sermon

INTRODUCTION: A dear friend of my mother and father was the Rev. R.L. Rex, a minister in the Pentecostal Holiness Church, as were they. Way back in the late 1930s, Rev. Rex was holding a revival meeting – two weeks of nightly church services – for my parents in their church at Clinton, Oklahoma, where I was born. During the revival, Rev. Rex received a Western Union telegram from his wife urging him to come home immediately. Their only child had been stricken with polio. At that time, very little was known about the cause and the treatment of this enervating disease.

The Rev. Rex was a big man, some 6’ 3” and probably 250 or so lbs. When he arrived at his home in Oklahoma City, he found his six-year old son in bed screaming with pain, and writhing in torment as his joints twisted and swelled.

A physician had dropped by their house, but there was very little seemingly that he or medical science could do. Finally, as his son cried with pain, Rev. Rex said he knew nothing else to do but crawl in bed with Lonnie, his son, and when Lonnie began to cry and to scream, so did his father. That’s sympathy, evoked by helplessness. Nothing seemingly that could be done.

Today, as we know, through research and development, especially by Dr. Jonas Salk, we have the possibility of immunization against polio. Rather than sympathy after the fact, we all recognize the importance of acting before the disease strikes. That’s compassion – a hand up.

Sympathy, while noteworthy and appropriate, is distinctly different than compassion. Sympathy says, “I’m so sorry.” Compassion says, “What can I do to help?”

n Sympathy focuses on the problem; compassion seeks to find an answer to the problem.

n Sympathy is bemoaning how awful things are; compassion is working to change things, one step at a time.

n Sympathy accepts the reality of defeat; compassion refuses to give up and fights on despite the odds.

Strangely enough, compassionate people are not necessarily the most sympathetic people – physicians being a case in point. Compassionate people are determined to make a difference, to change things. Sympathetic people accept things the way they are, and mourn their status.

Years ago, I consulted on a capital campaign with a Children’s Convalescent Center for physically fragile children. During the fund-raising process, we were able to identify a gentleman who had been incredibly generous to many worthy causes in the area. He agreed to visit the Center. When he came, he saw the little children born without many of the necessary components and parts for their little bodies. He saw little children who had been the victims of such physical abuse that they were paper shells of human beings. All of them had to have 24 hour, around the clock, care.

The man was very moved. He said he wanted his adult grandchildren to come out and tour the facility and get involved. Further, he promised significant and substantive financial support, once they did.

When the grandchildren arrived, there was great expectation. The red carpet treatment was given. Music therapy, physical therapy, rocking and hugging – all the special things that were being done to give these children a taste of normalcy were shown to the grandchildren of the potential large donor.

Afterwards, the grandchildren were taken to a special area where tea and cookies were being served, which was also meant as a chance to meet the staff and to discuss their mission.

But we all were in for a shock. The grandchildren said, they couldn’t eat after what they had seen. One of them said, “Why would anyone try to keep those kinds of children alive?”

You can imagine the pain of the workers and the disappointment of the staff. It was true that most of the children would die before they reached age five. And yet the staff who worked with them and hugged them, touched them, sang to them, and played with them – also gave them the love and attention no one else would give. But these people of privilege – who had never known physical or material want – said, why bother?

It’s a good question? Why bother about hunger and homelessness? Why bother about women having control over their bodies and families being able to plan their parenthood? Why bother about physically fragile children who will die without extra special care? Why bother about the migrant workers in Immokalee? Why bother about the prejudice in our community and culture against people of same-sex orientation? Why bother about AIDS? Why bother to fight religious intolerance? Why bother to vote? Why bother to support our libraries? Why bother to volunteer in the hospitals? Why bother to visit the sick, to comfort the afflicted, to pray for those who are in need?

Why bother indeed? The reason? We’re human beings. And human beings have evolved to the place that they have the capacity to extend themselves for other human beings.

In the best-selling book, The Road Less Taken, which came out some decades ago, Dr. Scot Peck defines love. And the verb he uses in his definition is critical, in my opinion. He writes, “Love is the willingness to extend oneself for another.”

“Extend” ourselves means do something that requires more than the ordinary effort. Love is that. It’s the willingness to do more than is easy or comfortable.

And what a religious congregation does, what All Faiths does, is to call you and me to exercise that extension…to do more than others might do…to resist the temptation to do the least possible: Why? Because we care.

There is one thing we sometimes forget in life. We all are born with less of this or less of that. We lose, we experience loss. And yet, we still expect to experience life to its fullest.

The same should be true, even for those whose possibilities are so very minimal. I’ve seen children with Down’s Syndrome sitting on the front row at a Chamber Music concert listening to Vivaldi, played by eight violins, by members of the music faculty of the University of Oklahoma, where Yo Yo Ma’s brother served on the faculty. And as the red-haired priest’s music reaches its peak of emotional intensity, I saw the face of one of those children suddenly light up with a big smile and he looked over at his aged parents with a look of great love and affection. I know that one smile was worth their cost of admission.

I consulted in another capital campaign with a rehab hospital in Denver, and one day while walking down the hall, I heard the strangest of noises coming from one room. I went over and peered inside. I saw 10 to 15 young adults with cerebral palsy writhing on the floor on mats. A therapist was leading them in exercises, and they were laughing and screaming, although they were laughing and screaming with sounds totally unlike any I had ever heard. Later, the image came back so forcefully, that even though they were restricted in how they could make their body move and the articulation of their sounds, they had a right to laugh out loud, to roll on the floor with abandon, and to enjoy their exercise to the fullest.

Those grandchildren at the other facility, who questioned the value of caring services to physically fragile children, might have thought that the time spent with these CP patients was wasted time too. But I want to tell you: Something else was at work. They were exercising their god-given right to live their lives to the fullest, even if some things were beyond their reach.

I’m a liberal who still believes that deep in the heart of every human being there is a capacity for generosity and giving, for loving and helping.

This world was not intended to make the few able to live in the lap of luxury, while the many struggle to survive

As the Early Church Father, Irenaeus wrote, “The glory of god” – the glory of creation – the glory of every species – “is to be able to fully live their lives.”

Though I’m very critical of the state of Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians, I am very supportive of Judaism, and its contribution to our self-understanding and its support for civil liberties and religious freedom. This Friday evening is the beginning of Hanukah, the Feast of Lights, for persons who practice Judaism. I find it difficult still to read about the horror that was the Holocaust, when six million human beings – women, children and men – were horribly annihilated in Nazi concentration camps designed specifically for Jews, Gypsies, communists, unionists, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The lack of compassion by the Nazi’s and unfortunately by many who initially benefited by their policies is incredible. Please let me share one example:

During the dark days of Nazi ascendancy in Germany, the I. G. Farben Chemical Trust corresponded with Rudolph Hoess, the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Farben, a drug company, wrote that they were testing a sleeping drug and needed some women to use as guinea pigs. Here are some of the pertinent pieces of actual correspondence from I G Farben Trust to Hoess. (I will read only from the Farben letters.):

“In contemplation of experiments with a new soporific drug, we would appreciate your procuring for us a number of women for these tests.”

“We received your answer but consider the price of 200 marks a woman excessive. We propose to pay not more than 170 marks a head. If agreeable, we will take possession of the women. We need approximately 150.”

“We acknowledge your accord. Prepare for us 150 women in the best possible health conditions, and as soon as you advise us you are ready, we will take charge of them.”

“Received the order of 150 women. Despite their emaciated condition, they were found satisfactory. We shall keep you posted on developments concerning this experiment.”

“The tests were made. All subjects died. We shall contact you shortly on the subject of a new load.”

To read the preceding is as though Farben were bargaining for 150 head of cattle, or 150 pounds of potatoes. Note again:

¨ Despite their starving state, they were acceptable. No concern to feed them or restore their health.

¨ And finally, we need another “load” to experiment with, language that would be consistent with needing another load of dirt or fertilizer.

At the end of World War II, the nations of the West had a challenging task. Normally, in the rules of war, defeated military leaders were not tried for criminal behavior. Their actions were construed to fall under the cover of soldiers obeying orders.

But the heinous crimes of the concentration camps crossed the line beyond even the horror of war, and the Allied Forces determined that something more had to be done. And a new category of war crime was created: crimes against humanity. At the Nuremburg trials, the leaders of the Nazi forces were compelled to stand trial for their actions.

But really: what punishment is there in a civilized world for such crimes as those I cited above – and those were only the tip of the ice burg? There really is none.

That’s why Immanuel Kant, the great theologian and philosopher of the pre-modern world felt there had to be an after life in which justice and judgment would be meted out. There, life’s inequities would be balanced. There, a compassionate God would invoke divine rule.

In fact, in Kant’s Summa Theologica, he builds a massive intellectual construct for the existence and presence of God in the world. Presupposed in it all was the necessity for there to be some equitable balancing of life’s inequities. That could only take place in an ultimate after life, he reasoned.

But as Unitarians, most of us take a different approach to Kant. In 1981, a story appeared in the Chicago Tribune in which the late Mother Teresa and Dr. Eugene Pickett, who was then the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, were interviewed together. The reporter asked Mother Teresa her answer to life’s final meaning. She said, “To be holy, and to go to heaven.” Dr. Pickett’s reply was the same and yet very different, or maybe it was different and yet the same. He said that life’s final meaning is: “To become whole and to create as much of heaven on earth as possible.”

That’s our task on this AIDS Awareness Sunday: to recognize every human being as equally worthy of God’s gifts on this Earth. Next Sunday, we will continue the conversation on AIDS, but not in theory or statistics. Rather, Sharon Murphy, Executive Director of the McGregor Clinic, will give us a firsthand report about what AIDS and why it’s important to continue the fight in Lee County against this horrific disease.

Albert Camus said, “In the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer.”

That’s the meaning of faith. Even when things are bleak without, there can be a bright sun shining within. “In the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer.”

Hate, however, can take you further than you wanted to go; keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted to pay.

But love makes no journey too far, no stay too long, no cost too much. It transforms life into a gift; the present into a present; and challenges us to treasure this moment in time.

[1] A sermon presented Dec. 06, 2009 at All Faiths Unitarian Congregation of Ft. Myers, FL, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1901 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, Minister.