Divine Contact

"There is surely a piece of divinity in us..."
-- Sir Thomas Browne

Meditation: by Mary Oliver a poem entitled “Halleluiah” 

Everyone should be born into this world happy

and loving everything.

But in truth it rarely works that way.

For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.

Halleluiah, anyway I’m not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes

almost forgetting how wondrous the world is

and how miraculously kind some people can be?

And have you too decided that probably nothing important 

is ever easy?

Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more,

and some days I feel I have wings.

Reading: by Eugene Peterson from Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best (p.43-45)

There is a rocky cliff on the shoreline of the Montana lake where I live part of each summer. There are breaks in the rockface in which tree swallows make their nest. For several weeks one summer, I watched the swallows in swift flight collect insects barely above the surface of the water then dive into the cavities in the cliff, feeding first their mates and then their newly hatched chicks. Near one of the cracks in the cliff face, a dead branch stretched about four feet over the water. One day I was delighted to see three new swallows sitting side by side on this branch. The parents made wide, sweeping, insect-gathering circuits over the water and then returned to the enormous cavities that those little birds became as they opened their beaks for a feeding.

This went on for a couple of hours until the parents decided they had had enough of it. One adult swallow got alongside the chicks and started shoving them out toward the end of the branch – pushing, pushing, pushing. The end one fell off. Somewhere between the branch and the water four feet below, the wings started working, and the fledgling was off on his own. Then the second one. [But the] third was not to be bullied. At the last possible moment his grip on the branch loosened just enough so that he swung downward, then tightened again, bulldog tenacious. The parent was without sentiment. He pecked at the desperately clinging talons until it was more painful for the poor chick to hang on than risk the insecurities of flying. The grip was released and the inexperienced wings began pumping. The mature swallow knew what the chick did not – that it would fly – that there was no danger in making it do what it was perfectly designed to do.

Birds have feet and can walk. Birds have talons and can grasp a branch securely. They can walk; they can cling. But flying is their characteristic action, and not until they fly are they living at their best, gracefully and beautifully.

Giving is what we do best. It is the air into which we are born. It is the action that was designed into us before our birth. Giving is the way the world is. … We are given away to our families, to our neighbors, to our friends… Our life is for others. This is the way creation works. Some of us try desperately to hold on to ourselves, to live for ourselves. We look so bedraggled and pathetic doing it, hanging on to the dead branch of a bank account for dear life, afraid to risk ourselves on the untried wings of giving. We don’t think we can live generously because we have never tried. But the sooner we start the better, for we are going to have to give up our lives finally, and the longer we wait the less time we have for the soaring and swooping life of grace. 

Reading: by Ellen Waterson a poem entitled “Designed to Fly” 

After ten hours of trying

the instructor undid

my fingers, peeled

them one by one

off the joystick.

"You don't need

to hold the plane

in the air," he advised.

"It's designed to fly.

A hint of aileron,

a touch of rudder,

is all that is required."

I looked at him

like I'd seen God.

Those props and struts

he mentioned, they too,

I realized, all contrived.

I grew dizzy

from the elevation

from looking so far

down at the surmise:

the airspeed of faith

underlies everything.

Lives are designed

to fly.

Divine Contact

A Sermon Delivered on February 17, 2013

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

Air travel is not what it used to be. In this day and age - with airlines struggling to contain costs, overbooking flights, understaffing their ground crews - flying out of O’Hare seems like an exercise in coping with inevitable chaos.

More often than not, it seems, flights are delayed or canceled, luggage is lost, connections are missed, and endless hours are spent twiddling thumbs, waiting at the gate. Or after the brief elation of being allowed to board your plane, you are settled in your assigned seat, but stuck somewhere on the runway. You are left sitting there, strapped in, with little else to do but wonder whether you will ever reach your desired destination.

Those of us who regularly travel by air know that the whole enterprise can be a big headache. It certainly often feels that way to me…

But, I have to tell you, despite the headache and the hassle, I really like to fly. Even when flying is crazed and cumbersome there is still something exciting and amazing and somehow unbelievably miraculous about it.

Even if I am stuck for hours in an airport terminal, I never get tired of looking out the window, watching airplanes take off and land. There is always a part of me that can’t believe that such huge machines could ever get off the ground. A 747 weighs over 400 tons!

And whenever I fly, I try to get a window seat, because there is nothing quite like looking out the window during takeoff, and watching the earth speed by, and then watching as houses, trees and cars grow smaller and smaller, as we rise high up into the sky. Today flying is as common as getting on a city bus, and yet it is a miracle I wouldn’t believe unless I had seen it with my own eyes.

* * *

I wonder what it must have been like on that cold December day in 1903, when the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright became the first people to successfully demonstrate “powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight.” 

Neither of them had completed high school. They had worked as printers and publishers and bicycle builders before they turned their attention to the airplane. Then after years of trials and errors, on that December day, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, they made their historic flight, from level ground, into freezing headwind. On that first flight, Orville was airborne for twelve seconds, ten feet off the ground. He traveled 40 yards, at about 7 miles per hour. 

That isn’t very far and isn’t very fast. An Olympic runner could cover the distance on foot three times faster. But that didn’t matter. They had figured out how to fly.

* * *

We humans have been dreaming of flight for a long time. Over two thousand years ago, ancient Greeks imagined the story of Icarus, who flew with the help of wings his father built out of feathers and wax. For centuries inventors and engineers experimented with kites and gliders and hot air balloons. But we didn’t figure out the secret of powered and sustained flight until the 1900s.

The success story of the Wright brothers is a kind of modern fairy tale. Gary Bradshaw writes, “It is the story of how two honest, straightforward, hard-working Americans accomplished something fantastic and magical -- creating a craft of stick and fabric that mounted the air like the chariots of the gods, opening the skies to all humankind.” But, in fact, it wasn’t that big of a miracle.

As Bradshaw explains it, the Wright brothers didn’t actually invent the airplane. Others before them had already discovered the rules of aerodynamics, designed wings and gliders, and built gas-powered engines and propellers. The problem was the early aircrafts built by others had a persistent habit of crashing.

What Orville and Wilbur realized was that the biggest challenge of flying is not getting into the air. The challenge is to figure out how to control your plane once you are airborne. The Wright brothers’ true claim to fame was not the invention of the airplane, but the invention of “three-axis-control.” This is what allowed the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively – guiding the roll and pitch and yaw. 

* * *

Flying seems like a miracle, impossible, unbelievable, and yet it is perfectly natural. Birds and bats and bumblebees show us how it is done. And our airplanes – made to mimic the movement of eagles’ wings – are designed to fly.

There is no need to clench the joystick with an iron grip. We don’t need to hold the plane in the air with brute force and gritted teeth. 

What we need to do is ease up, watch our balance in all three dimensions, and allow ourselves to be carried by the airspeed of faith that underlies everything.

* * *

A few years ago a man from Kansas City named Larry Stewart made headlines in the news. Larry Stewart, we learned, had had a secret identity. For 26 years he had spent his free time roaming the streets in the month of December, discretely giving money to people who needed it. He started with $5 and $10 dollar bills, but then got into the habit of handing out $100s. Over the years, he gave away over a million dollars.

Stewart had made millions in the cable TV business. His habit of secret giving was a small way he decided to share his good fortune. Why did he reveal his identity? Some say it was because he had recently been diagnosed with cancer. Stewart himself said it was because a tabloid paper was about to “out” him, and he wanted to tell his story before they did.

He said it all began around Christmas time of 1979. He had just lost his job. In fact, he had been fired right before Christmas two years in a row. Feeling sorry for himself, he went to get some dinner at a drive-in diner. It was a very cold evening, and as he was sitting in his car waiting for his meal, he noticed the carhop working outside. 

He said, “It was cold and this carhop didn't have on a very big jacket, and I thought to myself, ‘I think I got it bad. She's out there in this cold making nickels and dimes.’ [So I gave her $20 and told her to keep the change...] And suddenly I saw her lips begin to tremble and tears begin to flow down her cheeks. She said, ‘Sir, you have no idea what this means to me.’” When Stewart had finished his dinner, he went straight to his bank, withdrew $200, and then drove around looking for people on the street, who could use a lift. And that’s how it all began.

Over the years, known only as “Secret Santa,” Stewart inspired thousands of others to pitch in and practice small acts kindness and generosity. He died of cancer a few months after his identity was revealed.

* * *

Larry Stewart’s generosity was extraordinary. But the impulse to give is something to which millions of Americans can relate.

The truth is, as humans we are neither isolated from, nor indifferent to the fate of our fellows. When we see someone in need, we instinctively want to help. When we see people hurting, we want to ease their pain. When we witness a wrong, we want to help make it right. 

Every day the newspapers seem to tell us we live in a cold, cruel world. And so it seems our human impulse toward kindness and compassion is a miracle, impossible, unbelievable. And yet it is perfectly natural.

Scientists have studied this. Research shows that when we watch staged videos of strangers being subjected to pain - for instance, receiving electric shocks - we automatically have strong visceral emotional reactions. Our hands start to sweat, and our blood pressure surges. (Like Goat in our story this morning, when we see someone who looks sad, we instinctively want to help.) (Children’s Story: That’s What Friends Are For by Valeri Gorbachev)

Our profound concern for others is hard-wired in our brain. It’s an evolutionary aspect of being a social animal. That’s why, on a very tangible and neurologically measurably level, acts of altruism feel good. Our brain is designed so that acts of charity are pleasurable. Being nice to others makes us feel nice.

In a study published by the National Academy of Sciences, people were hooked up to an MRI machine, and then each given $128 of real money. They were told they could either keep the money or donate it to charity. 

“When they chose to give away the money, the “reward centers” in their brains became active and they experienced the delightful glow of unselfishness. In fact, several subjects showed more reward-related brain activity during acts of altruism than they did when they actually received cash rewards. From the perspective of the brain, it literally was better to give than to receive.” (Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide, p. 183)

* * *

Birds have feet and can walk. They have talons and can grasp a branch. But what birds do best is fly. Likewise, we can live all our lives earning money, and saving it up, but what we do best, is giving it away.

“Giving is what we do best. It is the air into which we are born. It is the action that was designed into us before our birth. Giving is the way the world is,” Eugene Peterson writes. Nevertheless, giving is scary. There is a young and fearful voice within each of us, that wants to hang on to the dead branch we are grasping, afraid to risk our untried wings of giving.

Eugene Peterson writes, 

“Some things we have a choice in, some we don’t. In this we don’t. It is the kind of world into which we were born… Giving is the style of the universe. Giving is woven into the fabric of existence. If we try to live by getting instead of giving, we are going against the grain. It is like to trying to go against the law of gravity – the consequences is bruises and broken bones. In fact, we do see a lot of distorted, misshapen, crippled lives among those who defy the reality that all life is given and must continue to be given to be true to its nature.”

* * *

We are in the midst of this year’s stewardship season. It is a time when our church stewardship team encourages us to think about giving. (On the red insert in today’s order of service, you can read more about their plans.)

The theme they selected is “Contact!” because the most important part of what we do at church has everything to do with the contact between us, the connections we make, the give and take of friendship.

“Contact!” is also what a pilot sitting in the cockpit of an old-fashioned airplane shouts to the co-pilot when they are ready to take off. The co-pilot stands in front of the aircraft, with hands on the propeller, ready to give it a hearty yank. When the time is right, they look into one another’s eyes. Both are ready, and the pilot shouts, “Contact!”

* * *

The word “Contact!” should remind us that, even though flying seems like a miracle, impossible, unbelievable - it is perfectly natural.  “Contact!” should remind us that our lives are designed to fly – but we can’t do it alone. Alone neither Wilbur nor Orville would have gotten off the ground. They did it together.

“Contact!” should remind us that as human beings, we are hard-wired to care for others. Our generosity is what makes us fully human. It is the secret of health and happiness. “Contact!” should remind us that giving is woven into the very fabric our existence. We are designed to give.

In the days and weeks ahead, 

may we dare to give generously.

May we perform the natural miracle of kindness

So we might know true happiness, 

and the unmistakable feeling that we have wings. 

Amen. 

Defending Love

"The course of true love never did run smooth."
-- Shakespeare

Meditation: by feminist theologian Carter Heyward (Our Passion for Justice, p. 84) 

…Love… [is] our human experience of God in the world.

[But] because the word love has become a catchall for sweet and happy feelings; 

because we have learned to believe that love stories 

are warm and fuzzy tales about dewy eyes and titillating embraces; 

because we have been taught that love and marriage go together 

like a horse and a carriage 

and that love means never having to say you’re sorry; 

because, in short, love has been romanticized so poorly, 

trivialized so thoroughly, 

and perverted – turned completely around – from what it is, 

we find ourselves having to begin again 

to re-experience, re-consider, re-conceptualize what it means 

to say “I love you.” 

What does it mean to believe that God is in the world, 

among us, moving with us, even by us, here and now?

Reading: by Richard Blanco, who delivered a poem at last month’s presidential inauguration, the youngest and first openly gay person to be inaugural poet, from an article entitled “Making a Man Out of Me”

I'm six or seven years old, riding back home with my grandfather and my Cuban grandmother from my tía Onelia's house.

Her son Juan Alberto is effeminate, "un afeminado," my grandmother says with disgust. "¿Por qué? He's so handsome. Where did she go wrong with dat niño?" she continues, and then turns to me in the back seat: "Better to having a granddaughter who's a whore than a grandson who is un pato [a duck] faggot like you. Understand?" she says with scorn in her voice.

I nod my head yes, but I don't understand: I don't know what a faggot means, really; don't even know about sex yet. All I know is she's talking about me, me; and whatever I am, is bad, very bad. Twenty-something years later, I sit in my therapist's office, telling him that same story. With his guidance through the months that follow, I discover the extent of my grandmother's verbal and psychological abuse, which I had swept under my subconscious rug.

Through the years and to this day I continue unraveling how that abuse affected my personality, my relationships, and my writing…

… At forty-one I realize I've been sad all my life and have always written from that psychological point of view. I am inspired by the melancholy I see mirrored in others, in the world, and the ways we survive it. I strive to capture sadness and transform it through language into something meaningful, beautiful. Although throughout most of my writing career I had never consciously written for or about the gay community, thematically I feel I've unconsciously been a very gay writer all along in this sense: trying to make lemonade out of lemons, castles out of mud, beauty out of pain.

Would I have become a poet regardless of my grandmother's abuse? Probably, but not the same kind of poet, nor would I have produced the same kind of work, I think.

Nevertheless, in the end her ultimate legacy was to unintentionally instill in me an understanding of the complexities of human behavior and emotions. I could have easily concluded that my grandmother was a mean, evil bitch and left it at that. But through her I instead realized there are few absolutes when it comes to human relationships. People, myself included, are not always good or always bad.

They can't always say what they mean; and don't always mean what they say. My grandmother loved me as best she could, the way she herself was loved, perhaps. Her trying to make me a man was an odd, crude expression of that love, but it inadvertently made me the writer I am today. And for that I feel oddly thankful…

Reading: by Gene Robinson, the first openly gay person to be elected bishop in the Episcopal Church (in 2003) from God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage (p. 15).  You should know, Robinson was married twice.

What I can tell you is that everything I intended and pledged in my marriage to a woman I intended and pledged in my marriage to a man. It feels like the same thing, being lived out with the one I love. It has the same trials and tribulations, the same joys and rewards. Marriage calls us to be our best selves, for each other. Marriage is a very human attempt to make a place in one’s heart for another – a place so holy as to make it possible to have a love for another at times greater than the love of one’s self. 

And that is why, for the Church, marriage is a sacrament. A sacrament is one of the places God promises to show up! It is in learning to love another as much or more than one loves one’s self that we get a tiny glimpse of the selfless love that God has for each of us. It is in marriage that we have the opportunity to experience and learn about God’s unconditional love for us.

Defending Love

A Sermon Delivered on February 10, 2013

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

This week, with Valentine’s Day coming up, I am thinking about love. I am thinking about the love of my life, Elaine, to whom I have been married for almost 23 years now. I am thinking about what a wild ride it has been, these years together. Falling in love in grad school, building a home, raising two great children, working and playing together, sharing moments of deepest bliss and greatest struggle - the threads of our lives are so completely interwoven, I can’t imagine a life without her.

This week our daughter, Sophia, is performing in a high school drama production called “Almost Maine.” It is a romantic comedy made up of nine short pieces in which pairs of performers explore love and loss, in a remote, snowy region of Maine. It’s an appropriate show for the week leading up to Valentine’s Day.

Needless to say, my favorite of the nine pieces is the one my daughter is in. But my second favorite is the one that features two buddies, Randy and Chad, who begin by talking about their latest troubles with their girlfriends, but end up realizing that their own friendship is no longer merely platonic. In a comical but touching twist, they both begin to fall for each other. Literally and physically falling on the ground, clumsily collapsing every time they try to get up, the two men finally look into each other’s eyes puzzled and elated, as they realize they have fallen in love.

I feel very fortunate to live in a town, where our high school kids can perform a play that celebrates the love between two men, right along side with heterosexual couples. 

And this week Illinois senate bill SB10 passed out of committee, and is now heading for a senate vote on Valentine’s Day. After that, it will be voted on in the House. The bill includes the “Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.” If passed, this means, according to the Illinois General Assembly synopsis: “all laws of this State applicable to marriage [will] apply equally to marriages of same-sex and different-sex couples and their children; …[they will] have the same benefits, protections, and responsibilities under law.”

This is a big deal for gay and lesbian communities. It is a big deal for all of us who have non-heterosexual friends and family members. It is a big step away from the “second class citizen status” in which we have long placed our lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual brothers and sisters. 

I think it is a big step toward justice and equality and freedom. But not everyone agrees.  The News-Gazette reported that the Senate will likely pass the bill, but the House may not. For a lot of people in Illinois, the senate bill is a big deal – but not in a good way.

Back in January, Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield sent a letter to his 131 parishes, which he asked to be published and read from the their pulpits. The Bishop wrote: “Our state's elected lawmakers will soon consider a bill called "The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act." A more fraudulent title for this dangerous measure could not be imagined. The proposed law is, in truth, a grave assault upon both religious liberty and marriage. All people of goodwill, and especially Christ's faithful committed to my pastoral care…, should resolutely oppose this bill and make their opinions known to their representatives.”

Last week the Illinois Family Institute sent out an announcement of a “Defend Marriage Lobby Day,” on February 20^th. “Join Illinois families from all over the state on Wednesday, February 20^th, to stand for natural marriage and lobby your state rep to vote NO on same-sex marriage,” they say.

To fire up their constituents, they describe these frightening scenarios: “If people of faith allow this bill to pass, churches will be forced to change their hiring practices and allow same-sex marriage ceremonies if they rent their facilities… And children will be taught in school they can marry a man or a woman when they grow up!” 

What Bishop Paprocki and the Illinois Family consider dangerous and frightening possibilities, in my mind, are very good things. I want our churches to rent their facilities for same-sex marriages. I want our children to be taught that they can marry a man or woman. This is, in my mind, religious liberty and marriage at its best. 

Our social action committee is trying to help support the passage of the Marriage Fairness Act. They have contact information of our state representatives available for you in fellowship hall. They encourage you to contact your representatives and make your opinion known.

* * *

I confess, I am so fully entrenched in my own view on marriage equality, that I had hard time even understanding how any reasonable person could be opposed to it. Why do religious and cultural conservatives talk about “defending marriage,” I wondered. It’s not as if proponents of same-sex marriage are working to outlaw different-sex marriage. My marriage to Elaine will not be affected in the least, whether or not lesbian and gay couples are allowed to be married.

It took me a while to realize, they weren’t talking about my marriage in particular. They were talking about the institution of marriage. Especially for many religious people, the institution of marriage is sacred. And I agree.

The love and commitment expressed in the public act of marriage is so powerful, so profound, it touches so deeply into our individual lives, and is so far-reaching in our families and friendships and the communities in which we live – it makes good sense to me, to treat marriage as something precious, something holy. 

Marriage, as I understand it, is all about love. While I am not an Episcopalian, Gene Robinson’s words strike me as profoundly true: when we learn to love one another, we may get a tiny glimpse of God’s love. 

If there is a God, that is the kind of God I would worship. A loving God, whose presence can be felt in the experience of true love between two people. 

But, of course, there is no consensus on whether or not God exists. And even among those who believe in God, there is no consensus as to what we can consider God’s will. 

* * *

There is a frequently cited passage from the book of Leviticus, that is translated to say “homosexuality is an abomination.” And yet as biblical scholars have pointed out, this is a poor translation of this passage, and lifted out of context. 

Citing scripture to support your personal opinion or political persuasion is an exercise of questionable value. To challenge biblical literalists, who say we should live as the Bible instructs us, we can quote Exodus 21:7 that condones selling our daughters into slavery, or 35:2 that tells us we should kill any of our neighbors who work on the Sabbath.

Imagining a U. S. Constitution amended to embody a literal biblical interpretation of marriage, Washington state Representative Jim McDermott submitted these proposals: Marriage shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. That is from Genesis 29. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. That is Genesis 24:3. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. That is Deuteronomy 22:13. 

As Gene Robinson points out, there is actually not a single passage in the Bible that – either literally or figuratively - opposes the marriage of same-gender couples. In the Christian scriptures, Jesus addresses the issue of homosexuality a total of zero times. 

Getting to the religious heart of the matter, and moving beyond literalistic proofs and polemics, Robinson points to a Gospel passage attributed to Jesus: Matthew 7:12. This is where Jesus says, “treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets.” 

It is the Christian version of the Golden Rule – Do Unto Others – which is found in all the world’s great religious traditions. Gene Robinson wonders, “What would be the result of every person of faith, indeed every person with a desire to be a moral human being, thinking, “If that were me, what would I want?”…I’m not sure that is an exercise engaged in by those adamantly opposed to gay marriage. “If I were gay…” is too big a stretch for those who find such a possibility so remote and so disgusting to even consider.” (p. 37)

* * *

When Richard Blanco was a child, his grandmother thought homosexuals were disgusting. Set in her ways, she couldn’t imagine a love that transcends the conventions of her own upbringing. Tragically, she could not see beyond her narrow and rigid assumptions about what it means to be a man, and what it means to be a woman.

Human love and sexuality are profound and powerful forces in our lives. They touch so deeply into our individual lives, it makes good sense to treat them as something sacred, something holy. The Sacred is mysterious, awe-inspiring, and frightening. It is difficult to describe, and impossible to ever fully understand. The Sacred, like life itself, is ambiguous. And, like God, it is ultimately unknowable.

Carter Heyward writes, “We live, all of us, in uncomfortable ambiguity. We live with contradictions and partial truths. In ambiguity we seek the meaning of ourselves and of the world, and the words to communicate the meanings we find. In its enormous, vital complexity, sexuality may draw us as close as we ever get to the heart of ambiguity. It is to escape from anxiety-producing uncertainty, I think, that we so readily accept labels and resist our own questing and questioning.” (Our Passion for Justice, p. 76)

Because love and sexuality are powerful and frightening, we build rigid boundaries to contain them. We create categories - “gay,” “lesbian,” “straight,” – and these categories can become boxes. These boxes, Heyward says, are “imposed from without, not truly chosen, not reflective of who we are or might have been or might become.” 

“The moment a boy child learns that little boys do not cry, the instant a girl child learns that little girls do not fight, the child takes a step farther into the heterosexual box… The heterosexual box is designed to transform vulnerable little boys into big, strong men and feisty little girls into soft sweet ladies…” 

The result, Heyward says, “is that the sexuality within us is confined, shaped, limited, perhaps diminished, by the container built around it.”

Years before same sex-marriage was discussed in our state legislatures Heyward wrote: “It occurs to me that it may be the special privilege of lesbians and gay men to take very seriously, and very actively, what it means to love. … Deprived of civil and religious trappings of romantic love, we may well be those who are most compelled to plumb the depths of what it really means to love.”

Richard Blanco was taught some hard lessons about love from his grandmother. Given the harsh words she hurled at him throughout his childhood, he could have easily concluded that his grandmother was a mean and evil person, and left it at that. Instead he learned that there are few absolutes when it comes to human relationships.

People, we ourselves included, are not always good, and not always bad.  Sometimes we can’t always say what we mean. And sometimes we don’t always mean what we say. But all of us try to love. All of us love, as best we can.

Sometimes our efforts to love are unintentionally cruel or callous. Sometimes our efforts to love are clumsy and even comical. 

It isn’t easy to understand the complexities of human behavior and emotions. Both love and hate run deep. But love runs deeper. Both love and hate are strong. But love is stronger.

May we remember love is the sacred force at the heart of life.

May we remember that love will lead us 

through deepest bliss and greatest struggle 

and help us build a better world. May we find and foster such love. Amen.

Good Guns

"I have a strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it."
-- Clint Eastwood

Reading: by social activist and educator Geoffrey Canada, who is head of the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City, from Fist Stick Knife Gun (p. 99)

Young people are fascinated by guns. For many today, and especially for boys in our inner cities, the handgun is an integral part of their growing–up experience. It is as important for many of them to know the difference between a Tech 9 and an Uzi as it was for my peers to know the difference between a Chevrolet and a Buick.

And once a young person gets his or her hands on a gun there is a very strong temptation to shoot it. Once you’ve handled a gun you recognize it simply as a tool. And not many of us get a new tool and put it away unused. Human nature seems to dictate we use them right away, even if we tire of our electric drill, espresso machine, or stationary bicycle soon after purchasing it. So the temptation is almost irresistible for children to shoot off guns in their possession. They want to see what it feels like. What it sounds like. How much damage does it do? How quickly can you fire it? Where can you hide it? How quickly can you draw, aim, and shoot?

Reading: from an article by Ray Rivera and Peter Applebome entitled “Sandy Hook Parents’ Testimony to Legislature Reflects Divide on Guns” which appeared last week in The New York Times (January 28, 2013)

…Mark Mattioli, whose son James, 6, was also killed at Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14, said: “I believe in a few simple gun laws. I think we have more than enough on the books. We should hold people individually accountable for their actions.”

Mr. Mattioli said he also thought some liberals were using the attack in Newtown to spread fear on gun issues.

“The problem is not gun laws,” he added. “The problem is a lack of civility.”

…Outside the building, people braved frigid temperatures and driving snow while waiting to pass through metal detectors, part of the heightened security measures for the hearing. Women from groups like March for Change and One Million Moms for Gun Control, which are calling for stricter gun laws, stood far outnumbered by gun rights supporters, most of them men.

Reading: by Carl Sandberg a poem entitled “A Revolver”  (With the debate over gun control heating up, a retired volunteer at a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made a timely find. Ernie Gullerud, a former professor of social work at the university, came upon a previously unpublished poem by Carl Sandburg titled "A Revolver," which addresses the issue of guns and violence. Chicago Tribune, Jan. 21, 2013)

Here is a revolver.

It has an amazing language all its own.

It delivers unmistakable ultimatums.

It is the last word.

A simple, little human forefinger can tell a terrible story with it.

Hunger, fear, revenge, robbery hide behind it.

It is the claw of the jungle made quick and powerful.

It is the club of the savage turned to magnificent precision.

It is more rapid than any judge or court of law.

It is less subtle and treacherous than any one lawyer or ten.

When it has spoken, the case can not be appealed to the supreme court, nor any mandamus nor any injunction nor any stay of execution in and interfere with the original purpose.

And nothing in human philosophy persists more strangely than the old belief that God is always on the side of those who have the most revolvers.

Good Guns

A Sermon Delivered on Feburary 3, 2013

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

I remember when the movie “The Matrix” first was shown in movie theaters. It was the spring of 1999. Elaine and I had moved to Urbana/Champaign just a few years earlier. Our kids, Noah and Sophia, were preschoolers. 

“The Matrix” is part action/adventure, part science fiction/fantasy. The central conceit of the movie is that the world in which we live, everything we see and smell, everything we touch and taste, is not real. Everything is an illusion. The world we think is real is actually nothing more than a very elaborate computer program, a virtual reality into which each of us has been placed. We are all players in a big computer game, and we don’t even know it.

The story of “The Matrix” revolves around a mild-mannered computer geek named Thomas Anderson, who becomes a savior of sorts. His eyes are opened to the real world, beyond the illusion. And he learns how to transcend the rules that govern the computer world – the world that looks like everything we take for granted - and he battles the evil machines that have actually enslaved humanity. He learns how to beat them at their own game.

“The Matrix” was quite a pop culture phenomenon. It fused Buddhist ideas of impermanence with Christian ideas of a savior and salvation, with youthful fascination of computer technology, as well as the cool, stylized violence of action movies.

One memorable and imaginative scene features the protagonist and his love-interest, both dressed all in black, wearing long coats and stylish sunglasses, shooting their way through the lobby of a fortified skyscraper. They move in slow-motion, to a pounding soundtrack, armed to their teeth with an assortment pistols, shotguns and automatic rifles.

In a hailstorm of bullets, dozens of uniformed “bad guys” are shot down, and the entire lobby destroyed. If ever there were a ranking of modern movies that glorify guns, this scene from “The Matrix” would surely be near the top of the list. And I confess, when I watched the movie, I really liked it.

Just a few weeks after “The Matrix” opened in movie theaters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School, near Littleton, Colorado. Dressed in long dark coats and heavily armed, they embarked on a killing spree, that left twelve students and one teacher dead. The two teenagers carried out the deadliest mass murder ever committed in an American high school, and then killed themselves.

Why did this happen? How could they do it? Mental health issues and depression, violent video games, victimization by high school bullies, and heavy metal music were among the possible causes considered in the news. 

But the most controversial factor was the question of guns. Would stricter gun control laws have made a difference in averting the tragedy? Are guns the problem or the solution? 

These questions are once again on our minds, in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. And in the weeks since then, it is seems every morning’s paper contains a new collection of stories about gun-related tragedies. 

* * *

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the two air rifles my father kept behind the door in his study, and the air pistol he kept in a little card board box. When I was nine, I remember how thrilling it was to go down into the basement with my father and three older brothers, and practice shooting at paper targets in our own homemade shooting range. 

I was too small to hold and fire the rifles, so we set up a four-foot stepladder, with a pillow on top. On that pillow I could rest the rifle, hold its butt snug against my shoulder, peer through the sight, carefully take aim, and then squeeze the trigger. 

It was dangerous, of course. But that was the best part. I remember how carefully my father drilled safety precautions into our heads: never to point a gun at a person, even if it wasn’t loaded. Never to put your finger on the trigger until you were perfectly still and aiming at your target. 

The danger, the thrill, the satisfaction of hitting a bulls-eye, and perhaps, above all, my father’s presence, his close attention, and his approval when I did well, left quite an impression for me. 

* * *

We all have different degrees of comfort when it comes to dealing with guns. We all make choices on how we handle the issues of guns and violence and safety and control.

So, for instance, in our home today, we don’t have any guns. I don’t own air rifles. And I didn’t spend quality time with my son and daughter when they were younger, teaching them the basics of marksmanship and gun safety. In fact, when our kids were young, Elaine and I were so opposed to the whole idea of kids and guns, that we never once got them toy rifles or plastic pistols. And to this day I have a deep dislike for so-called “first person shooter games”: computer games that have become more and more realistic in their portrayal of gun battles, in which you are encouraged to shoot and maim an endless stream of villains, terrorists or zombies.

* * *

“Guns don’t kill people, people do.” This is the well-known encapsulation of the argument against gun control. It is short, compelling, and to the point. And it is true. Without a person to pick it up and pull the trigger, a gun is simply a piece of metal. 

Violent movies don’t turn people into criminals. Violent computer games don’t make all of our children recreate their virtual reality games in the real world. More gun laws don’t guarantee that violent crime will decline.

In this day and age of the information superhighway, with access to the internet and a few clicks of a keyboard, you can find an amazing amount of material that provides support for your opinion – whether you think we need more guns or less. But not everything you read is equally accurate.

When it comes to the question whether gun ownership contributes to violent crime or combats it – according to FactCheck.org, of the Annenberg Public Policy Center -  the evidence is not conclusive. As it turns out, there is remarkably little reliable research in this area. Part of the reason there is little scientific evidence, one way or another, is that the National Rifle Association, the NRA, has spent millions of dollars in lobbying efforts to prevent this research. In 2011 the New York Times reported, “The amount of money available today for studying the impact of firearms is a fraction of what it was in the mid-1990s, and the number of scientists toiling in the field has dwindled to just a handful as a result.” Selling guns is a billion dollar business. And the gun industry has plenty of political clout. (Michael Luo, “N.R.A. Stymies Firearms Research, Scientists Say,” January 25, 2011) 

There is much we don’t know. But what we do know is that the United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world. As our very own Peggy Patten wrote in last Sunday’s News-Gazette: “If more guns make us safer then the U.S. should be the safest country on the planet. Nothing could be further from the truth: we have more guns than any other developed country as well as more gun crime and more gun homicide.”

An international comparison published by the Washington Post offers specifics. For every 100 people, we have about 89 guns. That’s more than any other country in the world. We have 5% of the world’s population, but 35%-50% of the world’s guns. We have about three-times as many guns, per capita, as people who live in Canada or France. And we have more than twice the rate of gun-related homicides than Canada, and six times that of France.

Some people justify gun ownership as a protection against a government they fear might one day oppress them. If this fear were justified, one might imagine civilians trying to match the firepower of the government. But actually we do much more. According to the Congressional Research Service, police and military combined have a total of 4 million handguns and rifles. Regular citizens own 310 million. There are 80 times as many firearms in the homes of private citizens, than all our police stations and military bases combined.

Scientists are not able to prove a causal link between gun ownership and gun violence. But statistically the evidence is clear: where there are more guns there are more gun homicides. It may not be clear that guns cause violence – violence can be caused by drug use, domestic abuse, or mental illness – but it is perfectly clear that violent situations become more lethal when guns are present. As one researcher put it: “You can’t have a drive-by knifing.”

Many people who support gun ownership do so because they image guns will keep them safe. They imagine their guns will be used for self-defense. And yet, in fact, it is four times more likely that a gun will be used in an unintentional shooting death or injury. And rather than in self-defense, it is seven times more likely that a gun in the home will be used for a criminal assault or homicide. And it is eleven times more likely that the gun will be used to commit suicide.

How well do guns help us stay safe? According to the American Journal of Public Health, people in possession of a gun are actually four times more likely to be shot in an assault, than people without guns.

According to David Hemenway, of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, compared with other countries, our rate of violence and aggression is average. But our homicide rate is huge. Hemenway reminds us that on the same day that 20 children were shot and killed by a deranged man in Newtown, CT, a deranged man attacked elementary school children in Chenpeng Village, China. A man named Min Yingjun was intent on doing damage, but because he was wielding a knife, and not a gun, twenty-two Chinese children were injured, but not one of them was killed.

* * *

Geoffrey Canada writes, 

“America has long had a love affair with violence and guns. It’s our history, we teach it to all of our young. The Revolution, the “taming of the West,” the Civil War, the world wars, and on and on. Guns, justice, righteousness, freedom, liberty – all tied to violence. Even when we try to teach about non-violence, we have to use the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., killed by the violent. I’m sorry America, but once you get past the rhetoric, what we really learn is that might does make right.” (p. viii)

Canada grew up on the rough streets of New York City. At an early age he learned about the dynamics of violence. And he learned how seductive guns are in an environment shaped by fear.

“Possessing a gun feels like the ultimate form of protection,” writes Canada. “On the streets of a big American city, having this kind of personal protection may even seem to some to make sense. But it doesn’t. I know from personal experience.” Guns only increase the odds that someone will get killed. 

The best way to combat gun violence is not to get more guns. A better course of action is to rebuild our communities. In his efforts to provide a safe environment for children, he realized, you can’t save children without also saving families. And you can’t save families without rebuilding communities.

And this is exactly what he has helped do in Harlem, by providing safe recreational after-school programs until late at night and on weekends, that include education, drug counseling, mental health and cultural activities. Thanks to his efforts entire neighborhoods have been transformed.

* * *

This country is permeated by a culture of violence and fear. The causes are complex, and reach deep into our history. We have been raised on stories of heroes and villains who face off in violent confrontations, stories where the guy with the biggest guns, or the fastest draw will win. These stories are exciting and entertaining – but they are not true. 

They are important stories, because they have shaped who we are. We need to pay attention to them. We need to listen critically. And above all, we need to remember, that the world they portray is an illusion. This illusion creates a culture of violence and fear. 

Our task is to open our eyes to the real world. Our task is to create a different culture: a culture of compassion and care. 

Of course God is not on the side of those who have the most guns. I believe God is on the side of those who love. 

May we have the wisdom and the courage

To put down our dangerous tools of division and destruction,

And instead do our part to build communities of compassion and care. 

Amen.