REDEMPTION

A Sermon by Kenneth W. Phifer
Delivered at First UU Church Ann Arbor
9/14/03

Redemption is one of the central purposes of religion.

The Encyclopedia of Religion speaks of redemption as "delivering… 
(humanity) from the disabilities of existence."

These disabilities include sin, immorality, suffering, frailty, ignorance, and 
mortality.

Religions have responded with a multitude of doctrines to explain how we 
can be relieved of these disabilities. The Buddhists offer the Eight-Fold Path. 
The Hindus teach confession in the Laws of Manu. Christians speak of 
accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior

These and the many other doctrines of redemption point to an important 
human need, the need to deal with our inadequacies, our mistakes, our moral 
failings, our weakness, and the brevity of our lives no matter how long we 
live.

The signboard on the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Packard had these 
telling words on it: "Every saint has a past."  Think of what that means for 
those of us who are not saints, and most of us are not.

Not in the past but in the present we speak unkind words to those we love. 
We think of a hundred good deeds to do, but never get around to them. We 
envy those with more money, a bigger house, a fancier car, a better job, and 
those with youth and vigor. 

The list is too long of the ways in which pride and egotism and selfishness 
and laziness turn us aside from doing good and avoiding evil. 

Not just as individuals but as groups—national, ethnic, religious, familial-- 
are we guilty of grievous acts of wickedness. 
Samantha Power has written a book about the horrors humanity visited upon 
itself in the 20th century. In "A PROBLEM FROM HELL": AMERICA 
AND THE AGE OF GENOCIDE, she writes of what happened to the 
Armenians, the Jews, the Cambodians, in Iraq, in Bosnia, in Rwanda. 

We are living in the wake of 9/11, an act together with the responses to it 
that indicates that the 21st century may well be as horrifying as the 20th.

We need redemption, all right, as individuals and as groups. 

We need what one friend said when I asked her what redemption meant to 
her. In this verbal Rorschach-test, she said that it meant to her a "new 
beginning, a chance to make up for one's mistakes, forgiveness, and hope 
for the future." 

We all need these things, today and tomorrow.

How might we find them in this new century when so many of the older 
answers no longer speak to us?

There are elements in both the Jewish and the Christian traditions that offer 
us insight and direction.

Redemption in the classic Christian understanding holds that it is Jesus who 
has effected this for us. Humanity is too sinful to pay the price God exacts, 
so God through Jesus Christ does so on our behalf.

There is another understanding in Christianity that places the responsibility 
on us. This understanding is at least as old as the figure of Arius, one of the 
early ancestors of the Unitarian movement. Jesus is seen as a moral 
exemplar. He showed us how to live a worthy, virtuous life. He pointed the 
way in his Sermon on the Mount, in his parables, in the gentleness with 
which he approached the downtrodden of society, and in the manner in 
which he faced his death. Insofar as we allow that moral influence to inspire 
us, we can be redeemed.

That is a doctrine of the here and now, a doctrine of how I should treat my 
spouse and my children, how I should act toward my co-workers, how I 
comport myself as a citizen. It is a doctrine of redemption that is more 
ethically than theologically focused, and as such of far more practical value.

The Jewish tradition also offers help in developing a meaningful 
understanding of redemption. In the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy are found 
these words: "Surely, this instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not 
too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you 
should say, 'Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and 
impart it to us, that we may observe it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you 
should say,' Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it 
for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?' No, the thing is very 
close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.

See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity…I 
have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—if you 
and your offspring would live…" (Deuteronomy 30: 11-14, 15, 19)

Doing the right thing is neither too hard to understand nor too hard to do. 
The good is not in the heavens nor across the sea so that only the heroic can 
accomplish the good. The good is right here before us—in our mouth, in our 
heart—and we can do it.

Each of us as an individual and collectively all of us together must decide 
what kind of life, what kind of world we are going to have. Deuteronomy 
urges us to choose life, to choose prosperity, to choose blessing. That is the 
path to redemption.

If we are to choose life, to try to build a redeemed world and redeem 
ourselves in the process, we will need first of all an inspiring vision of what 
that life might look like.

It is important to have a vision, a dream, an idea of how human beings could 
live together in harmony. The vision motivates us to do the work of making 
that dream real.

Some of you will remember when our congregation first began to dream of 
moving out of our cramped quarters on Washtenaw. Our auditorium was too 
small, our classrooms were dangerously overcrowded, and we had only on-
street parking.

We dreamed of a building like this, where we would have room for all the 
people who wanted to be part of a liberal religious community. That dream 
inspired us to do the work, to make the sacrifices, to pay the price, to 
constantly redeem our mistakes, to forgive one another when we acted 
badly, and to provide us with hope for the future.

We are now alive with the vision of what our new religious education wing 
will offer to us. 

We need a vision of what we might become. Three of the most influential 
traditions in the western world—the Jewish, the Christian, and the 
Humanist--offer us noble possibilities.

The prophet Amos called on us "to let justice roll down like waters, and 
righteousness like a mighty stream."  (Amos 5:24)

The prophet Isaiah spoke of a time when the people would "beat their 
swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks," a time when 
"nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
any more." (Isaiah 2:4)

Ezekiel gave us the wonderful imagery of the dead bones rising up and 
coming together again, while Jonah taught us that even our enemies are 
worthy of our concern.

The prophets foresaw a time when even nature would be at peace as lions 
and lambs would lie down together.

Such a world is a world redeemed. To the realization of such a world we  
can gladly give our best efforts.

Jesus blessed the poor and those that hunger, those who weep and those who 
are excluded, saying that theirs would be the kingdom of heaven. He 
honored the peacemakers and the merciful. 

The world Jesus pointed to is a world redeemed by goodness and joy, by 
kindness and love, by justice and humility. This is the path to redemption, 
here, now, for each of us in our personal lives, for all of us in our communal 
life.

It is a wonderful vision to follow!

A vision from the 20th century is found in the Humanist Manifesto of 1933, 
prepared by a member of this congregation, Roy Wood Sellars, and signed 
by its minister and 32 other liberal religious thinkers, the most prominent of 
whom was John Dewey.

The Humanist Manifesto spoke of religion as a "means for realizing the 
highest values of life." It said that religion must encourage a "heightened 
sense of personal life and …a cooperative effort to promote social well-
being."  The Manifesto urged that we work for a "free and universal  society 
in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common 
good."  "Religion," said the Manifesto, "must work increasingly for joy in 
living."

Not theology but ethics, not grim and doctrinaire teachings but joyfulness 
and openness, not individual salvation that excludes others but shared 
struggle to bring about a common good—that is the noble purpose of 
religion that can help us to redeem ourselves and the world.

Redemption needs a vision of what might be, of how we could live together, 
of what justice and peace and happiness might look like. We need that vision 
to carry us through the dark times, to repel the seductive lure of easier paths, 
to inspire us to "keep our eyes on the Prize, and keep on moving towards it."

A second thing we need if we are to work for redemption is the ability to 
accept imperfection. 

One of the difficulties with traditional religious presentations of redemption 
is that they appear—however they were intended—to be focused on 
perfection. 

In the eastern religions that involve reincarnation, the goal is to be pure, free 
of the karmic burdens that hold us back from nirvana. In the classic 
Christian view, it is Jesus who has done all the work, so that when we accept 
him as our savior, "we are washed white in the blood of the Lamb."

However noble the vision that may inspire us towards redemption, it is 
unlikely that we shall ever attain the purity of that vision. Indeed, if 
redemption does indeed depend on perfection, few if any will ever be 
redeemed.

Human beings cannot live in absolutes. When we expect it of ourselves or of 
others, only harm results.

I saw a movie that reflects a devastating example of such harm. It is called 
THE MAGDALENE SISTERS. It is about institutions in Ireland run by the 
Catholic Church and supported by the public until 1996. Girls who were 
suspected of some kind of sexual impurity were sent to these places, there to 
be cleansed so they could be redeemed. Some girls literally spent their lives 
there, doing laundry and other menial tasks, trying to pay for what they were 
told are terrible sins.

The movie centers on four teenage girls. Two have been sent there because 
of giving birth out of wedlock. One is sent there because boys ogled her, 
leading the nuns at her orphanage to suspect she led them on. The fourth was 
raped. When she reported the rape to her family, they ushered her out the 
door to this place; she must, they assumed, have seduced him, even if only 
by being female.

The purpose of the institution is to teach the girls the wickedness of their 
sexuality and how dangerous it is to do anything with that sexuality other 
than to conceive and bear children within a marriage. Some of the nuns who 
run the place are unspeakably cruel, constantly humiliating and verbally 
abusing and sometimes beating the girls. 

The religion of these people has no room for the imperfect, for the wild 
yearnings that come unbidden to our bodies, for even the innocence that 
might be mistaken for seduction, not even for the sexual assault of a boy 
which the girl did all in her power to resist. 

The methods of the institution do not redeem. They condemn. They 
stigmatize the girls inside and out with a sense of guilt over natural human  
feelings.

What redemption there is for these girls—and not all of them find such 
redemption-- is a redemption they carve out for themselves, learning to 
forgive themselves for being human, learning to go on despite the years of 
torture through which they have lived, at the very least determined not to 
inflict on others the sufferings through which they have gone.

Few of us are forced to endure what the girls sent to these institutions had to 
endure. But all of us get knocked down by life from time to time, sometimes 
tripping over our own feet. We all have to learn how to pick ourselves up 
and start all over again. We all need to learn not to beat ourselves up so 
much that we are paralyzed by guilt. 

Carl Gustav Jung believed that the forms of religion expressed "the living 
process of the unconscious in the form of the drama of repentance, sacrifice, 
and redemption." Something deep inside our nature calls on us to find a way 
to keep going. 

If we feel guilty, then repent, make amends, and go on. If we are just 
embarrassed by our mistake, then blush briefly and go on.

The poor, dear woman who tried fruitlessly to teach me to play piano when I 
was a small child had little success with a boy far more interested in the 
outdoors than the magnificent instrument before which I sat. But one lesson 
stuck: when you are playing in a recital, do not stop if you make a mistake. 
Keep playing. Some will not even know you played a wrong note. Those 
who do are more interested in what you do after that wrong note. 

Keep playing. 

Learn from the mistakes. Correct them immediately where that is possible, 
and later if that is the best we can do. Apologize if that is called for.

At all costs keep on playing.

Treasure as nothing else those rare days, rare recitals, rare speeches or 
essays or moments in a relationship when it all comes together and works 
beautifully. 

Mostly, though, in work or in play, in family life or in public venues, things 
do not work so well. We make mistakes. If doing so causes us to stop 
playing or to play badly because we are brooding about what we did, we 
then cannot redeem ourselves for our errors.

There would be no games, no musical performances, no parental nurturing, 
no work or play of any kind if perfection were the standard. 

Redemption is about making things better, not making things perfect. 

Thirdly, if we would redeem ourselves and redeem the world, we must 
practice the art of benediction.

Susan Manker-Seale writes of benediction that it is 
"A speaking well of  
Each other and the world
A speaking well of what we value
Honesty
Love
Forgiveness
Trust
A speaking well of our efforts
A speaking well of our dreams
This is how we celebrate life
Through speaking well of it
Living the benediction
And becoming as a word
Well-spoken."

The full power of benediction is that it involves more than just speaking 
good. It means first of all that we think good. If we do not have good 
thoughts, then we cannot have good words. 

Thinking is very hard. Thinking about the good is even harder. Our minds 
are affected by petty jealousies, pride, defensiveness, insecurity, and even 
bad digestion. Tiredness can keep us from clear thought. So can sadness, 
worry, disappointment, and bad weather.

When we can overcome the obstacles and think of what it means to be kind, 
to be cheerful, to be helpful, to be patient, that can help us to speak the 
words that will bless not curse the world. 

Words can, of course, be deceptive. We live in an age of mass 
communication with experts who use good words to deceive or to 
manipulate. Politicians, advertisers, entertainers, deceitful lovers all befoul 
the world with good words in the service of unworthy purposes.

But good words used truthfully can redeem our individual lives and 
sometimes the world itself.

I love you.
You are my friend.
Thank you.
Let me help you.
I'll do it.
I'm sorry.
That's wonderful.
You can do it.
Wow!

Good words do us good: good words that boost the spirits, touch a chord of 
intimacy with another, help us to feel appreciated, give us the courage to go 
on, express our awe in the face of something grand. Good words help us to 
live better lives, redeemed lives. 

Sometimes the good words are harsh because we are having to face up to 
difficult truths. But if there are difficult truths to face up to, evading them 
can serve no good purpose.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa did not right 
every wrong, turn every injustice into justice, or recompense every victim. 
What it did do was help every South African—black, colored, and white—to 
see the truth of what had gone on under apartheid. Seeing that truth, 
acknowledging the evil of that system, has helped that society to heal. It has 
held at bay the massive bloodbath that almost everyone expected at the 
transfer of power from minority white to majority black. Violence there is, 
but on nowhere near the scale that was expected.

The good words in this case were harsh words about terrible deeds, but the 
purpose of them was to cleanse and heal, and they have done so.

The art of benediction is an important part of redemption: thinking good, 
speaking good, doing good.

Redemption is a process for which we are responsible. It is helpful to have a 
vision of what that redemption would look like. It is helpful to be accepting 
of our own and all of life's imperfections.It is helpful to practice 
benediction.

Thirty five years ago, at the age of 11, Mary Bell committed two ghastly 
crimes. Today she is the mother of a teenaged daughter.

Mary Bell has redeemed herself from a childhood filled with abuse by her 
sociopathic mother and from a wretched prison experience when she became 
an adult that in many ways repeated the horrors of her childhood. 

She has redeemed herself in part because she has clung for many years to a 
vision of what might be, a vision revealed in the words she uttered on first 
seeing her child: "Hello, I've been waiting a long time to see you." With that 
vision she "created inside herself…(the discipline) to give her daughter a 
normal life."

She has redeemed herself in part because she accepts her failings, rejecting 
the easy excuse that her childhood woes are to blame for what she did. She 
says to this day, "Nothing can justify what I did," even as she spends her 
days strengthening the family that she and her partner Jim have created with 
their daughter.

She has redeemed herself in part by becoming a living benediction, seeking 
to work, to study, to live in peace with her family, "to be normal," to think 
good and to speak good and to live good.

If Mary Bell can redeem herself, any one can.

We cannot make ourselves or the world pure, but we can make it better. That 
is the meaning and the task of redemption\. It is important work for every 
one of us.

Copyright 2003, Kenneth W. Phifer, All Rights Reserved



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