Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Pottstown

Forgiveness, Yom Kippur

Rev. Paul D, Daniel 

A great human truth is that we are all deeply wounded by life,

 

often by our friends or loved ones.

 

As a result, many of us struggle with a spiritual malaise

 

 expressed through anger, while others live lives of quiet desperation,

 

emotionally crippled and isolated.

 

Some hid a great sadness with smiles, covering up their pain by trying to be the life of the party. 

 

Leonard Cohen decades ago sang of this reality and the possibility of hope for something more healing, “there is a crack in everything and that is how the light gets in”; The light of forgiveness, love, God.

 

In these special days “The Days of Awe”,

 

between the Jewish festivals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the year of new beginnings;

 

we are called to look within with relentless honest;

 

to truly see ourselves as we are,

 

and address our shortcomings.

 

By engaging in such a moral and ethical self-inventory, we can create a joyous new beginning.

 

But, we must be truly repentant for our past sins.

 

The new year calls us to turn back to the light of love and compassion.

 

In the twilight of the vanishing year, Jews and UU alike are called to

 

lift up our hearts in thanksgiving for life ever renewing.

 

These are the days of wonder when our souls are stirred up by the memory of past joys,

 

yet weighed down by the realization of our transgressions.

 

We need to seek sincere atonement for the times we have strayed from right relations; with ourselves, other and the holy.

 

 

 

Forgiving ourselves and others is the pathway back to love and peace.

 

Lewis Swedes defines forgiveness this way,

 

“the elimination of all desire for revenge and personal ill will toward those who have deeply wronged or betrayed us”.

 

Releasing our anger can bring inner peace and free us from defining our lives by the

injuries we have suffered [or caused].” 

 

We can open ourselves to the frail and flawed human within another and forgive those who hurt us.

 

We can make a conscious, intentional choice to eliminate

 

the existing dynamic of mutual enmity back towards a kind of détente, or better still, a renewed relationship

 

which over time can lead to a full restoration of love and trust.

 

By so doing I believe we can heal.

 

Today I offer not despair but hope and possibility, arising out of our own innate ability to change and grow.

 

 “These wounds often have cut us to the bone, and

 

perhaps may never fully heal unless we forgive.  

 

They are spiritual in nature because they deal with our place in the human community and

 

how we relate in the most profound way to each other.

 

Healing is a choice, do we to allow the light of love to seep in and cauterizing our wounds or do we continue to wall ourselves off from our deepest, truest selves and others. 

 

 

So, what are we called to do?

 

The OT tells that our sins against God can only remove by appealing directly to God for forgiveness.

 

That sounds a lot like praying. 

 

Now, if you find prayer hard…try talking directly to the person you offended or who has wounded you.

 

In Judaism and UU isms or even in a twelve step program, we can make amends and

 

hopefully be forgiven directly by another person.

 

There is no way we can know that the forgiveness we seek will be granted unless we ask

 

but after an honest, heart-felt attempt we can at least forgive ourselves.

 

The wounds we have inflicted on another may be too recent, too deep, too painful, to be granted.

 

One thing is certain, forgiveness requires restitution and true repentance.

 

Justice and equity in a UU understanding embodied in our covenants must be offered to the aggrieved person. 

 

Steps need to be taken by the perpetrator to change behavior;

 

not for a day or a week, but for all times.

 

Restoration back to right relations may require just a simple apology for a minor offense,

 

or more serious restitution, such as jail time for a criminal offense.

 

Victims of serious violations do NOT have to forgive; and certainly not forget.

 

 

But, if we are able to forgive, we free ourselves to begin again devoid of anger and despair.

 

We serve ourselves best when we open our heart to all others and find a way to love again.

 

Forgiveness is as much for our own salvation as for the other person.

 

Let me share a personal antidote to illustrate the challenges of forgiveness.

 

Some of you may know I am estranged from my youngest son Peter.

 

He and I have not talked in over four years except at my nephews, his cousin’s funeral.

 

Over that time, I repeatedly asked for forgiveness to no avail.

 

My phone calls or e-mails were never answered.

 

In fact, he once hung up on me.

 

Over time, I became consumed by both anger and

 

grief for the pain I felt at his rejection.  And most assuredly the pain I have caused both my sons.

 

At Yom Kippur time especially, we are forced to confront our inadequacies and own them, as painful as that is. 

 

I have taken responsibility that I hurt my son deeply by my less than stellar parenting at a critical time in his life.

 

I don’t know that he will ever forgive me, his wounds, deep and painful.

 

Choosing to forgive or not has consequences for both parties.

 

I must carry on without the forgiveness I crave.

 

He must carry around all that anger that can weigh him down.

 

 Neither of us so far have been willing or able to restore our relationship.  

 

Without that forgiveness, my only hope of healing is to go deep within to accept my shortcomings and work to heal my guilt and grief.

 

I am called in my heart to amend and atone for my adequacies, as we all must.  

 

To that effect we can make vows and promises to forever abandon behaviors that harm others.

 

We are called to make amends in direct, personal ways with

 

the goal of reconnecting, ending destructive behavior that separates us with all that is holy.  

 

We can atone for our sins and mistakes by reaching out to others who suffer,

 

starting with those we have offended and wounded.  

 

Here at UUFP we can make right relations the core of our communal work.

 

Through our work for restorative justice and compassion for one another and the human community we can make amends and earn back forgiveness?  

 

As UUs we believe that there is salvation through good works.

 

Forgiveness may be the hardest good emotional work we will ever do.

 

The work of salvation is thru love.

 

Norman Cousins said it well, “Life is an adventure in forgiveness”.

 

 Life calls us to endless forgiveness, to call up a heart of tenderness, until it becomes a habit. 

 

When we let the light of love break into our wounded hearts we are set free to live again;

 

to begin the journey from resentment to forgiveness,

 

thoughtlessness to mindfulness,

 

callousness and selfishness to compassion.

 

We can resolve to remove from our minds all sentiments of rancor and enmity” (James I Ford) for those who have offended us, inflicted pain or angered us.

 

We can “stand on the side of love”.

 

We can then forgive ourselves whether or not we receive forgiveness from those we hurt,

 

we can let go of our sham, guilt and resentment.

 

With equal fervor and authenticity of purpose,

 

we do our best to let go of grudges,

 

knowing that failing to forgive another person only poisons our own well.

 

It might be said, the final stage of forgiveness might be to wish the bastard well, and mean it.”

Blessed be.

May it come to pass!

 

“Shanah tova”, A blessed new year.

10/2/16 Sermon   Rosh Hashanah, The Days of Awe

Paul D. Daniel, Minister 

The sound of the ram’s horn is sharp.

It is like no other sound.

It pierces the armor of the heart.

It calls us to pay attention to who we are in relationship with God and all you hold holy and sacred.

 

It calls us to be in Right relations with ourselves and all others

 

. As we begin the Jewish New Year of 5777 we are called to reflect and repent for our shortcomings and wrongful deeds.

 

 

We begin in celebration as we wish each other, Shanah Tovar -a good and sweet year.

 

Like most Hebrew words it takes a
paragraph of English words to convey a Hebrew words true
meaning.

 

Shaneah Tovar implies a return to our truest and best
selves.

 

It is a journey of rediscovery requiring an inward reflective
gaze of self-evaluation.

 

We are called to look at the sins we have committed this past
year.

 

Now, before you start squirming over the word sin, I am using sin here in the manner of H. Richard Niebuhr in his seminal work The Responsible Self.

 

Sin in this context is more about missing the mark.

 

 It is being out of right relationship.

 

To live in covenant is to be able to once again to pursue that
which is good and true.

 

As Niebuhr wrote, it is less about establishing innocence from transgression,

 

then the granting to the self of the ability to move again towards perfection and wholeness,

 

towards the actualization by the power by which we are enabled to see God

and to live in his/her likeness”.

 

For UUs it might be more comfortable envisioning ourselves as being more in touch with that which we find transformative and transcendent in our lives.

 

Rosh Hashanah calls Jews, indeed all of us back too self and community.

 

We are reminded and often grow nostalgic for a more innocent time of our childhood when we lived in safe and sacred congregations.

This is a time of great emotion, both joyous and painful, for many
Jews.

 

The sound of the Shofar announces the dawning of the New
Year.

 

The High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah are a celebration of
the birth of the world.

 

These days with their sounds and smells strike the deepest cords of human feeling in Jews.

 

In the most profound way Jews and many UUs are called back to faith as a communal experience.  

 

It is said that Rosh Hashanah is the mind and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the heart.

 

Whatever Judaism has to say on God, Man and Duty is enshrined in the prayers and hymns of the ten Days of Awe between and including these Holy Days.

 

This time is the spiritual epitome of devotion.

 

 

The central event is soul searching and repentance for wrongdoing.

 

This is in keeping with many UU liberal religionists feeling that

 

there is a need for the community to come together to focus on the
need to improve both as an individual and as a community.

 

For Jews, the cry for Atonement that occurs during the Days of Awe

 

culminates in the release and forgiveness granted on Yom Kippur, but, only we are told, for those who are sincere.

 

God can only grant forgiveness to those who sinned against God.

 

For, sins committed against another person requires us to beg forgiveness directly from the person harmed.

 

This is very much in keeping with our Unitarian Universalist ways.

 

 

We UUs are called to evaluate our behavior constantly, not just
during these High Holy Days.

 

However, we do acknowledge, we are ‘only human’ in our ability to follow these rules all the time.

 

Judaism actually understands this and even expects that we at times will fall short.

 

When a person of conscious has sinned, they may say,

 

“I have kept none of the commandments”.

It is not the literal truth or falsity of the statement that concerns them,

 

but rather the feeling of having betrayed their principles by having committed some sin,

and thus in some sense giving the lie to the notion of themselves as
a virtuous person.

 

 

An old story is told of one aged rabbi who went to visit a

colleague in a distant city before the High Holidays.

 

They had a pleasant visit, and spent many hours talking.

 

But when it came time to leave, the visitor burst into tears.

 

The other asked what was wrong.

 

He replied, I have committed so many sins wailed the first

 

“I have done such wrong,

 

I do not deserve your friendship, let alone God’s forgiveness.

 

“At which the other began to sob, and he said,

 

“I too am a terrible sinner.

 

I have not kept the commandments one day of my life.

 

” And the two of them comforted one another, and gave each
other strength for the days of repentance yet ahead.

 

 

You see, central to these holidays is Teshuva, repentance and turning back to righteousness.

 

Bringing ourselves and all others in community back into right relations.

 

It is also everyone’s responsibility here at this fellowship to do that not just the Board and minister.

 

It is a letting go of the past with its associated pain so that one can embrace a righteous, hope filled,
future.

 

Our duty in this place and time is to reflect on our lives,
where we are in contrast to where we want to be.

 

This is about liminal time between what was and what might be;

 

between summer and fall; regret and repentance; guilt and
renewal.

 

 

Teshuva is filled with the power of sacred repentance,
renewal, and return.

 

It offers us the possibility to change the direction of our lives.

 

It is now, in this moment that we are redirected back to a relationship with something that is beyond ourselves.

 

Our yearning for our higher selves can be satisfied but only if we are willing to do the
work of restoration and renewal.

 

This work calls us to articulate our deepest sense of that which is holy, immanent and transcendent.

 

Not an easy task when we must enter the depth of our being
filled with hope but blocked by the reality of our misdeeds.

 

Our hearts are pained by such an encounter with our misdeeds.

 

Karl lung would say this is the meeting we must have with our shadow side, with our evil, destructive intentions.

 

We must make this unconscious side of our being conscious if our egos are to gain any control over the untamed side of our nature, a place of offensive and hurtful behavior.

 

Ironically, Teshuva calls for self-acceptance, a coming to
terms with our misdeeds, failings and frailties.

 

It is our desire for renewal that moves us from our old selves and empowers us to embrace the new reborn self.

 

 

We are propelled through the gates of repentance that now stand open to us.

 

 

The Gates are open only for a short time.

 

The “Book of Life “is open but once a year and remains so only during the Days of
Awe.

 

This is our time for action and repentance, truth telling and
forgiveness.

 

Now is the time to confront ourselves if we intend to
return and grow.

 

When the Book of Life is closed for another year our remaining misdeeds, not atoned and forgiven, remain for another year to pull and weigh us down and hold back from right relationships and our truest selves.

 

 

The universe waits with open arms, but we must enter with a
redeemed heart.

 

This is an ageless and timeless story of humanities yearnings for connection. It is our passage from brokenness into wholeness and blessing. The only whole heart is the broken and wounded one.

 

Only when we know the road map of our own existence can we
know another and be healed.

 

 

This road is stony and difficult to travel but we are reminded that Teshuva is in every act we
perform. It is a journey taken with the first heart felt and truthful step within. It is a new devotion to living fully in right relationship.

 

It is a word an At-One-Mint with humanity and the Holy.

 

It is through Teshuva that we become as one with humankind in freedom, righteousness, and
dignity.

 

As the door, now opens, challenges us to have the courage to begin again in love and walk thru the door of hope.

 

Shanah T’ovah, may you have a Good and Sweet
Year.

 

May it be so!