Yom Kippur

INTRODUCTION: This summer, while in Oxford, I attended Sunday services where I heard a sermon on a surprisingly different topic: sin. Even more surprising, it occurred at the Manchester College Chapel, which is affiliated with the General Assembly of Unitarians and Free Christian Churches. Harris Manchester College is one of the 39 colleges of Oxford University, and dates back to 1786. Its chapel is a gorgeous facility with beautiful stained glass windows.

On this particular Sunday, one of the chapel’s lay persons was speaking, who also happened to be the vice-chairman of the General Assembly. He admitted his topic was unique for Unitarians. And in his presentation, he cited the Roman Catholic’s traditional list of the “Seven Deadly Sins”: lust, anger, pride, sloth, envy, gluttony, and greed. The speaker said there had been a recent poll in Great Britain displacing those. And instead of seven deadly sins, there were now ten – all new. I’ll start with the tenth most deadly first. You would never guess it:

10. The 10^th most deadly sin in this poll of the Brits is: religion. The world over, religion seems for many to be anything but inviting. It’s a haven for intolerance of other religions, abuse of women, and bigotry against gays. Even as I speak, the Archbishop of Canterbury is over here in America, leading the charge against the Episcopal Church, which is the American wing of the Anglican Church, and speaking out against its having ordained an openly gay man as bishop. But to the majority of the British, that position is terribly irrelevant and destructive to the reality of society today. So to the British, the tenth most deadly sin is religion.

H.L. Mencken said, “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.” In actuality, the origins of cynicism are much different. The original Cynics of ancient Greece believed that virtue was the only necessity for happiness. They followed this philosophy to the extent of neglecting everything else, including appearance, health and well-being.

Diogenes was one of the more famous Cynics. He denied all physical wealth and pleasure; he lived in a barrel; and his only possessions were a robe to cover himself and a walking stick. It’s said that one day he was sitting on a hill next to his barrel enjoying the warm rays of the sun when Alexander the Great approached. He asked Diogenes to identify himself, which he did. Alexander asked him if it was true that he had no desire for anything. Diogenes looked up at Alexander and said that he only wanted one thing. What do you think it was? He wanted to know if Alexander would move a little to one side because he was blocking the sun. After the encounter, Alexander reportedly stated that if he could be anyone other than Alexander, he would want to be Diogenes.

But today, we don’t think of cynicism in regard to virtue or abstinence. It’s come to be identified with those who are scornful of ordinary people and processes. They’re negative about everything, especially the integrity or motives of others. It’s this definition of cynicism that the British feel is the 9^th most deadly sin.

Of all the nations in the world, we Americans are the most wasteful. We not only waste in terms of what we discard, but we waste what we use. From the moment our children are born, we shower them with toys they don’t need, and gifts they will soon tire of. For those gifts, we use the minerals and resources of the poor nations of the world.

It’s not the poor of the world who are having large families that we should be concerned about: It’s you and I…Americans with our penchant for keeping up with the Jones and spending unnecessarily on frivolous things that end up depleting our world of its precious resources.

Dr. Ingrid Rico-Martinez, who is being presented for membership this morning, leads a student delegation from FGCU to the Dominican Republic each year. But one of the events that impacted the delegation last year was the huge garbage dump they visited where children spent their day foraging for something of value. They even had a practice of diving from the peaks down in to the garbage so as to be able to dig deeper.

Unfortunately, that occurs not only in the Dominican Republic, but around the world. We use the ore, the minerals, the resources of the poor nations of the world, to spend wastefully, while children in developing countries dive through mountains of garbage hoping to find something of value. Waste is the 8^th deadly sin according to the British.

I read last week as I’m sure many of you did, the Forbes list of the world’s richest. (I know this will come as a shock, but neither you nor I was on the list!) But I loved the fact that Bill Gates is not only the world’s richest man, but also has created the largest charitable foundation in the world. Which means that he’s not paying taxes on that money to our government to fund the war in Iraq. I loved the fact that Warren Buffet the second richest man has designated that when he dies his fortune will go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

I did not like it that among the top ten were four members of the Walton family, who have made their millions off the sweat and hard work of their Wal-Mart employees, while denying them living wages or health care benefits. I still find it obscene that Wal-Mart has an emergency fund to which their employees can give, and the last report I saw was that employees at Wal-Mart had given more than six million dollars to help their fellow workers; the multi-billionaire Walton family combined had given slightly more than $6,000.

Not surprisingly, wealth and generosity do not necessarily go together. Selfishness is one of the ten most deadly sins, according to the Brits.

There’s a great country and western song, that is, if you like country and western songs, entitled, “What I didn’t do.” In the song, a man bemoans the loss of his sweetheart. It wasn’t because he did any of the things that country songs have made famous: He didn't cheat, drink or gamble; he didn't squander his paycheck in a honky-tonk saloon. But he lost his sweetheart, not because of what he did, but because of what he didn't do. He was indifferent: He didn't tell her he loved her. He didn't hold her at night. He didn't kiss her good-bye in the morning. As he laments, “It's not what I did. It's what I didn't do.”

That’s indifference. It’s being unwilling to inconvenience ourselves for others…only our own lives matter. And either out of fear, ignorance, or sheer indifference, we seek to escape the demands made by friendship or love. Our hearts remain closed; our imaginations refuse to reach beyond the narrow limits of me and mine, us four and no more.

Just this past week, events in Jena, Louisiana spiked as knowledge of what has been happening in their local high school became widely known. A tree on the school yard was called the White Tree because only White students sat there. A young Black high school student asked the principal if it would be okay for him to sit there. He did, and the next day three nooses appeared hanging down from a limb on the tree – a grisly symbol of the Ku Klux Klan days and the lawless terrorism of innocent civilians.

As violence nearly always tends to spiral, so the next day six Black students assaulted a White student, leaving him unconscious and having to be taken to the Emergency Room, where he was released after three hours, with $14,000 worth of medical bills. The six Black students, five juveniles, who ranked in age from 15 to 17, and one 18-year-old adult, were arrested and charged not with battery or assault, but with attempted murder and conspiracy.

First, let’s be clear that schools can be segregated even when integrated. But White students hanging three nooses from a tree is not a “student prank.” It’s a hate crime and an invitation to retaliation. The White students who did it deserved more than a one day’s suspension, and the school and community needed desperately to be involved in addressing what was at stake.

That six Black students chose to assault one White student is criminal behavior and most certainly deserves to be severely punished. But for a White prosecutor to charge them with attempted murder was in no sense justified and is reflective of the kind of justice that Blacks received throughout the South before passage of the Civil Rights Acts.

It was only when the events of Jena became public that the charges were reduced. Nonetheless, one of the 17-year-old defendants was charged as an adult and found guilt of aggravated battery, which was only overturned week before last. Despite that outcome, he still sits in jail. Intolerance is alive and well.

Ignorance is a state that induces us to vote for candidates because of their political party rather than their qualifications. Ignorance leads us to think that issues of civil liberties have been solved and we can go back to blissful unawareness. Ignorance is the willful choice not to be informed, not to be concerned, and not to be compassionate.

How hypocritical is it to say one thing and do another? As Emerson said, “Your life speaks so loud, I can’t hear what you say.” Senator Larry Craig of Idaho and the Rev. Ted Haggard of Colorado Springs were closeted gay men, who were forced out of the closet in terribly disruptive circumstances – one in a men’s airport restroom in Minneapolis, and the Rev. Haggard by the male prostitute he was using. On the one hand, yes, they were hypocrites for speaking so forcefully against gay marriage and gay rights. But on the other hand, no: they were victims of this society’s despicable hypocrisy about anything sexual. We are obsessed with sex. We sell everything from gum to guns by base appeals to sex. Every magazine editor in America knows that magazine stand sales will go up if the issue has a barely clothed young woman on the cover. So when you’re standing in the grocery line and see a magazine with a beautiful young woman on the cover: That’s not because of a story inside about her – it’s the use of sex to get you to buy the magazine, to be motivated because of the sexual appeal of the young woman.

That’s where the hypocrisy is – in our society and culture. Sure, it was wrong for Haggard and Craig to live a double-standard. But it’s more wrong for society to invite such behavior by closing the doors to many positions of leadership and responsibility purely on grounds of sexual identify. No openly gay man could be senator from Idaho; no openly gay man could pastor an evangelical mega-church in Colorado.

Interestingly, in Colorado Springs where Ted Haggard pastored, a wealthy philanthropist started a public discussion on what it means for people to be "born different." He spent millions doing things like hanging banners from light poles throughout Colorado Springs with an image of a Brittany spaniel named “Norman.” Norman mooed like a cow instead of barked like a dog. Ads on buses, billboards, television and radio told Norman's parable. The philanthropist also had campaign staffers working the city's streets daily, asking residents whether they think people “choose to be gay.” When passers-by answered that “Homosexuality is a choice,” they were then asked, “When did you chose to be straight?” In Britain, hypocrisy is the third most deadly sin.

I think we can all resonate with that. Cruelty, whether to humans or animals, is abominable. I think we all were shocked in the past few months at the disclosure that the Atlanta Falcons football team’s quarterback was involved in commercial dog fighting. He not only conducted the dog fights, but also put down dogs that lost or were no longer competitive. He’s now serving time in prison.

1. The new number one deadly sin according to the poll was this: apathy…who cares?

In the book, Burn-Out: Stages of Disillusionment in the Helping Professions, the authors identify four stages in the burning-out process of the helping vocations. We go from enthusiasm to stagnation over the hurdles we face; from stagnation to frustration, and frustration to apathy. And in apathy we distance ourselves emotionally, disengage from the psychic rewards of service, and settle into the very status quo which motivated us initially to enter a helping profession. In politics, we sit back rather than engage; in matters of national policy, we don’t stay informed, we don’t protest. We are apathetic.

So there they are: The 21^st century’s ten deadly sins – religion, cynicism, waste, selfishness, indifference, intolerance, ignorance, hypocrisy, cruelty, and apathy.

So how do we seek forgiveness for one of more of these deadly sins? Author Beverly Flanigan in her book, Forgiving the Unforgivable, writes that we tend to "forgive alone," with no help from others, because we live in competitive and independent relationships from others. In America, for the first time in history, she writes, people "do not need each other to assure their survival.” Children can leave parents, husbands can abandon wives, and friends need never speak to one another again. American life has made it possible for people to sever quickly their most intimate relationships and to leave behind those closest to them after one has hurt the other.

Many Americans believe that people who forgive are wimps, or that people who stick around to help pick up the pieces, are dumb to do so. But Yom Kippur contradicts that notion and asserts that forgiveness is the crucial component of living together, and that a congregational community like ours is the essential support for such living.

But we must as Judaism teaches find the person or persons from whom we need to seek forgiveness, and also provide restitution. Then one thing more: It teaches the critical important of a community of faith such as ours where we share our strengths and weaknesses, our joys and concerns. And as a community forgive one another.

[1] A Yom Kippur sermon on September 23, 2007, at the All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1904 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL, by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.