Spiritual health asks us to put aside self-interest for the good of others. That others are persons of worth as much as we are is a principle of our faith. Self-sacrifice, though, can sometimes ask us to value the lives of others more than we value ourselves, or put abstractions like honor or nation above actual human lives. Our Veterans deserve more than thanks, they deserve a careful calibration of the mark where virtue turns to tragedy.
MEDITATION, Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Has your spirit been tested this last week?
Mine has.
We’ve been exploring in worship this year the fundamental questions of faith, with the challenge to each of us to consider these questions and claim answers for ourselves. I’ve been sharing my answers, based on my years of studying and thinking and preaching about these issues, and I’ve been encouraging you to find your own answers, whether or not they are the same as mine. With spiritual questions there aren’t “right” answers, only answers that are useful or not useful. The goal for this year, and ongoing as our spiritual journeys continue, is to create a collection of answers to the spiritual questions, a personal theology, a personal faith, that serves the purpose of supporting lives of health and joy for ourselves, for each other, and for the world we share.
This week has been the kind of time in our lives when a healthy personal faith is essential. When we’re feeling frightened, or angry, threatened, confused, or sad, our faith should rise to offer comfort, assurance, meaning, hope. A useful faith will carry us through the difficult time with our identity, our values, and our worldview intact. A faith built on shaky foundations, or a neglected faith, will fail us at just the time we require its aid.
I imagine for many of us, our first response to Tuesday’s election was grief. You felt loss. Perhaps you were attached to one vision for the future and are now having to accommodate a different vision. Perhaps you had one understanding of the character of the American people and are now needing to replace that view with a different understanding of who we are. A blow like that to our faith in our nation, to our faith in the future, to our faith itself, can leave us feeling empty and numb, abandoned and alone, or perhaps furious, or perhaps frightened, or merely disappointed, or deeply sad, or all of the above.
Even a strong faith would be shaken by this week’s election news. The results challenge directly the fundamental spiritual questions. The question of identity: “Who are we?” We thought we knew, but maybe now we aren’t so sure. The question of meaning: “Why does it matter?” or perhaps, why do the values that matter so much to me not seem to matter to so many of my fellow citizens? And the question of purpose, “What should I do, even now, to move toward my goals?”
So our faith, my faith, your faith, has been tested. Like every Angeleno’s experience in an earthquake, in panic we reach for something solid and find that everything we touch is shaking right along with the earth beneath us.
That’s scary.
So where do we look for security and stability?
Well first of all: here.
Look around. Here we are. The people you love and trust are still beside you. We’re still holding each other, and ready to comfort each other. If you need community, now maybe even more than you did before, well here we are.
That’s secure.
The church building is still standing both physically and what it represents. Our faith values are what they were. The principles that guide us are still available to guide us through this next part of the way. And we have a faith history supporting us, and a network of churches wanting to work with us to create our future.
That’s secure.
Much of our lives are well protected from the threats of national policies. I care, deeply, about folks in more vulnerable positions, but I’m also careful not to let my fears for what might happen at the stage of national politics crowd out everything in my daily life that is normal and good and carrying on just as they did the week before.
That’s secure.
Judging what is secure and what is shaky is what I mean by testing our faith.
Testing is helpful to faith, just as it is to any system. We test to find the weak places so we can shore them up or replace them with sturdier material. We test so we can separate the true from the false and correct our errors. Testing protects us from complacency. As troubling as this week has been, the testing it presents, if reckoned with honestly and bravely can make us stronger. And testing can make our nation stronger if we respond to the tests with remediative work.
This week invites us to test our beliefs about what our fellow citizens truly want, to test our beliefs about what we think they need, to test our notions of what language will persuade them and what language turned them away. We’re invited now to test whether what we think attracted voters to the President-elect is really what motivated their vote, or were at least some of them voting for something else, something we missed. We should test our message. We should test ourselves. Test our compassion. Test our goals and policy proposals. Test our own commitment to the nation and to democracy. Are we really willing to give up, to move to Canada, to write off half the country, or are we ready to test our willingness to stay involved and try something different after our previous strategy proved inadequate?
These are important questions, that we should take seriously over the coming weeks and months as we prepare for the next election. But that’s too much for today.
For today, and for as long as you need, take it slow. Do what you need to do today, whether that’s sitting quietly alone with your sadness, or flinging mental curses at the people befouling what you hold sacred. Or don’t think about it at all. Care for yourself, first. Hold on to the person you want to be. Don’t let your good heart, and hopeful spirit, and inner calm and determined strength be stolen from you. Then when you’re sure of your own heart, care for those around you: the ones that seem to be struggling and overcome with anxiety. Reach out. Welcome in. Make safe.
Like an earthquake, the initial shock will soon be over. The shaking will stop. And once we’re still again, we can start to look around, assess the situation, and do what’s necessary.
It will be OK. I have faith. It will be OK.
SERMON, “Some Gave All” Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
We’ve had a full day. And a full week. And I know you’re not prepared to listen to a full sermon on a new topic. But I didn’t want to ignore the Veteran’s Day holiday tomorrow. And I didn’t want to let the national election force us completely off track from what we’re wanting to do for ourselves in our own worship programming. That’s part of self-care: holding fast to our own needs and goals.
But I promise I’ll keep it short. And partly, I chose the topic of sacrifice for today thinking about both Veteran’s Day and knowing that we would this Sunday have just passed an important election and that whichever way we voted the nation would have some work to do.
We’re talking about spiritual fundamentals in worship this year.
Sacrifice is one of those fundamental spiritual issues.
Over the nearly two hundred and fifty years of our country’s history, our military veterans have been asked many times to sacrifice. Mostly young men and women, we have asked them to sacrifice at least a few years of their lives, but to be prepared to sacrifice the entirety of their lives. Will you sacrifice yourself to achieve a national goal? We ask. And many have answered, “I will.” All gave some. Some gave all.
We’ve asked our citizens to sacrifice themselves to liberate our nation from a colonial government. For freedom for enslaved people. To expand our borders. To defend our allies. To fight fascism. To hold back the spread of totalitarian regimes. Against despots. For liberation. Against illegitimate autocrats. For human rights. For safety for oppressed persons. To ensure a lasting peace. We’ve asked our citizens to sacrifice their own future to win a better future for others.
Sometimes our military actions have been just and popularly supported. Sometimes our military actions have been mis-guided from the start, or mis-managed when underway. Some have increased our pride in America’s position and power. Some have caused us to lose faith in our government and doubt our national character.
Sometimes we have won an honorable victory. Other times we have prevailed but in a way that betrayed the ideals we fought for. Sometimes we have been defeated in an action we ought not to have been involved with to begin with. Other times we have failed because even a military super power has limits to what it can achieve, and military force is not the proper tool when the goal is to persuade not to vanquish.
It is a grave thing we ask, when we ask our citizens to fight for what we value: the right of conscience, the democratic process, liberty, peace, justice for all. Throughout our history we have faced the decision. Is this the time? Is this the cause? Is the goal worth the cost? Can we be successful? Should we try?
Given our varied historical experience, I hope we’ve learned our pride in power, and our zeal for the ideals we believe in, should be tempered by the limits of our intelligence, the limits of our vision, the limits of our strength, and the limits, too, of our morality. We are not, any of us, all wise, all powerful, or all good.
But the limits to the good we can do, should not deter us from doing the good we can.
Sacrifice is a holy virtue. To give oneself to the cause of some good thing larger than oneself is the beginning of spirituality. Whether that thing larger than oneself be as small as a friendship, or the care for a pet, it is a holy thing. Whether the thing larger than yourself be your family, your church, the needs of others who share the city where you live. Whether the thing larger than yourself be your nation, or the health of a planet threatened by human actions. Or whether that thing larger than yourself be abstract principles such as the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; truth, justice, the preservation of democratic government. The cause is holy.
And if the cause is holy, and the strategy to win it is sound, and the tool is appropriate to the task, and if the goal is within our power to achieve, then sacrifice is called for. And when called for, as a people of faith, we should rise, as so many Americans before us have, and answer, “I will.”