Names and Labels: I Am What I Am

Sermon by Betsy Davis
Preached at Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation
June 26, 2005

Chalice Lighting:
The words of Albert Schweitzer:

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Sermon, Part One:

So, when “all the earth is paradise” [quote from previous hymn] will that mean that we won’t need to have names? Or will we all just be named Dave? That is one way to look at paradise - that there is nothing left that separates us - we are all one.

Now, Oneness is a great thing. A lot of what we talk about here in Unitarian Universalism, and especially in this congregation, is about how all of creation is part of the interdependent web of all existence, and especially about how very interrelated the lives of all people are, and even more grandly and beautifully, how we are all of the same substance.

Labels get a really bad press in this context. But a lot of our human experience is about paradox - the reality that two seemingly opposite concepts can be true at the same time. And another important value of ours is diversity -- an appreciation for the ways in which we are different from each other. Now, the ways in which we are different may not be as significant or cosmic as the ways in which we are the same, but the ways that we are different are very interesting indeed and important for many different reasons.

Individualism after all is one of our prized things in this country. Most of us don’t wear uniforms at school, and we resist laws that would tell us what our houses are supposed to look like -- and we resist most rules that tell us how to behave -- unless they are about actually hurting other people. In most other nations of the world, multiple restrictions about all sorts of things are taken for granted.  But, Americans tend to resist rules about things that have to do with behavior that is just “proper” or that have to do with how things look superficially.

Americans for our entire history have talked about such ideas as the boring place Mister Rogers called Planet Purple. That is where everything is purple -- the people, the buildings, the toys, and even the food. The people THINK just alike too, and Mister Rogers tells us that that makes it hard for them to talk to each other -- they can never think of anything to say that the other person doesn’t already know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” And whose mind is he talking about? Mine and yours, and he didn’t know anything at all about you or me except that we are human beings, and that what is inside my mind is never exactly like what is in your mind.

Emerson also said, “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist,” which is another way of saying: “dare to be different, not because different is better, but because better is different.”

So one of the things that having different names does for us is not just to tell us apart -- that’s useful and important, and it is too bad -- for the children and for that poor mother in the book that Bob read -- it’s too bad that she didn’t think of that. But, having our own names also encourages us to be ourselves. Having our own names helps us to realize that we can -- and that we should -- stand up for ourselves and our ideals because what we think and believe is never exactly the same as anyone else’s beliefs.

When we extend that respect to other people and to their ideals -- when we realize that other people see things differently from ourselves and recognize that as a GOOD THING -- that’s called valuing diversity, or Pluralism. It also can be called a mature humility.

In one of the creation stories in Genesis, God gives the people their names, but then he delegates the job of naming the animals to Adam. In giving Adam that job, he gives Adam power over the animals. And by extension, human beings for all time have “dominion over” the animals. Now we ourselves might not feel that way, but that is the story the Bible tells, and much of our history says the same thing.

So naming something is a huge responsibility. I know that I felt the full effect of that when I chose names for my children -- that’s a really big one!  But, there you are -- raising children is the biggest responsibility that parents have, and part of that awesome responsibility of raising children is giving them names.

In the Bible there is one being and one only who is not given a name by someone else, and that is God. In the Jewish tradition, some say that god actually has no name -- that “god” is more like a role such as “teacher” or “grandmother” and that that there is only one being that is so unique that it really can have no name. Others say that the one god does have a name, but that human beings don’t know what it is, or we don’t know how it is pronounced, or we are not worthy to say it out loud. Some say that god does not have a name because god is spirit, and rather than making up a pretend name just for convenience as some do, they, when they want to speak of this being, pause in their speech or, in the Jewish Renewal tradition, express the creator as (jah) - a breath, as in “all that is was created by (jah)".

This is from the tradition called Kabbalah:

When a glassblower wants to produce glassware, he takes an iron blowpipe, hollow as a reed from one end to the other, and dips it into molten glass in a crucible. Then he places the tip of the pipe in his mouth and blows, and his breath passes through the pipe to the molten glass attached to the other end. From the power of his blowing, the glass expands and turns into a vessel -- large or small, long or wide, spherical or rectangular, whatever the artisan desires.

So [ ], great, mighty, and awesome, powerfully breathed out a breath and cosmic space expanded to the boundary determined by divine wisdom, until [ ] said, “Enough.”

In the Torah myth, god made itself known to Moses in a bush that was burning but not damaged by the fire -- a miracle that got Moses’ attention right away! Moses asked God what God’s name was, and the answer was, “I am that which I am.” To me, this sounds pretty clearly like God insisting on the right to be labeled or not completely on God’s own terms -- there is no way that anyone who is not God could even make suggestions about this.

So, I think that it is reasonable to say that naming something or somebody -- including ourselves -- is a really big deal, no matter what tradition you come from. And one way to look at it is to say that naming something is always to some extent “playing God”. 

But, of course, we do that all the time! The Unitarian Universalist tradition is completely compatible with the idea of humans as co-creators of everything around us. I love the idea that we have the responsibility, the duty, and the privilege of naming and creating ourselves. We are Spirit, just like “Jah”.

So the title of this sermon -- “I Am What I Am” --- comes from two different places. It is the words that God uses to talk about itself, and, is also the words used by a man in the Broadway show called La Cage aux Folles -- a play that celebrates human beings in the act of creating themselves.

Sermon, Part Two:

I am very conscious that it may seem odd that this year’s Gay Pride service is conducted completely by -- as far as I know completely by -- people who identify themselves as straight. This congregation has had a service preceding the Pride Day Parade every year now for 12 years, but the speakers have always been people who identified themselves as one or another sexual minority.

Somehow, though, it seems appropriate that it is finally time for this particular holy day to be claimed by all people of good will. Unitarian Universalists seem to be pretty cool about this -- about appropriating holidays and traditions wherever we find them. And Gay Pride Day is about proclaiming, “I am what I am!” and also about acknowledging the importance of honesty about our feelings. What better reasons for Unitarian Universalists to celebrate a holiday?

The catch is that integrity requires that we do not just celebrate the joys of ourselves and others, but also empathize with the sorrows. We have an entire section of our weekly service that acknowledges this.

This week was the trial of a man who was involved in the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. People are not often punished for something that they did forty years before -- usually if a guilty person is not found and tried and punished much sooner than that, they get away with it forever. But, in this case the state of Mississippi decided that it was important to go ahead and try the man.

Now, as part of the trial, I heard the attorney for the defendant telling the jury that he was shocked and also somewhat hurt, by the fact that it was the state of Mississippi that was “dredging all this up.”

What struck me the most was this direct quotation: “This is opening wounds that were healed forty years ago.”

Now, where did he get the idea that those wounds were healed at all, let alone forty years ago? Still living are parents and spouses of the young men who were killed. But, beyond that, I suspect that everyone here who was alive at the time remembers those murders and the horror of that time. And for those who are African-American, surely those incidents have an additional dimension of horror and disgust and perhaps fear that linger and that must be respected. Those who have overcome such feelings are to be admired, but it is not up to those who did not share the mistreatment to determine whether those wounds are or ought to be healed.

Let us today acknowledge other open wounds that are not universally visible, that often appear to those in the majority to be healed:

Palestinians displaced from their homes in 1947; the Nazi holocaust; American slavery ; the Native American genocide; violence of many varieties toward people who love other people not of the opposite sex.

This is a very long list that could go on and on, but the point is that the world is full of open wounds that appear to many to be closed.

And I have heard people of intelligence and good will minimize each of those catastrophes with such comments as, “Slavery ended in 1864 - surely there aren’t any consequences left to deal with by now” or “How can a Palestinian who hasn’t himself even seen his ancestral home feel any attachment to it?” or “The Nazi Holocaust was over sixty years ago -- people who say that they are still afraid are being manipulative.” “Gay people now have a lot of rights that they didn’t have even ten years ago. So what else could they possibly want?”

Such comments can be prompted by any of many impulses. Sometimes cynicism, sometimes ignorance, but very often by nothing more than a lack of experience and conversation with the group in pain. And sometimes by the honest passion of those who are so immersed in the pain of one group that they must blind themselves to the pain of other groups.

Wounds heal at their own rate, and often the first step toward healing them is looking at them. So our job is not to reopen wounds that may or may not be closed, but rather to make wounds that are still open more visible to more people.  

So may the Spirit of Courage, also known as [jah], bless those who are willing to share their own pain with others. And blessed are those who are able to look at their own and others’ wounds directly, without flinching, running away, or retreating into judgmentalism.

Antiphonal Reading:
by Thich Nhat Hanh

Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds. Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.

Let us be aware of the source of being, common to us all and to all living things.

Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion - towards ourselves and towards all living beings.

Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.

With humility, with awareness of the existence of life, and of the sufferings that are going on around us, let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.

 

Sermon, Conclusion:

This is a day to pay tribute to the courageous people/pioneers who have reclaimed labels that others have seen as pejorative:
     those who shouted “Black is Beautiful!” when that phrase was seen by the majority as an oxymoron;
     those who shouted “Queer Pride!” when that could cost them their lives;

     those who marched as “Dykes with Tikes” when the prevailing view of motherhood was still being taken from the sitcoms of the1950’s.

Thanks to all who have “come out” as Unitarian Universalists -- a label that is sometimes easy to take on, but sometimes necessitates alienation from family or other important relationships.

And profound thanks, too, to those who grew up oppressed by an institution known as the “church” -- whether because of dogmatic beliefs about sexual orientation, or dogmas about other issues, or because of overt anti-semitism or innocent failure of empathy -- those people who, despite the oppression connected to that label, are now openly able to belong to an institution that, despite its best intentions to be inclusive, still generally identifies itself as a “church”.

For all of those courageous human beings who out loud proclaim, “I Am What I Am”, let us “Sing out praises for the journey” that they make, and that they encourage all of us to make. 

 

Benediction:
 

Go now in peace.

Deeply regard one another;

truly listen to each other.

Speak the truth of who you are and what you know.

Be just in your words and deeds.

Remember your power in the days of your powerlessness,

and don’t be afraid to disarm your heart

            remembering the depth of our compassion.

Take care of your body; it’s a good gift.

And remember that we are not alone,

that there is strength and goodness and love

beyond our individual efforts.

Now let us go forth with hope and trust that the light kindled here today will guide us on our journeys

Always.

© Copyright 2005 Betsy Davis, All Rights Reserved.