A New Year - Questions & Answers
Sermon preached by Rev. Carolyn Patierno
January 8, 2006

At the start of the third chapter of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the central character of the story reflects: “There are years that ask questions and years that answer”.

I first came across that quote at the start of 2005. I shared it with a friend for whom 2004 had brought more devastation than any heart should have to bear. It is an idea that resonated for me as the nature of our lives is such that they pass by moment by moment, day by day, and year by year. Slowly that which fills our lives changes us. It’s a subtle process – growth is. And of course, we experience “growth” only if we are open to its often-difficult ways. If we are less open or less fortunate we are simply worn down and defeated by the heartbreak.

How can an entire year be one that poses the questions … and another year be one that offers the answer? More often than not, we figure out what the questions were in retrospect. Ditto the answers. When we are floating downstream – or up - right smack in the middle of the river of our lives, we rarely take in the oars to ponder, “What am I doing here, exactly?” Much less know the answer. The perspective is too up close. Instead, we land, and only after we land do we have what we need to fully reflect on the journey. What do we need? Time.

Will the year ahead be one that asks questions or one that offers answers? On the first Sunday of 2007, will we contemplate 2006 sitting in the pews of this sanctuary? Or taking in the new beauty of a new sanctuary? We’ll see. Time will tell.

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” It’s a “long view” kind of contemplation.

2006 began as 2004 had ended and 2005 began – with big, looming, seemingly inescapable theological questions. Our tradition is one that welcomes these questions. One of the qualities that make Unitarian Universalism distinct is that we treasure the questions and if answers come, there will likely be a range of them as we hold a range of perspectives among us. We understand the questions as the Buddhists understand the path as the goal.

These particular theological questions were raised in the wake of the tragedy that came in the form of a tsunami. There was the expected and appalling theology spewed by the usual cast of characters who claimed that the tsunami was God’s revenge for any number of infractions. Equally appalling but more subtle, was the theology that drove a particular interpretation of God’s blessing. A good example of this theology was a quote from the Sri Lankan priest who lives in this region but whose family remains in Sri Lanka. Fortunately, his family had survived. The priest claimed that his family had been blessed by God. The implication, of course, is that the tens of thousands who had perished did not enjoy God’s blessing.

Perhaps you will be surprised when I say that I consider the latter theological understanding more damaging than the former. The former is the theology that claims that God sent the tsunami to punish the Muslims … or that God created AIDS to punish gay men … or that God caused Ariel Sharon to have a stroke because Sharon, and I quote Pat Robertson here, was “dividing God’s land.” Pat unabashedly quoted God who apparently said recently, “This land belongs to me. Leave it alone.”

Now, I can deal with this malarkey because it’s right out there, kind of like racism in the Deep South. What is more insidious is the priest’s comment, which is more like racism in the north. Oh, the malarkey is there all right, but it’s a bit more complex and so, harder to pin down.

Let’s pin it down, friends.

You all know how we become riveted on events as dramatic as natural disasters. The headlines, the public dialogue, personal discourse all beg for a wide range of perspective. Therefore, liberal religionists must learn and know how to respond to these matters when they arise. True, we will each respond with a slightly different perspective. But Unitarian Universalists share powerful roots in the belief in a loving and forgiving God. Now, whether or not you proscribe to a belief in God matters less than the affect the popular current and indeed, historical, punishing perspective has had and continues to have on our society and perhaps on some of us right here in this sanctuary. It’s not helpful. It’s not comforting and in fact, in some arenas, it’s dangerous. We must respond and broadly, our response may reflect the historical commitment Unitarian Universalists have had to reason, freedom, and tolerance. Ours is a reasoned and compassionate theology that says that God is not in the tsunami. God is not in the disease. God is not nor has never claimed any land as God’s own.

And finally, for our purposes this morning and for the past week, God did not personally set out to rescue the trapped miners in the West Virginia coal mine.

A question frequently posed in the midst of theological discussion is this one: “Tell about the God you don’t believe in.” This is the God I don’t believe in: the God who beneficently swoops down (because it’s always “down”) to save some innocents but leaves others to suffer. In fact, I don’t believe in the God that “swoops down,” - period.

The harder question is this: “Tell me about the God that you DO believe in.” And this is precisely the question we must learn to answer. Not glibly. Not with an air of superiority. But rather with compassionate intention.

Let’s deconstruct the news story that dominated the headlines this week. It was, of course, the Sago Mine tragedy.

Like many newspapers across the nation, The Day’s front page headline read, “A ‘Miracle’ In West Virginia.” The news was incredible but sadly inaccurate. “Praise the Lord!” rang out the joyous shouts of the congregation followed by a chorus of the hymn How Great Thou Art. I don’t know this hymn, but we can all guess the gist of its lyrics. One congregant said, “Miracles happen in WV and today we got one.” The mother of one of the trapped miners said that she believed there was divine intervention, “The Lord takes care of them.” At this point, it was believed that 12 were alive and one had died.

And again I wondered, “What was the family of the man who was thought to have died to think?”

The governor, Joe Manchin, said that he “wanted to believe” [that the miners had survived.] As he was leaving the church where many had gathered to wait for news, he said, “Miracles do happen.” From this was extrapolated the belief that a miracle had happened. On Friday, The Day ran a New York Times story that finely detailed every aspect of the incident, including where the transfer of information may have gone terribly wrong.

Not surprisingly, also on Friday there was a letter to the editor responding to many of the theological shadows I have here named. The letter ends tersely with the following, “God, in the meantime, will no doubt be busy blessing the American troops in Iraq who accidentally bombed an innocent family of nine recently. Good luck with that one, God.”

Not helpful. In fact, this letter, although perhaps entertaining to read, only serves to deepen the distrust each end of the political and faithful continuum feels for the other. We are called to do better than that. We are called to grapple with these questions personally so that when we find ourselves in the midst of the discourse of the town square, we have something to say that is thoughtful, respectful, and compassionate, that bears little resemblance to the rhetoric of a Pat Robertson or on the other end of the continuum, the reader whose letter to the editor appeared in The Day.

So, here’s my first question to you in 2006: Where was God in the midst of this tragedy? How did a sense of the divine, the mystery, the awesome, intersect with the story? What idea would serve as a comfort, a help to those who were suffering both in that small town in West Virginia, and to millions of Americans who empathetically kept watch throughout the entire ordeal.

To borrow and adapt a phrase, “WWUUD?” What Would a UU do?

Here’s how this UU would answer and interface with the question.

God is in this story. God is in the lives of all of this story’s characters – those underneath the ground and those who gathered at the church. Those good people who came together in that Baptist church that awful night did so because love and common concern bound them together (the meaning of the word ‘religion’, let me remind you) and held them up.

You understand that. You understand that because not unlike our brothers and sisters in WV, we also gathered here in our own sanctuary on September 11th in 2001. Therein is the meaning and strength of God. God dwells in the spaces between us and in the places we are bound together – in the way we are held up.

God is elsewhere in the story as well. When those men were dying beneath the earth – bless them all – what did they do? They wrote notes to those they loved to assure them that they were okay, not to worry…that they would see them again on the other side. Seemingly, they took comfort in their faith and as importantly, in their memory of those they love. God was there for those men in the way each of them needed.

Where isn’t God in this story and others like it? God doesn’t create the havoc of evil. We human beings are perfectly capable of doing so on our own, thank you very much. God doesn’t create tsunamis or hurricanes or any other natural disaster. We have gained remarkable scientific insight and understanding into the natural world. The best scientists understand and respect the mystery of the natural world and as well, their work. But to name God responsible for any of these disasters is not only bad science – it’s bad, destructive theology.

God is in the best of who we are. No scripture moves me more deeply than the ancient poetry of the Sufi mystics, Hafiz foremost among them. Hafiz was deeply appreciated by our own Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson translated Hafiz poems from the Persian and called Hafiz “a poet for poets.” That said, of God, Hafiz said, “No one can keep us from carrying God wherever we go. No one can rob the Beloved’s precious name from the rhythm of our heart.”

Those miners held God’s name – in whatever way they named God – in the rhythm of their hearts. Same for the people in the church.

Tragically, the accident seems to have been caused by a fire started by lightening and then, perhaps, faulty safety precautions exasperated the already dire situation. One lived and others died. Many others suffered and will continue to suffer. God was and is in the hearts and minds of all in this story. But God didn’t have a hand in its cause or in its end.

That’s what this UU would say to this first question that the universe posed to me in the year 2006. My answer is one gleaned from the wisdom of the faith tradition I love so dearly.

We need to find ways to enter into these conversations, friends. We need to practice doing so. So, I’ve come up with the idea of coffee hour questions. These are suggestions for conversation starters during coffee hour if you find you’re coming up short. The first one is this: WWUUD? What would you do? How would you respond to this first question of what will be a year that asks many questions and offers perhaps an answer or two.

Where is God in the story? What would you do? What would you say?

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