"Choose Life"

This is the Sunday I was planning to give

        an introspective Yom Kippur sermon

                about looking at our lives

                        and forgiving ourselves.

But like many plans we have made these past two weeks,

        this one doesn't work anymore.

While this time has prompted much pensive reflection,

        I know I'm not ready to step back

                from the collective experience we have undergone

                        to ponder my faults and peccadilloes,

                                or ask you to consider yours.

 

There's enough going on in the world 

        to make everyone feel inadequate already.

We've all wondered,

        am I a good enough parent, teacher, citizen, minister,

                to do my part to help us cope.

Attention spans are negligible, however,

        so we don't wonder about anything for long.

 

Tempers are short as well.

And the streets are mean.

Drivers run red lights,

        preoccupied with some breaking news on the car radio.

In this volatile emotional context,

        we debate what our country should do.

While I was driving my car the other day,

        absorbed in radio news,

                I heard writer Andrei Codrescu read his essay

                        about what was happening to us

                                in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

Each of us is stuck, 

        he observed, 

                unable to move forward,

                        not getting much work done,

                                because we are not yet ready to emerge 

                                        from our collective experience

                                                and resume individual life.

Like any grieving person,

        moving on with our lives feels like a betrayal 

                of the ones who are gone,

                        an abandonment of our concern for their suffering

                                and the loss their loved ones must accept.

We are not ready to move on.

 

When I decided not to preach the Yom Kippur sermon I had planned, however,

        I stepped back from that one observance

                to look at the whole sweep of events

                        that the High Holy Days encompass.

Beginning with Rosh Hashanah, 

        the New Year,

                which began earlier this week,

                        Jews undertake a period of reflection and atonement,

                                called the "Days of Awe."

Progressive Jewish scholar Arthur Waskow

        describes contemporary Jews as taking this time for 

                "remaking their lives,

refreshing their charity,

        and reconnecting with their spiritual roots."

These activities bring about an experience of renewal,

        and a healing of relationships not only between people,

                but between people and their God.

At the conclusion of the High Holy Days,

        Jews prepare to resume their lives

                renewed by their collective ritual.

 

One of the stories from the Hebrew Bible

        that is associated with the High Holy Days

                is the Book of Jonah.

In the version I told the children,

        Jonah is going about his comfortable life

                when God tells him to travel to Nineveh

                        to demand that the people there 

                                change their wicked ways.

But Jonah doesn't want to go.

So he runs in the opposite direction.

And he finds himself on a ship,

        in a storm at sea,

                among strangers.

 

When the sailors learn that he is running from his God,

        they conclude that the storm is Jonah's fault.

They ask him what they should do,.

He tells them to throw him overboard.

The sea calms, but Jonah's story does not end there.

 

A great fish swallows him up

        and Jonah is trapped in the fish's belly for three days.

After much prayer and pleading ,

        God makes the fish toss Jonah back up.

And this time, 

        a chastened Jonah goes to Nineveh.

There he tells the people to change their wicked ways,

        and they do.

God forgives everyone,

        Jonah and the people of Nineveh,

                each having finally done 

                        what God asked them to do.

 

Despite its primitive assertions

        that positive transformations occur 

                when people are threatened and scolded –

                        something I've never witnessed once in my life –

                                or that God can be appeased 

                                        by throwing someone overboard –

                                                the story contains a relevant message.

The path to change and forgiveness is turbulent and dangerous.

But change and forgiveness are possible –

        for individuals, 

                struggling with the ways in which 

                        they feel trapped and finished,

                                and for groups of people, 

                                        whatever their wicked ways.

 

There is this positive thread 

        throughout the travails of Jonah's story:

                God never loses sight of him

                        and never abandons him to a lonely fate.

We learn that God is the giver of second chances.

Whatever difficulties may come our way,

        life offers us renewal

                and gives us the strength to move on,

                        when we are ready.

 

God told Moses and his followers,

        "I call heaven and earth to witness today

                that I have set before you life and death,

                        blessings and curses.

        Choose life,

                so that you and your descendants may live."

Only by choosing life

        do we move on.

 

In this week's Los Angeles Times, 

        a reporter interviewed local rabbis

                about their message for Rosh Hashanah this year.

I don't envy the rabbis their task.

In the midst of difficult circumstances,

        heightened security,

                and discord between Muslims and Jews,

                        they had to balance many loyalties and perspectives

                                all at once.

One rabbi found a way to do it

        that inspired me.

Eli Herscher, 

        senior rabbi at Stephen S. Wise Temple,

                "related the actions of fire fighters, 

                        police and rescue workers

                                at the World Trade Center 

                                        to those in the Bible book of Deuteronomy.

There, he said, God tells Moses and his followers

        to choose life.

'Countless stories in the news reminded us,'

Rabbi Herscher said,

        'at every moment in life we have choices to make...

We have choices...

That is the message of the holidays,

People make choices in favor of life.'"

 

As the horror of the terrorist catastrophes recedes 

        from our imagination,

                we may not always think of the choices 

                        some brave people made that terrible day.

Instead, there will be new choices before us

        and we will have to consider what to do.

How will we choose life?

How will the way we live now

        bring about that renewal

                our weary, anxious, short-tempered souls so desperately need – 

                        let alone peace on earth?

What can we do so that we and our descendants may live?

 

Here are some answers I have found so far.

They come from having spent my last two weeks

        talking with many of you,

                hearing your anger and your fear,

                        and listening to you struggle 

                                to analyze and make sense 

                                        of  where we are 

                                                and what we should do,

                                                        just as I have.

One answer is to do everything we can,

        in our own faith community and in the larger world,

                to offer a big-hearted, tolerant

                        loving attitude towards each other.

The world situation is an explosive mix of politics and religion –

        life and death,

                blessings and curses –

                        and we need to strive for understanding everywhere we go.

To choose life at a time like this

        is to insist on civility, dialogue and mutual respect,

                not just in the larger arena of politics,

                        but in our circles of family and friends.

 

We need to go gently with each other here,

        especially as the latent political differences among us

                emerge and make themselves known.

We need to take that gentleness with us

        when we leave here, too,

                and not add to the hostility and hate

                        that seems to be everywhere.

"Let the little quarrels of the bones

        and the snarling of the lesser appetites

                and the whining of the ego cease,"

                        wrote Marge Piercy.

Let the little quarrels go.

 

Another answer is to learn from the tragedies of the past.

Our country, along with families, 

        faith communities and civic institutions,

                have been divided before over war, more than once.

We have failed to acknowledge the pain on all sides.

During the Vietnam War, 

        men and women who served in the military

                came home to a divided public,

                        unable to step out of its own disputes

                                to extend a hand in gratitude and compassion.

We must not let that happen again.

However we may feel 

        about the advisability of sending our troops forth,

                we cannot come close to the fear, stress and burden 

                        our troops carry

                                and ask their families to carry on our behalf.

Choose life – for everyone,

        so that all may live to see their children grow.

 

Tomorrow I plan to attend a meeting of clergy from all over Los Angeles,

        to work together on a religious response 

                to the crisis.

What will come out of that meeting I cannot say,

        but I bring to it the sense of urgency

                so many of you have expressed to me,

                        that people of faith must speak to these complex events

                                unfolding before us now,

                                        before it is too late.

I also bring to it the hope that whatever I do,

        I choose life as I do it.

My pacifist leanings are trying to take in

        the reality of terrorism,

                people on all sides who won’t negotiate,

                        distorted ideologies and intractable hate.

I have my work to do.

 

And there is work we all need to do.

Wherever we live,

        we may come to see 

                that we got this way together.

As Jews learn from the Days of Awe,

        renewal and forgiveness come from looking at our own lives 

                and way of life.

This year it is something we all can do.

There isn't anyone left on earth

        who doesn't need to ask what we should change

                so that we and our descendants may live.

 

"Every day," wrote Marge Piercy,

        "we find a new sky and a new earth

                with which we are trusted like a perfect toy."

Every day is new life,

        with the capacity for forgiveness and renewal.

Every day presents choices –

        for life and for death.

If we choose life,

        if we begin with that simple but transforming step,

                we will move on together,

                        new sky above and new earth below;

                                and we will know

                                        that we are safe again.

Resources used to prepare this sermon include Seasons of Our Joy: A Celebrationof Modern Jewish Renewal, by Arthur Waskow (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982) and TheLos Angeles Times, September 17, 2001.