This sermon was delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva Sunday, September 23, 2001 by the Rev. Dr. Lindsay Bates

Readings: from Anne Frank:
In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us, too; I can feel the suffering of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think it will all come out right, that this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.:

from Maya Angelou, lines from "On the Pulse of Morning" - her poem for William Jefferson Clinton's inauguration.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here
          beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River. ....
Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply With hope
Good morning.

"Days of Awe"

There've been lots of changes in plans & priorities over the past two weeks - but I didn't have to change today's sermon title. "Awe" is defined in my dictionary as both "a mixed feeling of reverence, fear, and wonder, caused by something majestic, sublime, sacred, etc." and "the power of inspiring intense fear or fearful reverence," with a third, supposedly obsolete but I think now most relevant definition: "terror, dread" - the root meaning of the negatively- weighted word "awful."

These have indeed been "days of awe."

The Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar are the days from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur - a time of introspection and self-examination as part of the "fresh start" of the new year that began at sundown last Monday. In order to have one's name written in the Book of Life, one must be willing to live both justly and mercifully. Part of that obligation involves acknowledging our own individual and collective failures, shortcomings, and sins. It involves accepting our own responsibility for those failures and shortcomings and sins - they cannot be blamed upon circumstances or bad parenting or environmental deficiencies or any other convenient scapegoat. We have to own our own faults. Part of that acceptance of responsibility is the commitment - here's no surprise - to do better in the future, to make whatever changes are necessary in our selves so as to live lives that are more merciful and more just. If we will do all this, then we're almost back in balance - back in the state of "Atonement" - or "at - one - ment" - that Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, calls us to enter.

But the final step that wins us God's forgiveness and gets our names written in the Book of Life is two-fold: we have to ask forgiveness of those whom we know we have harmed, and we have to be willing to forgive those who have harmed us.

And that's where this year things get a little bit sticky.

In quieter years, it's a lot easier to wax philosophical and theological on the theme of forgiveness. But I would be surprised if anyone in this room who saw the carnage - the live broadcasting of the scenes, the endless replaying of the videos of the attacks (as though we were somehow hoping the ending might be different), the images of destruction and courage and hope and heartbreak and desolation and determination that all swirled together on September 11, 2001 - I would be most surprised if anyone who saw all that could honestly say that she or he was ready to forgive the terrorist criminals responsible.

Now, that is not to imply that no one is trying to understand, to comprehend the thoughts and feelings that led to those attacks. Nor is it to imply that no one is willing to explore the possibility that we as a society and a nation might not be entirely blameless in a world that is still poisoned by greed, exploitation, and militaristic threats and posturing. And it is definitely not to imply that no one is interested in finding a peaceful - or at least a not merely violent - response.

But forgive? For most of us, I am quite sure, the response to that suggestion would be, with varying degrees of politeness, "I think not."

There is still far too much anger - righteous anger, appropriate anger, instinctive and reactive anger - coursing through us for the idea of forgiveness - either asking it or offering it - to be especially attractive right now. We are as a nation and as individuals still grieving the horrible loss of life, the loss of our sense of safety, the loss of what we had hoped (when we thought about it at all) of what might be described as a kind of innocence - and anger is a normal part of grief.

And we were - and remain - physically threatened. We were - all of us were attacked. We are fully human, which means that hard-wired into our responses (unless we've done some hard spiritual work to overcome it) is the fear-&-adrenaline-powered impulse to strike back, to wipe out the threat, to punish the attackers, to take revenge - to bomb someone back into the Stone Age - and while I do reject that particular option, I will also confess to having recognized within myself that lust for vengeance, especially in those first hours and days as the reality was slowly sinking in.

And then in our calmer, more thoughtful moments - and I will say I am greatly relieved that this seems to be happening in hearts and minds with far more power to influence the events of the coming weeks than I have - finally there is righteous anger, the determined, cool, even thoughtful anger that demands not vengeance, but justice.

Justice - not forgiveness. I cannot even begin to pretend to imagine taking seriously a call for forgiveness of those who were and are responsible for the deaths of more than 6,000 men, women and children. I am far too angry, and far too frightened, frankly, to have any real willingness to think about forgiveness.

Now, I know that in time the anger that now is hot, sharp, and fierce - that is right and appropriate and even reasonable - I know that that anger will fade eventually into its calmer, non-vengeful, justice-seeking form, but for many people, that hasn't happened yet. And even when it does, I'm still not sure about forgiveness.

But in these High Holy Days, these Days of Awe leading to the Day of Atonement, I can't avoid the issue. At this time when our Jewish roots calls us to honest contemplation of our own contributions to the sadness, the pain, the injustices of our lives and our world, we cannot ignore the spiritual demand that we seek to balance our just anger with mercy. We have to contemplate at least the possibility of forgiveness - and that is not easy.

I've told you before about an essay by Simon Wiesenthal, who had been a prisoner in a Polish concentration camp. He was assigned to clean the trash out of a barn that was being converted into an emergency medical station for wounded German soldiers. While he was working, a German nurse interrupted him and took him to one of the wards, to the bedside of a young SS trooper, heavily bandaged and clearly dying.

The trooper - just a kid, probably not even out of his teens - grabbed and held onto Wiesenthal's hand. He said he had to talk to a Jew, he had to confess to a Jew before he died the sins he had committed against helpless Jewish victims, he had to beg a Jew's forgiveness and be forgiven by a Jew before he died. And the dying soldier went on to describe how he had gunned down a Jewish family - children, parents, grandparents - as the family fled a house that had been torched by the SS troops.

Wiesenthal listened to the young man tell how he had gone from an innocent youth to an active participant in what he now knew was evil. And when the dying soldier was finished and again begged for forgiveness, Wiesenthal pulled his hand away and walked out of the barn. He would not, he could not speak that word of forgiveness the young soldier begged for. But while he was certain he could not and would not forgive, he wasn't so sure he was right.

Wiesenthal then ended the story with a question to his readers: What would you have done?

And I'll pause and ask you - if you can imagine yourself in such a situation as Wiesenthal's, especially in the light of these past days' events, would you forgive that dying soldier?

The essay continued with 32 of the responses Wiesenthal had received when he'd asked this question of prominent religious, social and political leaders, most (but not all) from within the Jewish community. The majority of both Jews and Christians agreed with Wiesenthal's refusal to speak a word of forgiveness. The soldier had no right to ask for it, they said, and Wiesenthal had no right to give it. In the words of one correspondent, "Let that trooper go to hell."

It does seem utterly absurd, in the light of the incredible evil of the Holocaust, even to consider forgiving that young soldier who took part in the evil fully aware of what he was doing. It's not hard to understand, to agree with the certainty of Wiesenthal's respondents that there could be, there should be no forgiveness in such a case.

But Wiesenthal himself was not fully comfortable with that conclusion. He could not forgive the Holocaust nor any individual who took part in its horrors. He did not think he should forgive. He was certain that he would not forgive. But he was not himself certain, even those years later, that his inability, his refusal was spiritually right.

The standard reading for this time of year is the Book of Jonah - not for his adventure in the belly of the great fish, but for Jonah's fury with God for forgiving the people of the evil city of Nineveh. Jonah wanted God to withhold forgiveness - that justice required Nineveh's destruction, even if they had repented. But the Book of Jonah is intended to remind those who would walk a path of justice not to give up on the power of God's mercy. The warning of Jonah is against the human tendency to decide in advance that reconciliation is not possible. It is the warning that we do not know the depths of any other's heart. It is the reminder that God does not give up on any soul. And if God does not give up on even the worst of sinners, the most evil of criminals, how can we justify doing less?

In most understandings of forgiveness, it's about the restoration of balance and harmony within a relationship. In human relationships, we forgive and we seek forgiveness in order to be able to approach one another once again in trust as equals. There are those who say that such forgiveness - in order to be either offered or received - has some preconditions. The offender has to want the forgiveness, has to be willing to accept responsibility for his or her actions, has to be deeply and genuinely contrite, deeply and genuinely penitent, acknowledging the right of the one who was harmed to refuse to repair the relationship. The forgiver has to be the aggrieved party - only the one who was hurt can forgive a hurtful act, and one person can not offer forgiveness on behalf of another.

I find those qualifications helpful as I struggle with my feelings toward those shadowy unknowns who masterminded and carried out the criminal events of September 11. But I have this nagging feeling that it can't stop there.

Political philosopher Hannah Arendt commented that "Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom." And another - and I can't find the reference, so I can't tell you who - wrote that "Without forgiveness, life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation."

It's not a case of forgetting or excusing or smoothing over evil actions. It is a decision by the one who was injured not to remain trapped by bitterness, anger, or the desire for revenge.

This doesn't mean there are no consequences for evil acts - even the early Universalists believed that God punishes sinners; they just couldn't believe that the punishment went on forever. Justice is best when tempered by mercy - not replaced by it. But the spirit that is able to forgive frees itself for healing, for creative growth, for renewed possibilities for connection, community, and ultimately for both personal and societal peace.

And the thought that keeps coming back to me is that perhaps what we are really called to do may not be "forgiving" as "forgiveness" is commonly understood - but rather actively working for healing - our healing, and the healing of all the world, including the parts of the world, the dark corners of the human hearts, that see the terror of September 11 as a triumph rather than a tragedy. I do not think we will ever forgive that action, any more than anyone should ever forgive the Holocaust - but I do think it is possible to heal the diseases of heart and spirit and mind that gave rise to it.

The cycle of harm, anger, revenge, resentment, new harm, new anger, new revenge has to be broken. Yom Kippur reminds us that we have to be active participants in the breaking of that cycle of despair. It does not suggest that this is easy; it does not suggest that we do it once and it's done for all time; it doesn't even suggest that we can do it at all right now. We may not be there yet. That does not excuse us from continuing what is most essentially our spiritual work.

And part of our work, made all the more essential by the enormity of the crime committed against all humanity, our work now is to be attentive to how we promote our own healing - as a nation, as a church community, and as individuals. How we heal - how we break or fail to break the cycle of anger and vengeance - how we respond out of hope or despair - how we heal our wounds or allow them to fester will affect how the world will or will not heal as well.

There are dozens - no, hundreds - of folks more than happy to give us all advice about how we should go about doing that healing. In the time remaining, I'll add my own advice to the mix.

As a nation, I pray we will have the wisdom in the short run to seek a just response. If it were up to me, I'd like to see Bin Laden and all the others handed over to the World Court for trial. But if such a peaceful pursuit of justice is not successful (and I very much doubt it could succeed, given the combination of fanaticism, distrust and deep hatred with which we're dealing), if peaceful means are not effective, then let our response be measured. Let our goal be justice and healing - not revenge.

In the long run, I pray that we will have gained from this the wisdom to seek more actively, more responsibly, a more just world. There is just enough validity in the stated motivations for terrorist acts that there's a temptation to dig in and refuse to examine our own complicity. It's important to remember that acknowledging our failings in no way excuses or condones or lessens the evil of criminal attacks against innocent people. But terrorism is not rooted in a psychotic love of violence - it is itself rooted in anger, in perceptions of injustice, in fear, in resentment, in envy, and, in a perverted way, in hope. If we want to destroy terrorism, we must destroy its roots as well as its branches - and we destroy those roots by healing them, by doing all we can (and we can do more) to nurture a compassionate, just, and globally hope-filled community, united with all peoples in a common quest for equity, security, and peace.

And as a nation, I pray we will hold on to the community that this tragedy has created. May we refuse to go back to our separated, isolated, hyphenated enclaves - may we carry the unity of our grieving into a national unity of commitment, purpose and hope. We have the power now more than we had three weeks ago to finish the job of tearing down the barriers of ignorance, prejudice, arrogance and privilege that have kept us so painfully apart. If we are to heal, we must continue truly to look into each other's faces with hope.

As a church, our challenge - based upon the comments I've heard and the phone calls and e-mails I've received - is to remember and cherish as a mantra the words of our Covenant: NOT AS AGREEING IN OPINION. There is a wide range of views on how best to respond to terrorism, a wide range of views on the potential for peaceful solutions, a wide range of views on what we might or might not have done in the past and what we should or should not do in the future as our nation deals with the intricacies of our global community. We are also ourselves still grieving, still more than a bit in shock - and in the days and weeks and months and more yet to come, we are going to have to cut each other a considerable amount of slack - to forgive each other our shortcomings, our outbursts, our displaced angers and fears. We are obligated by our Covenant to hear one another with love - even - especially - when we do not agree.

And as individuals, I don't think we can do much better than to take to heart two pieces of advice that are now traveling around the Internet.

The first was sent to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War e-group in response to concerns about post-traumatic stress disorders resurfacing or intensifying by UU Ann Hirschman, Family Nurse Practitioner (and I thank Ann for her permission to use her words).

She wrote:

1. Check your body for any damage or discomfort - if you find any problem, get help.

2. Check your emotional state - if you are in need, ask for help.

3. If 1 & 2 above are currently OK then find somebody else to help - anybody. The people who keep things going where ever they are, are real heroes. Knowing that there are places of normalcy keeps the people at the "front lines" motivated.

4. Do not isolate yourself or let others isolate - talking and sharing in community is the most important step for healing. And the earlier we start these steps, the sooner the events of Sept. 11 will stop paralyzing us.

To that I would add these lines from an essay attributed to Jungian therapist, writer and poet Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés (if anyone can provide the original source, I'd be glad to hear from you!):

-- refuse to dwell on what psychically depletes you of hope, contentment and ease.

--Dwell in what strengthens you. For some it is reading, others physical activity, others, crafts. There are so many things and combinations of things. Remember, what brings you peace tends to be the same as what strengthens you

--insofar as you are able, pick your endeavors carefully. Now is an opportunity to drop various endeavors that deplete you or to join up with people/matters/groups that invigorate.

-- refuse to think you are less able than you were last week. You are not less. regardless of flaws, quirks or wobbles-- you are in soul, actually more shining than you were a week ago.

-- with regard to goodness and things that are good for you and others, do what you always do. Do not cease goodness or pleasures that bring good.

--continue to implement life dreams. If you don't have one, you're overdue.

In short, to best defeat those who would destroy the free and hopeful human spirit, be stubborn, be determined, in your ongoing freedom and hope.

The challenge, the hope, the promise of these Days of Awe is that we ultimately choose how we will change and be changed by the events of our lives. We are promised on Rosh Hashanah that each New Year - each new day - is an opportunity for growth, for healing, for restoring balance and harmony to our relationships, within ourselves, between ourselves and other people, between ourselves and all of Creation.

It's a conditional promise - we're offered the opportunity, but the decision to accept it is ours. Still, the essential message of the High Holy Days is that healing is always possible; the failures of the old year can indeed be overcome and we can all of us begin again, if we so choose and so dedicate ourselves.

We won't succeed perfectly - but if we are truly seeking to live in harmony and healing, grateful for Life's gifts, confident of Life's possibilities, hopeful for the future, compassionate and merciful even when we ourselves are wounded - if we truly rededicate ourselves to the living the faith we claim to believe - then when the books are closed on Yom Kippur, we shall find our names inscribed in the Book of Life, with a gentle judgment entered beside them, and the New Year will still indeed be sweet.