February 24, 2002
The Rev. Gretchen Woods
OPENING WORDS from Isaiah
35
The wilderness
and dry land shall be glad,
The desert shall rejoice and blossom;
Like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly
And rejoice with joy and singing.
READING from A History of God by Karen Armstrong
…Isaac Luria (1534-1572),
the hero and saint of the Kabbalism of Safed, tried to explain the paradox of
the divine transcendence and immanence more fully with one of the most
astonishing ideas ever formulated about God….
Luria confronted the
question that has troubled monotheists for centuries: how could a perfect and
infinite God have created a finite world riddled with evil? Where had evil come
from? Luria found his answer by imagining what had happened before the emanation of the sephiroth (the
ten stages of God’s unfolding revelation of himself in Kabbalah), when
En Sof had been turned in upon itself in sublime introspection. In order to
make room for the world, Luria taught, En Sof has, as it were, vacated a region
of himself. In this act of “shrinking” or “withdrawal” (tsimtsum), God had thus
created a place where he was not, an empty space that he could fill by the
simultaneous process of self-revelation and creation. . . He had, as it were,
descended more deeply into his own being and put a limit upon himself….
The “empty space” created by
God’s withdrawal was conceived as a circle which was surrounded on all sides by
En Sof. This was…the formless waste mentioned in Genesis.…
Then came the emanation of
the sephiroth…But then a catastrophe occurred, which Luria called “ the
Breaking of the Vessels.…”
When the three highest sephiroth
had radiated from Adam Cadmon (Primordial Man), their vessels had
functioned perfectly. But when the next six sephiroth issued from his “eyes,” their vessels were
not strong enough to contain the divine light and they smashed. Consequently
the light was scattered. Some of it rose upward and returned to the Godhead,
but some of the divine “sparks” fell into the empty waste and remained trapped
in chaos. (pp. 266-268)
…The salvation envisaged by
the mystics did not depend upon historical events like the coming of the
Messiah but was a process that God himself must undergo. God’s first plan had
been to make humanity his partner in the process of redeeming those divine
sparks that had been scattered and trapped in the chaos at the Breaking of the
Vessels. But Adam has sinned in the Garden of Eden. Had he not done so, the
original harmony would have been restored and the divine exile ended on the
first Sabbath. But Adam’s fall repeated the primal catastrophe of the Breaking
of the Vessels. The created order fell and the divine light in his soul was
scattered abroad and imprisoned in broken matter. Consequently, God evolved yet
another plan. He had chosen Israel to be his helpmate.…Even though Israel, like
the divine sparks themselves, is scattered throughout the cruel and godless
realm of the Diaspora, Jews have a special mission. As long as the divine
sparks are separated and lost in matter, God is incomplete. By careful
observance of Torah and the discipline of prayer, each Jew could help to
restore the sparks to their divine source and so redeem the world. In this
vision of salvation, God is not gazing down on humanity condescendingly, but,
as Jews have always insisted, is actually dependent upon mankind. Jews have the
unique privilege of helping to re-form God and create him anew. (pp. 269-270.)
When I was studying for my
Doctor of Ministry, I spent a semester on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
Later, I was casually chatting with Roger O. Kuhrt, a colleague and Ph.d.
psychologist who thought that people reversed the import of the MBTI. “They are
struggling to become whole, to balance all four of the spectra Isabel
Briggs-Myers developed from Jung’s work, but that is not the real point,” he
said. “The point is that human beings are meant to have different ways of being
in the world, rather than all balancing into some ‘golden mean.’ Differences
weave better community when each individual brings her or his particular gifts
and empty spaces to a larger tapestry. It’s like fitting together a jig-saw
puzzle, creating community.” For Roger, the health of community depends upon
interfaces of individuals involved: the more varied and interesting the
individuals, the stronger the community and the better utilized the
individuals.
I certainly experienced that
this week during a meeting in which various groups with interests in the use of
this building gathered and shared their concerns and ideas. One result is the
new configuration of the Fellowship Hall, as we try out the original plan Edith
Yang had in mind when she designed it. Let us know what you think.
Our children and youth are
currently studying Judaism in their Religious Education classes. I thought it
might make sense to explore Kabbalistic Judaism, some of its more challenging
ideas, and how they could inform our efforts to weave our own healthy
community.
Kabbalistic Judaism is the
mystical branch of the religion. Karen Armstrong writes, “Far from seeing
philosophy and reason as inimical to religion, Muslim Sufis and Jewish
Kabbalists often found that the insights of the Faylaysufs (Islamic
philosophers) were an inspiration to their more imaginative mode of
religion."”(Armstrong, A History of God, p.176.) While Armstrong
understands that mysticism never gained as much favor in the west as in other
religious traditions, she asserts, “. . . the God of the Kabbalists became
dominant in Jewish spirituality during the sixteenth century. Mysticism was
able to penetrate the mind more deeply than the cerebral or legalistic types of
religion.” (Armstrongp. 256.)
What we need to remember is
that this was another period of persecution and exile for Jews.
During the fifteenth century, anti-Semitism had
increased throughout Europe and Jews were expelled from one city after another:
from Linz and Vienna in 1421, Cologne in 1424, Augsburg in 1439, Bavaria in
1442 (and again in 1450) and Moravia in 1454. They were driven out of Perugia
in 1485, Vicenza in 1486, Parma in 1488, Lucca and Milan in 1489 and Tuscany in
1494. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain (in 1492) must be seen in the
context of this larger European trend. (Armstrong, p. 264.)
It was not a good time to be
Jewish, and mysticism offered some comfort at this time. Luria’s ideas, as read
this morning, helped Jews deal with the reality that nothing seemed to be in
its right place any more. Surely God was in exile from himself!
The difficulty of this story
is that some of us, thinking literally, mistake mythos for logos.
No Jew would assert that Luria’s story was fact, but many saw truth: that the
community needed to work hard to stay together and to value each member as a
precious spirit who could help re-integrate the world. The word “tikkun” in
Hebrew means variously restore, reintegrate, and recreate. “Olam” essentially
refers to the people, the community. The truths of Luria’s creation story are
that there is evil and dislocation in the world that needs to be addressed, and
that people need to work together to bring about a better community and world.
Which brings me back to the
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis: This is truly a place where
each person is valued and needed for their uniqueness. We affirm “the inherent
worth and dignity of every person,” as a basic principle of our faith. This
also means that we encourage each person to be their best, rather than enabling
them to do their worst. Each person is important, a precious spirit who has
value to the whole community because of her or his special gifts.
We are reminded that
community is also important. Without community, each of us lacks the gifts of
others to create a richer whole. We may be able to do extraordinary things, but
there would be no audience, no stimulus for broader understanding, no context
in which to grow further. We would not have the feedback that keeps us moving
forward as individuals and as a community. I am certain you can think of a lot
more reasons why we need community: a place to be supported in raising our
children, a source of encouragement when we are frustrated or depressed, a
group to share energies in working to bring our values to fruition, a context
in which to celebrate our greatest moments. The possibilities are endless.
So what is this worth to us?
This community is the one that is geared toward bringing meaning to our lives.
It is so important to me that I have been pledging $250 a month, plus $100 a
month to help pay off the purchase of the house next door, so that we can add
that space to our program possibilities. You know that my salary and housing
comes to about $XXXXXX a year, so I am pledging about 5% of my salary and
housing. The total cost of ministry, which some of you think is my salary, includes
health insurance, pension, disability insurance which helps you as much as it
does me, and the costs required of me as your representative in the larger
world, eg., travel, conferences, books, etc.
I recently was informed that
this congregation, after a dip in attendance, has returned to the level of
membership that it enjoyed in 1996, but has 60 fewer families pledging to the
ongoing health of the congregation. This means that those of you who are
pledging are carrying a far higher load than you were in 1996. Conversely, a
lot of folks are taking a free ride. Some of us need a free ride: students,
elders on fixed incomes, families struggling to survive. No one should be
excluded from membership because they don’t have money to give, and that’s why we
offer the option of time spent in service to the community. That is a basic
philosophy that comes with our faith, that all who feel they have a home with
us should be members, and membership carries with it the need for involvement.
On the other hand, we would
like to increase our music program so that Susan’s teaching skills and support
for a children’s choir would receive appropriate remuneration. We need extra
funds this next year to serve our youth with the Coming of Age Program. Our
sound system is wobbling past obsolescence toward oblivion. Our lovely building
needs repairs. Our programs are on bare bones budgets. So I am making a
challenge pledge: I will give $1 a month for each pledge unit of $50 or more
for the year. It takes $80 per person a year to pay all our membership dues and
send the newsletter to each home. That does not account for maintaining
building, staff or program. If we stay at 212 units, my pledge will be less. If
we return to the level of 296 units of 1996, my pledge will rise significantly.
The community will decide what I pledge per month – and it is my hope that it
will be significantly higher so that we may thrive, rather than surviving on a
subsistence budget.
What do you get from being
with this religious community? How is your mind stimulated, how is your life
enriched? How do you wish to reintegrate, to recreate this religious community
into a thriving enterprise which not only serves each of you, but reaches out
to the larger community to bring our values into reality in our world? We
choose this next week as we make our commitments to “tikkun olam,” to
recreating the community.
Vincent Silliman, who
chaired the hymnbook commission that created Hymns for the Celebration of
Life, offers this vision of how this community can reflect our re-creation:
Let religion be to us life and joy.
Let it be a voice of
renewing challenge to the best we have and may be; let it be a call to generous
action.
Let religion be to us a
dissatisfaction with things that are, which bids us serve more eagerly the true
and right.
Let it be the sorrow that
opens for us the way of sympathy, understanding, and service to suffering
humanity.
Let religion be to us the
wonder and lure of that which is only partly known and understood:
An eye that glories in
nature’s majesty and beauty, and a heart that rejoices in deeds of kindness and
of courage.
Let religion be to us
security and serenity because of its truth and beauty, and because of the
enduring worth and power of the loyalties which it engenders;
Let it be to us hope and
purpose, and a discovering of opportunities to express our best through daily
tasks:
Religion, uniting us with
all that is admirable in human beings everywhere;
Holding before our eyes a
prospect of the better life for humankind, which each may help to make actual.
With respect, responsibility
and relish for the process. So Be It! Blessed Be!
For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in
peace;
The mountains and the hills
before you shall burst into song,
And all the trees of the
field shall clap their hands.