Reading

This morning’s reading is a Sufi proverb:

Mulla Nasrudin decided to start a flower garden. He prepared the soil and planted the seeds of many beautiful flowers. But when they came up, his garden was filled not just with his chosen flowers but was also overrun by dandelions. He sought advice from gardeners all over and tried every method known to get rid of them but to no avail. Finally, he walked all the way to the capital to speak to the royal gardener at the sheik’s palace. The wise old man had counseled many gardeners before and suggested a variety of remedies to expel the dandelions but Mulla had tried them all. They sat together in silence for some time and finally the gardener looked at Nasrudin and said, “Well, then I suggest you learn to love them.”

Sermon

There is a story of a seeker who had endured much pain in his life—it seemed as though everyone was against him. No matter how much he gave to others, he felt like his giving was only rewarded with grief. He traveled to see the wise man, who invited him into his humble home. The seeker wasted no time. “Master,” he said, “what is the key to life?” The wise man responded with a question, “Have you eaten your supper?” “I have,” replied the seeker. To which the wise man responded, “Then go wash your bowl.”

As I have thought about that story, I have discovered many possible meanings…among them, that the key to enlightenment is accessible in the mundane affairs of our lives and that the key to enlightenment is doing what needs to be done…the work that is always right before us if we would only pay attention. But even more important for my purposes this morning is to take the story quite literally: the key to enlightenment is in washing our bowls…or put another way, the key to life is in cleaning up after ourselves.

By “cleaning up after ourselves” I mean living our lives with the expectation that hurt is inevitable…that no matter how hard we try to avoid experiencing or inflicting pain, we will undoubtedly experience it…and inflict it. If we are to engage with our lives, then this is how it must be, for the more we allow ourselves to risk relationship, to connect and interact with others in joy and sorrow, the more likely we will encounter challenges, misunderstandings, and general mishaps. As autonomous creatures with interior lives of such magnitude that we cannot help but spill our egos out on those around us, we should not be surprised that we can make a mess--that we can hurt others and be hurt--no matter how noble our intentions may be. And yet, it can be tempting to focus on the messes that others leave behind, all the while forgetting our own dirty dishes still sitting in the sink. Whether the mess is a result of something we have done or it is simply something that has been left for us to clean up, we have a responsibility to ourselves to deal with it…to wash our bowls…to not let the leftovers of hurts get in the way of the meals to come…our future communion with this precious life…the only life we may know.

So much of our lives can be spent waiting for others to clean up for us. We expect those who have soiled our relationships with wrongdoings to come to their senses, to recognize what they have done and to clean up the mess. Of course, we often don’t exhibit the same initiative for cleaning that we expect others to display. Sometimes this is because we are ignorant of our misdeeds and sometimes this is because we choose ignorance. Either way, it seems, to cling to expectations of others that we don’t hold for ourselves is to conveniently forget that we too sometimes miss the mark…just like everyone else on the planet!

This idea—that to live a good life a person not only has to pay attention to the refuse of her always messy existence, but she has to do her best to clean it up—is one of the key elements of this time of year known to those of Jewish faith as the High Holy days. Beginning with Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and continuing for ten days until Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), which begins at sundown tonight, this most holy time in the Jewish calendar is a time of deep reflection, self-examination and prayer. It is a time when unfinished issues are to be stacked up and resolved. It is a time when Jews are encouraged to admit wrongs to self, others and God, making amends where necessary and granting forgiveness where appropriate. Each person’s conscience can then be made clean, and life can be renewed.

I admire this time in the Jewish calendar—this ten days of soul cleaning—because forgiveness is important work…essential work…perhaps the most essential life-giving thing we can do…even when we have truly been wronged, even when the perpetrator may deserve nothing but our disdain, even when to forgive seems like the most irrational thing we could do. Forgiveness is not about rational cause and effect, you know…it is about choosing freedom…freedom from the heavy burdens of the past, and freedom from the unrealistic expectations that will torment us until we can learn to let them go. Of course, it is common to resist and to view forgiveness the same way that Woody Allen views anger: he says, “I don’t get angry. I get a tumor instead.” And yet, this is a time of year to remember that no matter what has transpired in the past, no matter what tumors we might prefer to endure, we do have a choice in how we carry the past…we do have a choice in how we will respond.

The Hebrew Bible verb for forgiveness is “shuv” which means “to turn, to return.”[1] Still, many of us view forgiveness as anything but a “return.” More typically, forgiveness can feel like an abandonment of ourselves: If we forgive, then we are turning our backs on a key storyline of our lives. Our identities are formed by the stories we have lived and the stories that we tell ourselves and others. One of the most prevalent means by which we make sense of our lives, then, is by replaying our memories of when we have been the victims or perpetrators of wrongdoing. To forgive others--to forgive ourselves--to turn away from the pain of these stories and toward the redemptive possibilities of forgiveness, can feel like the removal of a foundational element of our identity. But, in fact, to forgive is to return to our inherent innocence, to our true identity; to forgive is to lighten the accumulated burden of our living so that we can move more freely through the remaining days of our lives. Forgiveness then is not abandonment of our lives…it is the ultimate act of returning to and embracing our lives.

One of the roadblocks to forgiving is the perception that forgiveness is something we grant to others…a gift that we, in our innate wisdom and goodness, bestow upon others. However, the High Holy Days remind us that granting forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves and by ourselves: we are both the givers and the primary receivers. This is easy to forget. We are not well served by waiting for others to do the cleaning, or by demanding that others do the work that only we can do. We’re talking about our lives here…our precious, finite lives. We owe it to ourselves to take responsibility for our happiness. If we choose to wait for others, we may be choosing to wait too long. There is a Spanish proverb that says “If I die I forgive you; if I recover, we’ll see.” But the High Holy Days ask us to reconsider. “Don’t wait,” they say. “Now is the time.”

When I was in seminary, I faced a situation where I had been wronged and I was struggling with how to make sense of it. I knew that I could carry the pain of that grievance around and let it infect me, and I may have, had I not had some excellent advice from a fellow student. One of the benefits of going to school with future ministers, you see, is that they all want to practice ministering…and some of them, I’m pleased to report, are good at it! So I visited with one of my seminary friends, a wise older fellow who I knew had been through many ups and downs in his life, and told him what had happened. He asked a few clarifying questions and then sat quietly for a few minutes. As I waited for his response and silence draped itself over everything in the room, I imagined all the things he might say. Would he be angry on my behalf? Would he encourage me to confront the situation? Finally, he said to me, almost whispering, words I have never forgotten…words that I think are at the core of what forgiveness is all about. “Mark,” he said, “you have to be strong.” Just hearing those words was enough to turn me back to reality, to help me return to my life, and away from the pain of having been wronged. Essentially, I now know, he was telling me to wash my bowl. Almost immediately I recognized that the means by which I could overcome my pain was not to focus on what had been done against me, but to tap into my own inherent worth and dignity. By turning to my own strength, I discovered that what had occurred required me to respond with love, not with resentment. I recently ran across a quote from UU minister Greta Crosby that speaks to what my fellow student was trying to get me to see. Crosby writes: “If I could give you one key, and one key only, to more abundant life, I would give you a sense of your own worth, an unshakable sense of your own dignity as one grounded in the source of the cosmic dance, as one who plays a unique part in the unfolding of the story of the world…Secure in the sense of our own worth, we can rejoice in the worth of others and love out of fullness instead of an inner emptiness that eats others alive.”[2]

It takes strength to recognize our own worth. Not the kind of strength that is based in stubborn adherence to some broken principle. Not the kind of strength that says, “You are going to pay for what you have done to me for the rest of your life.” I’m talking about the kind of strength that says, “I will not allow injustice, but neither will I allow my life to be destroyed by that injustice.” When we can recognize our own worth, despite the wrongs we may have endured or doled out, we are more likely to reach out in acts of fearless love…the fearless love that is forgiveness. The fearless love that says to another, “I care enough about myself to be honest with you but I also care enough about myself to forgive you.” Sometimes that forgiveness leads to reconciliation, and sometimes that forgiveness requires that we separate ourselves from another…particularly in circumstances of abuse or violence. Either way, forgiveness as an ongoing practice is an avenue to our freedom, a means by which we can “return” to our true selves and to lives that are not encumbered by resentment. There is an ancient saying: “Those who live together with others ought not to be square, but round, in order to turn toward all.” Forgiveness is a turning toward others, it is a means of cleaning up after ourselves so that others have space to do the same. And it does require strength, the strength that all of us who live among other people require.

To live a life rooted in the transforming power of forgiveness requires more than strength, however. In his book Hard Blessings, UU minister Tom Owen-Towle reminds us that there are several aspects of forgiveness that must not be overlooked:

--First of all forgiveness is not a single act…it is a constant attitude. If we are busy keeping score, we are missing the point.

--True forgiveness is not something that should be announced. If we need to forgive, we should just do it, keeping in mind that it does not have to be accepted or reciprocated to be beneficial.

--As difficult as it is to grant forgiveness, it is equally as difficult to receive it. None of us wishes to be seen solely for the hurtful things we have done, and to receive forgiveness can highlight all too well the places where we have missed the mark.

--Because forgiveness is first and foremost a gift we bestow upon ourselves, there are no time limits. Any time is the right time to forgive…even when the person we are forgiving is no longer alive. Again, this is our own work and we are the first to reap the reward.

--Forgiveness is a spiritual discipline. It takes practice, stamina, and a willingness to apply its concepts even when it can seem most irrational. Even when it can seem most unwarranted. That is the point. Forgiveness is fearless love in its purest form.

--There is no one way to forgive, nor is there a set of expectations we should hold for how our forgiveness should be received. Ultimately, though, the motivation should be freedom…freedom for both the forgiver and the forgiven.

--Finally, and perhaps most importantly, forgiveness is something we all require. Not only for our health, but for our wholeness.[3]

The Sufi story that was this morning’s reading covered similar ground. Our lives can be overwhelmed by mistakes, mistakes we have made and those we have endured, much like the dandelions that have overwhelmed Nasrudin’s garden. And yet, how we choose to deal with those mistakes…how we choose to deal with those dandelions…will have a great impact on how we see the world and how we will contribute to it.

The choice is ours.

It has always been ours.