, for those of you who want to join in making a statement to stop the war, I’ve brought the directions and some rice. You put some rice in a baggie and mail it to the President with the words: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. Romans 12:20. Please send this rice to the people of Iraq; do not attack them.” I’ll read you the history of this rice protest from the email:
In the mid-1950’s, the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in the Chinese mainland, launched a ‘Feed Thine Enemy’ campaign. Members and friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice to the White House with a tag quoting the Bible, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him." As far as anyone knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure. The President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly; certainly, no rice was ever sent to China. What nonviolent activists only learned a decade later was that the campaign played a significant, perhaps even determining role in preventing nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was on, President Eisenhower met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider U.S. options in the conflict with China over two islands, Quemoy and Matsu. The generals twice recommended the use of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower each time turned to his aide and asked how many little bags of rice had come in. When told they numbered in the tens of thousands, Eisenhower told the generals that as long as so many Americans were expressing active interest in having the U.S. feed the Chinese, he certainly wasn't going to consider using nuclear weapons against them.
I wish the senders of that email had had the forethought to give us a footnote on that quote. I would like to know where the story came from, just to prove it wasn’t a myth created by a well-meaning activist. I like to know my sources. But, in any case, I’m curious to know how this protest pans out and I have my envelope ready to send, as an example for those of you who like visual and tangible aides.
This is an invitation, and there is no judgment toward any of you on my part. I struggle, too, with trying to understand how we can prevent another terrorist attack like that on the two Trade Center towers, and every time I fly I remember those who died in the plane crashes there and at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. I live in fear. It isn’t easy to know what to do. But when I waver, I get out the wisdom of the ages and read again what has been said about peace, words that humanity cherishes enough to publish over and over again. From the Holy Bible:
Matthew: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (5:9)
Romans: Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual understanding. (14:19)
Psalm 34: Seek peace, and pursue it. (:13)
Mohandas Gandhi said:
Nonviolence is not a garment to put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being. (Hymnal 577)
Martin Luther King, Jr. warned:
If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. (Peace Prayers, 24)
In the 1983 Catholic Bishops’ Pastoral Letter they wrote:
Peacemaking is not an optional commitment. It is a requirement of our faith.
What, I ask, does your faith require of you? In Unitarian Universalism, this is both a personal and a communal question. Do not be afraid to face the shadows that lie before us, but take courage from each other, talk with each other, share your concerns with integrity of heart and mind, so that we can be part of this great work for a safe, peaceful, beautiful world.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson