"Spiritually Alive in Perilous Times"

Here's a scene from my life, perhaps also from yours: We're spending an evening with friends, catching up on each other's news, including the infamous health updates that seem to accompany the aging process, then relaxing over dinner. Life is good; we are enjoying ourselves. But at some point, usually towards the end of the meal, the conversation turns somber. We turn to the subject of the war, the war that has taken three years and so many with it; we pass back and forth what we've heard or read, we vent our feelings of helplessness, and then, we are silent. What can we say that hasn't been said before?

This weekend, with its marches and demonstrations, has given us something to do. Here at church we welcome the participants in the California Peace March, represented by our pulpit guest Pablo Paredes, and by the hospitality we extend to the marchers tonight. It is good to act on our commitment to be a Peace Site. Such opportunities are rare, however. Many of us are trudging through this war without a clear sense of what we can do, individually or collectively.

This helplessness reflects a spiritual crisis. Hope dwindles; numbing sets in. We withhold our consent but we fear we have little to give.

It may be different for you, but these perilous times have been dismantling my faith, causing me to reexamine what I dare to believe and dream about humanity. We are not who I thought we were. I can't stop being shocked by this war - this gratuitous, inept occupation of another society, which has had such tragic results. This war changed me. I watched as our leaders, Democrat and Republican, voted to support a war so many American people begged them to oppose. And I concluded that our leaders acted out of a misguided sense of political efficacy, while the rest of us were thinking about war and peace, life and death, and the future of all the young people that hangs in the balance.

I still hope for peace. It's all I can do, but I realize now that not everyone does. I have accepted that peace is not a natural state for human beings. Rather it is an extremely fragile set of agreements requiring people to discipline themselves, to set aside their immediate self-interests, and to work with those they distrust, misunderstand, and possibly even despise.

Our story for today was a fable about friendship, but also about humanity. The dark and busy forest where the two foxes remained steadfast friends is full of creatures who are more like us: prone to disagreement and self-righteousness, willing to inflict hurt. Only self-awareness and a powerful desire to live at peace will ever make us different.

Building up hope where there are such daunting challenges is the spiritual work of our time, possibly of every time. Every generation has had its moment of truth about humanity, about genocide and war, about slavery and racism, and cruelty in all its variations. Our task is to turn that moment of truth into power: the power to bring about those fragile agreements that miraculously add up to peace.

Rabbi Michael Lerner tackles this task in a new book, "The Left Hand of God." In it he accomplishes the no-smaller-miracle of restoring confidence that we can build a world in which peace and justice really are the core values. To appreciate how he does it, you have to read the book - and I suggest that you do, perhaps we could form groups to discuss it - and today I can only give you a little of what I have learned. But it gives me hope; perhaps it will give you hope too.

Michael Lerner is a spiritual man, a religious leader, so it comes as no surprise that he sees the challenge as a fundamentally spiritual one. He points out that the resurgence of fundamentalism and the rise of the religious right came about because people have a genuine yearning for something other than the selfish and materialistic society we have created for ourselves. Rather than scorn what the religious right is all about, we would do well to look inside ourselves for our yearnings and express them with spiritual values of our own. Secular liberals may invoke the separation of church and state as the counterbalance to the religious right, but Lerner asserts that an infusion of liberal spirituality into politics is what we actually need. If we could speak from our souls, we'd win more hearts and minds.

Lerner is a nonpartisan advocate for the role of spirituality in politics and in the marketplace, an antidote to what ails us: our materialism, our cynicism, and our selfishness. "Most people yearn for a world," Lerner writes, "in which peace, social justice, ecological sanity, caring relationships, solidarity among humans that transcends race, class, gender, and national boundaries, and a spirit of openheartedness and generosity prevail." The spiritual task is to build on that yearning. Lerner suggests that if we follow his advice, we will find unexpected, new common ground with others, along with the power to confront those who manipulate and exploit people of faith for their own purposes.

Another event this year that chipped away at my hope for humanity was the devastation of the Gulf coast by Hurricane Katrina. Who could not feel angry and ashamed about our government's response to the suffering of the victims? So many of the stories coming out of New Orleans were grim, as lives were thrown into chaos and desperation. But one story, which I read in the "Los Angeles Times," gave me hope in just the way Michael Lerner describes: through the spiritual bonds - based on love and care - that unlikely people can make with each other.

The "Times" told the story of how "two radically different sets of volunteers," Texas evangelical Christians and Rainbow Family flower children, converged on the town of Waveland, Mississippi after the hurricane, looking for a way to help. The Christians got there first. They set up a cafe in a tent and began cooking. "Famished storm victims emerged out of nowhere," the report continued. "All were so hungry that the Texans began running out of food. They began to pray."

Miracles started happening. A truck full of hot dogs pulled up. Next, just when the Christians were about to give out with fatigue, the Rainbow Family appeared. They brought organic food and seaweed.

A community developed. The two groups not only cooked together, they played music together, held fashion shows with donated clothing, set up a clinic and a pharmacy. When Thanksgiving Day arrived, they all sat down to dinner together.

"What have I gained from this?" one participant asked. "Everything. I've gained the experience of working with other humans in a wall-less, prejudice-less environment where the sole purpose is to help other humanity. That's something not many people get to do."

When people are motivated by their deepest yearnings - the desire to help others, to work together in peace, even to have fun - they build - even if only for a short time - the community they need. Though their beliefs and their politics may differ, their deepest yearnings do not. Michael Lerner says, look to those deepest yearnings. Speak of them, act on them, and ask your leaders to do nothing less than the same.

Spiritual politics is a politics of caring. It's bringing our social priorities in line with our spiritual values. "Human beings have a need for lives of loving connection," Lerner writes, "and for a sense of some higher purpose than money and power." It is time to challenge ourselves to build a world in which these values can finally prevail.

And so, here is where I begin. Eyes wide open, aware of the cynicism that surrounds us, rekindling my hope. Refusing to let the helplessness and fear that are the side effects of living in today's world shut me down or keep me from acting. Speaking of my yearnings for that fragile and elusive peace, which may well be found in this land when spiritual seekers as different as those who traveled to Waveland, Mississippi, and discovered how much they really shared, surprisingly and improbably built a loving community together. I see what it takes. And I will do my part, somehow.

Resources used to prepare this sermon include Michael Lerner, "The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the Religious Right" (New York: Harper Collins, 2006); Elizabeth Mehren, "A Gospel and Granola Bond," in the "Los Angeles Times," Wednesday, November 23, 2005.