Reflection:

Coming Into Balance

By Rev. Lynn M. Acquafondata

UU Church of the South Hills “Sunnyhill”

September 23, 2007

This weekend Jewish people honor the holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. They take time to fast, to acknowledge sins and come back into right relationship with other people, their religious community and God.

Many other religions have rituals and ceremonies of forgiveness. For a number of reasons, Unitarian Universalists do not. Part of it is that we don’t have proscribed ways to mark any holidays or rites of passage. Also, given that we believe all people are born good and each person is deserving of love and respect, many Unitarian Universalists feel discomfort with the concept of evil and sin. We do not have a commonly accepted way to approach a situation when someone acts in ways that harm ourselves or others, nor for when we ourselves turn to our own baser instincts and treat others unfairly.

Much as we’d like to be above all this, we UUs are as human as anyone else. We need ways to respond to the imperfect and sometimes downright hateful actions of others. We need ways to acknowledge and make amends for own misguided and sometimes harmful choices and actions. We are as much in need of giving and receiving forgiveness as people of main stream religious traditions who have clear systems and ceremonies worked out.

Because there is no set formula, our religious tradition allows us the freedom to create approaches and rituals in a wide variety of ways. I plan to make this service an annual tradition. I will lead it in different ways in different years, but I will lead you in coming face to face with forgiveness once a year.

This week is the perfect time for this service. Not only is it Yom Kippur, it is also the fall equinox, a time of balance between light and dark.

I think of the story of the prodigal son. When the younger son took his share of the property and squandered it in “dissolute living”, that knocked the relationship between father and son out of balance. The father’s response when his younger son returned home feels way over the top. He didn’t spare a dime on this son who had wasted all his inheritance and eaten with pigs. The father didn’t question. He didn’t lecture. He simply opened his arms wide and welcomed his son back with all he had to give. Could I do that? I’m sure I’d want to fit in at least one little lecture about responsibility. The other son felt slighted. He had worked hard and been obedient for years and years and yet he said, “You’ve never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.”

Hearing the story this time of year and I see something new. The father didn’t have to hold a big party for his first son. They had a daily relationship of give and take , eating together, sharing each other’s lives, serving each other. They had balance already. In order to shift the scales back into balance with his younger son, the father needed to do something big and opposite of what had already occurred, an act of wide open generosity and love which is exactly what happened. The son also played a role in coming back humble and repentant, the opposite of the way he left home.

For smaller transgressions, simpler responses would suffice. For example if I say something in an irritated voice to someone, just saying a pleasant, “I’m sorry,” will likely be enough.

In the reading Sarah York reminds us that forgiveness is often undeserved and it may or may not require an aspect of justice. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. That would throw the alignment of energy way up here to another extreme.

A week or so ago I read article in the paper about a women who was kidnapped and brutally tortured for a week by a family of really disturbed people. They gang raped her, beat hear and forced her to eat feces. She was rescued, but I realized that an ordeal like that could so horribly altar a person’s life that they might never fully recover. It occurred to me that what that woman needs is to be welcomed into a community of good, loving people who would take her in for at least twice as long as she was tortured and surround her with warmth, love and compassion, cooking her favorite foods, waiting on her, giving her massages, playing beautiful music, listening to all she has to share. Maybe wrapping that woman in selfless love could begin to counteract the intensity of evil inflicted on her.

In a way that is what Vedran Smailovic did in Sarajevo. He couldn’t change the fact that people had been killed waiting in line for food in the city they loved, nor could he change the fact that in order to survive, people would have to continue waiting in the same line, risking their lives to feed their families. To counteract such a horrendous situation, he would need a response which was beautiful and creative, loving and incredibly courageous. He did just that, sitting in the crater of the bomb, dressed in his finest cloths, playing beautiful music, one day for each person killed, bringing balance into his own heart and the hearts of others around him.

Forgiveness involves bringing one’s life back into balance. A harmful action done to you by someone else, or by you to someone else triggers all kinds of negative feelings and sometimes some painful, physical injuries. It’s easier to respond with revenge, inflicting pain on that person or someone else, because the momentum is already going in that direction. But revenge only weighs the scale further and further down. Balance comes by swinging the scale in the opposite direction of where it sits. That’s not easy to do when you need to shift energies from one extreme to another. Often takes a lot of effort, a lot of time, sometimes multiple attempts. The goal of forgiveness involves reaching out to oneself or to those who have harmed you with acts of compassion, love, courage, open heartedness, humor, joy.

Order of Service Sept. 23

Candlelighting (The candles up front may be lit before the service begins for special intentions or prayers.)

Sounding of the bell

Call to Gather Carol Karl, piano

Opening words

Opening music

Welcome

Lighting the chalice

May the light we now kindle

Inspire us to use our powers

To heal and not to harm,

To help and not to hinder,

To bless and not curse

To serve you spirit of freedom

Opening Hymn #311 “Let it Be a Dance”

New Member Welcome

Congregation:  We, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the South Hills welcome you as new members.  We invite you to share our concern for reason, love, freedom, truth and justice.  Through common effort let us shape the meaning of our lives.  We join our talents with yours, believing that together we can renew our spirits, grow as people, and find strength in helping others.

New Members: We join this church as an affirmation of our willingness to support a religious community whose members are devoted to the search for truth, and the establishment of reason and love in the world. We will strive to live out the values of Unitarian Universalism in our lives and willingly join your effort to search for, create, and celebrate meaning in our lives.

Minister: Through the spirit of love, the power of community and the values of Unitarian Universalism we bless these new members of Sunnyhill and welcome you among us. 

Sharing of joys and sorrows

Offertory

Union Reading

Prayer:

Reading “Forgiveness” by Sarah York

Hymn #179 “Words That We Hold Tight”

Handful of Seeds Anger Meditation

Ringing of the Bell

Silent Reflection

Ancient Wisdom The Parable of the Prodigal and his Brother from the Gospel of Luke 15:11-32

Modern Wisdom Vedran Smailovic

Spoken Meditation “Coming into Balance” by Lynn M. Acquafondata, minister

Written Meditation

Hymn #1037 “We Begin Again in Love”

Closing words

Closing  Hymn #1057 “Go Lifted Up”

Extinguishing the chalice

We extinguish this flame but not the light of truth,

The warmth of community,

Or the fire of commitment.

These we carry in our hearts until we are together again.

By Elizabeth Selle Jones

The Work of The Church: Brief Announcements