This is the Sunday situated between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. These are the Days of Awe when, in Jewish tradition, God has opened up the Book of Life to determine what kind of year we’re all about to have. What I love about this tradition is the annual time for reflection and repentance. What I have more trouble with is the idea that God is setting the course. I have lots of trouble with the concept of a god who makes things happen when lots of bad things happen all the time. That just isn’t the god of my understanding. But, the concept of taking stock is good and healthy and today is as good a day as any other.
A lot has happened in this last year, more than most. Today, a year seems a little more arbitrary than a year and 5 months. There’s a more natural period of time. March 8th, 2020. That’s the last time I stood here, the last time you sat there. One year and 5 months.
As was often said, we were all in the same storm, but in different boats. There have been many ways of experiencing these last 17 months, and all kinds of responses. This time was defined by different circumstances- that of being startlingly alone or painfully un-alone, that of working far more hours than ever before, now trapped in front of a laptop day and night or surprisingly unemployed, laid off, furloughed, worried about money and bored to tears; that of missing children and grandchildren, experiencing life without family or becoming enmeshed with the lives of your children or parents, sharing every single meal, becoming playmate and teacher and entire social circle for each other. Regardless of how we spent this time, there are experiences, human realities we are likely to have shared and a little reflection on that will be good for us. Raise your hand if you identify with these statements:
During this time, I
I was frightened and sometimes acted out of fear.
Sometimes, I was short tempered with people I love.
Sometimes, I was stingy or just not as generous as I could have been.
Sometimes, I put my own desires over the needs of someone more vulnerable.
There were times over these last 17 months that I didn’t treat my own body well.
There were times I didn’t speak out or step up when my voice and body were needed.
Me too. There are other things that are true too, though.
Sometimes I was generous, I was kind, I was thoughtful.
Sometimes I was affectionate, I was gentle, I was welcoming.
Sometimes, I made choices that were good for the planet.
Sometimes, I made choices that were good for my own body and spirit.
We have a chance to reflect now on the year gone by. During these Days of Awe, we are called to review how we have lived our lives in the year – or 17 months - past. All vows, all promises we have made to ourselves in this last year; all commitments are now nullified and made naught. We are free to reexamine all of our motivations and desires, and all the roads we have chosen to walk, without critique. We have a chance to repent and renew. This is an invitation to start again, to come back to ourselves.
Return Again
We remember those people we hurt this year, those relationships that were broken, that are still broken, that need mending. We remember the harsh words, the times we were unkind, the arguments we wanted to win more than we wanted to find truth or compassion.
Return Again
The new year gives us a chance to remember the lies we told ourselves, the things we wished were true, but are not. We remember the ways we maintain our own denial, our self-righteousness, the ways we keep ourselves stuck. We have a chance to become truth seekers and truth tellers to our own deepest selves.
Return Again
We remember the promises we made but broke and the resentments we carried when others broke their promises to us. We remember all the ways we’ve been unfaithful to our ideals and uncompromising in our judgement of other people’s values. We are invited to take stock and begin again, anew.
Return Again
The world is sustained by the people in it. The torch of compassion has been passed on to us; let us pass that torch to our children, to each other, and to all the beings of this world. Be this our understanding of our covenant: to be a beacon of justice and mercy. The Book of Life is open. Let us pay attention during these Days of Awe.
Return Again
I love the Jewish New Year, and I’m grateful to be able to commemorate it with you. My own spirit needs reflection time. I also need music, people singing together, people willing to shift themselves into self-reflection time as I am. I need spiritual community. I live more deeply, more intentionally when I’m part of a congregation. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been in ministry since I was 19. And, it’s what I’ve missed. I miss just this. Being in a room with you, hearing your voices, seeing your faces, even covered up.
This service is called Homecoming. I’m not sure at what point you all started this annual ritual, but many UU churches have a similar service. The idea is that people go away for the summer and the Sunday after Labor Day, they return, they come home. Further back in our history, it came from the city churches emptying out when people with summer homes fled for the beaches and mountains. Today, fewer people have second homes, but we still shift gears in July and August, making September the real beginning of a new year and bringing us all home again. This year that’s even more pronounced, having not been in this building since March 8th, 2020.
Home has become a refuge from disease, a safe place to breathe. Never before has this been so important. A place the air is safe. Home has also become, for many, a place of work, the place we actually carry out the tasks of our professional lives. For some, home has also become a school, with no alternative place for our children to learn, our kitchen tables double as classroom desks and we as teachers. Our homes have become very small and very large, holding so much of our lives. Some are afraid of losing our homes and some are wishing we could shed them. I’d even venture that some are hoping we can hole up again this winter while others are terrified that exact thing might happen, and we might find ourselves trapped, again, at home.
And while we call this Homecoming, these last 18 months have been notable because of the time we’ve all spent at home, making this more distinctly, maybe more joyfully, not home. This is, instead, our spiritual home. Not the place we sleep, although I’m sure that’s an active risk. It’s the place we feed our spirits, the place we face mystery, ask big questions, seek and make meaning, together. It’s the place our spirits can wander, where they can sing and play and rejoice. It’s also the place we can grieve, where we can get angry at the world, where we can rail at God, where we can lament and sob and howl. This is the place we practice being human, stretch to become our best selves, welcome others in their brokenness as we know we are welcomed in our own.
The myth, the theory, behind “home” is that home is unshakable. It’s foundational to life It’s at the very bottom of Maslow’s pyramid of needs. It’s required for life. Anyone who has lived without a home knows how true it is. We need to know there’s somewhere we can settle, something predictable, a place that shelters us. While we have that as a physical need, I’d argue we have it as a spiritual need too. We need a place we can put our lives in context, a place we celebrate milestones, a place we ask big questions and learn to live into the answers. This is particularly important when the foundations of the world around us are shaking. We have to know that something is steady, that something will be here even if everything else collapses. The prophets of Hebrew Scripture pointed to Yahweh. They howled about breaches in the covenant, about ways people were betraying the law and each other and their own faith. They talked about doom and gloom and the collapsing of society, but Yahweh was stable. Yahweh was the foundation upon which all foundations were built. Something in this deteriorating world was stable and reliable. We all need that. We need to know that we are rooted in unshifting ground. Those prophets were howling at the people for not paying attention to the right things. It’s not about abortion or queers, it’s about how well we love. Are we centering love over all else? Because that’s the foundation. That’s the unchanging, unshakable, the unmoveable Truth. Love is at the core and we know that when we come home.
This is a different kind of home. And it’s ours. All of ours, whether you are in this room or watching on a screen, whether your family has belonged here for generations or you aren’t a member or never even heard of Community Church before this morning. This is a house of prayer for all people. And, however you have joined us, you are rooted, and you are home.