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	A Theological Smoothie 
	Rev.  Edmund Robinson, Phil Posner 
	Unitarian Universalist Church 0f Wakefield
	October 1, 2000

This service was of a bit different format than usual and not all of
it was preserved in written form.  The first section below was
presented earlier in the service by Phil Posner, a member of the UU
Church of Wakefield.  The sermon itself consisted of Phil speaking on
the subject (not included here because it was not written down)
followed by Rev.  Edmund Robertson's response to Phil's words.

A note from Phil:  At the beginning of the year Edmund made a comment
about using this year to explore roots.  I found the idea very
engaging and was grateful that my participation in the Rosh Hashannah
service was a vehicle to explore my own religious roots.  The essence
of the excercise, for me, was the research, the reflection and the
dialogue - prior to and the day of the presentation.

Good morning everyone.  Today is the second day of the month of Tishri
in the year 5761.  Today is the second day of the 10 days of
Repentence and Reflection that begins with Rosh Hashannah and ends on
Yom Kippor a week and a day from now.  This morning I bring to this
church the words and my reflections of this time.  Thank you Edmund
for your invitation.  You rose to my challenge and stand very tall in
my eyes.

What is the meaning of Rosh Hashannah to Jews?  What does it mean to
UUs?  What does it mean to me?  In the Jewish tradition, Rosh
Hashannah is the birthday of the world.  It is the Jewish New Year, of
course, the remembrance of Genesis.  Rosh Hashannah is the holiday
when Jews reaffirm their covenant and allegiance to G-d.  Rosh
HaShanna is a time to reflect, to look back and remember, to account
for our actions and thoughts, to recall our gains and our losses and
to look forward with new determination to the future.  The Shofar
calls us back, reminds us to return to the beginning no matter how far
we have traveled away.

Yom Kippor, the day of atonement, the day of prayer and fasting
concludes the days of wonder.  The Jewish teacher Maimonides conceived
of Yom Kippor as an opportunity for individuals and the community to
repent.  Repent - it's a pretty heavy word.  It conjures images of the
Spanish inquisition, of intolerance and of shame.  It's not really a
UU kind of word.  I think UUs focus on acceptance and diversity and
inclusion, not on conformity or sin.  In the Jewish tradition and in
my own extended family, repentance is not an opportunity to despair or
to feel guilty.  Repentance is the spirit of acceptance, of cleansing
and renewal, of self-confidence and of hope.  Repentance is the spirit
of survival and in faith in the power of the almighty and of each of
us to forgive.

I conceive of the High Holy Days as a primal holiday.  One of the
times when culture and the natural world are joined in celebration and
ritual.  It occurs at the time of the harvest, at the autumnal equinox
in the northern hemisphere.  In contrast to the Passover and Easter
holidays, Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippor come at the time when, in
Europe and North America, the days ebb and nature begins the slow
preparation for winter's sleep.  Curiously, there are no major
Christian celebrations at this time of year.

Perhaps the time and date in the celestial and lunar calendars reflect
a Mediterranean view of the world.  In the Middle East, the equinox
may represent the return of fertility after summer's heat, and not
fertility's decline.  Whatever the historical roots, the High Holy
Days call to Jews and to non Jews alike to come alive, to celebrate
G-d and life, to take stock and stand up to life's challenges.  To
recognize that life is to be savored.

In my mind and heart I hear the call of the shofar and remember:

apples and challah dipped in honey to remind me of life's sweetness;

the call of family and community to remind me of the love and
friendship I find there;

the call of David and of Duty which remind me of my commitments;

the call to growth and renewal, to reflection, to accountability, to
strength, to courage and to humility.

I believe it is within the principals of growth and renewal that all
of us have common ground.  These ideals need not be identified with a
Christian G-d, or Jesus, or Moses, or Mohammed.  The ideas do not need
to be interpreted or related to the majority culture or a particular
dogma.  They are simply the ideals of G-d and human beings.  The
viewpoint expressed is simple, it's elemental and reflects the
undivided and unfathomable essence of life and divinity.

I hope for each of you, for each of us - that you may look back over
the last year, in reflection but not in sadness.  Look forward,
without fear, for life is often sweet.  Live in the present with
faith.

Happy New Year.

Edmund's response to points that Phil brought up in his dialouge:
Phil, I suggested that this dialogue be our sermon because I think
it's a useful interchange to help stimulate thinking about who we are
in this church.

 Now I want to start with a little history of how my original topic
was proposed.  I heard an excellent talk at GA by the Episcopal Bishop
John Spong of New Jersey on the Jewish background of Jesus, and also
had read a few weeks ago a column by James Carroll in the Globe about
the roots of Christian anti-Semitism in the Gospel stories and how
those stories should be understood.  I thought it was a powerful idea
and proposed to preach about it originally on September 24.  When I
proposed that, I had thought that October 1 was my Sunday off.  Since
Rosh Hashanah started September 30, it seemed to me that starting to
think about Christianity's treatment of the Jews would be an
appropriate preparation for the Days of Awe when traditionally Jews
reflect on the sins of the past.  Then I discovered I had made a
calendar error, and I was actually supposed to take October 8 off.
This meant I would be in the pulpit for Rosh Hashanah, and without
thinking a lot about it, substituted another topic for last week and
moved my Jesus the Jew sermon to this week, and invited Phil, our only
Jewish active member, to help out with the service and sermon.

 When we met to plan the service, you pointed out, rightly, that the
topic and approach that I had planned assumed a Christian frame of
reference.  It was centered on how Christians had viewed and treated
Jews over the centuries.  That might be a valid, even a vital topic
for another time, but it did not honor Jewish heritage.  You felt that
Jewish heritage was getting lost, subsumed in a mishmash.  You said it
was like the difference between a fruit salad and a fruit smoothie.
In the fruit salad, we can taste the flavor of each individual piece
of fruit and appreciate the differences in flavor, shape and texture
among them.  In the fruit smoothie, all the flavors are blended into
one and all distinctiveness is lost.

 You wondered whether my vision for this church was to make a
theological smoothie.  I said that this is a topic very much worth
discussing.  I recalled that last year, in the context of the
Wakefield Interfaith Clergy Association, one of my conservative
Christian colleagues had asked me whether our church would be
interested in a pulpit exchange on Christian Brotherhood Sunday or
some such event, and I replied that we probably wouldn't because by
their lights, most of our congregation were not Christian and I
wouldn't be, either.  I told you later that I regretted this
concession because I think it gives away too much.  In other words, I
think there is a sense in which I, and many of you, are Christians or
at least strongly influenced by Jesus of Nazareth.

 But when I recalled that issue and reflected on it in the context of
this discussion, I realized that I have no such ambiguity about
Judaism.  I am not a Jew, either by my lights or by anyone else's,
because I have no reason to question the traditional definition of
Jewishness that you are Jewish only if your mother is or if you have
converted.  Unlike Christianity, Judaism does not seek to be a
universal religion.  To quote a website called "Judaism 101:"

"Judaism maintains that the righteous of all nations have a place in
the world to come.  This has been the majority rule since the days of
the Talmud.  Judaism generally recognizes that Christians and Moslems
worship the same G-d that we do and those who follow the tenets of
their religions can be considered righteous in the eyes of G-d.

 "Contrary to popular belief, Judaism does not maintain that Jews are
better than other people.  Although we refer to ourselves as G-d's
chosen people, we do not believe that G-d chose the Jews because of
any inherent superiority.  According to the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2b),
G-d offered the Torah to all the nations of the earth, and the Jews
were the only ones who accepted it.  The story goes on to say that the
Jews were offered the Torah last, and accepted it only because G-d
held a mountain over their heads!  (In Ex.  19:17, the words generally
translated as "at the foot of the mountain" literally mean "underneath
the mountain"!)  Another traditional story suggests that G-d chose the
Jews because they were the lowliest of nations, and their success
would be attributed to G-d's might rather than their own ability.
Clearly, these are not the ideas of a people who think they are better
than other nations."

 According to this source, G-d is considered to have given Noah seven
commandments which apply to all people, but at Sinai he gave the Jews
613 very specific commandments or Mitzvot.

"The Noahic commandments are binding on all people, because all people
are descended from Noah and his family.  The 613 mitzvot of the Torah,
on the other hand, are only binding on the descendants of those who
accepted the commandments at Sinai and upon those who take on the yoke
of the commandments voluntarily (by conversion).  In addition, the
Noahic commandments are applied more leniently to non-Jews than the
corresponding commandments are to Jews, because non-Jews do not have
the benefit of Oral Torah to guide them in interpreting the laws.  For
example, worshiping G-d in the form of a man would constitute idolatry
for a Jew; however, according to some sources, the Christian worship
of Jesus does not constitute idolatry for non-Jews.  "

 So we don't seek to be Jews.  What we do seek is religious truth and
that religious truth according to Unitarian and Universalist
traditions can come from any source, and particularly can that truth
come from religious traditions kept by a community for thousands of
years.  For example, we can use Rosh Hashanah as an occasion to look
at our lives, to consider where we've come from and where we're going,
to think about any wrongs we've committed.  Rosh Hashanah is the
beginning of the year.  The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur are called the Days of Awe.  As my source says,

"One of the ongoing themes of the Days of Awe is the concept that G-d
has "books" that he writes our names in, writing down who will live
and who will die, who will have a good life and who will have a bad
life, for the next year.  These books are written in on Rosh Hashanah,
but our actions during the Days of Awe can alter G-d's decree.  The
actions that change the decree are "teshuvah, tefilah and tzedakah,"
repentance, prayer, good deeds (usually, charity).  These "books" are
sealed on Yom Kippur.  This concept of writing in books is the source
of the common greeting during this time is "May you be inscribed and
sealed for a good year."

 As the old advertisement went, you don't have to be Jewish to love
Levi's bread, and you don't have to be Jewish to take stock of your
life at this time of year.  It is a useful exercise for any of us:
theist, atheist, or agnostic to consider that, if there were a book,
what would be written in it for each of us for the past year.  A
related practice, which anyone can do, is Tashlikh, or "casting off,"
where a person walks to flowing water on the first day of Rosh
Hashanah and empties his or her pockets into the water, symbolically
casting off the sins of the year.  Another Rosh Hashanah custom is to
eat apple pieces dipped in honey, to symbolize that life is sweet.
And we will have some at coffee hour for anyone who cares to partake
and celebrate the sweetness of life.

 These are all things we as non-Jews can take from Rosh Hashanah, it
seems to me, things we can use in our own spirituality without
dishonoring the integrity fo Judaism.  We should not kid ourselves
that we have understood what it is to be Jewish, and we should not
think that we have hit the core of Judaism or the Jewish experience.
We have merely sampled this deep and rich heritage.  We have taken
what makes sense into our lives.

 Now Phil is entirely right in saying that if we just blend in these
Jewish practices with our other spiritual practices, there is the
danger that the Jewish flavor might be lost.  We might end up with the
theological smoothie.

 Now, one reaction I have is to ask:  What is our religious quest?
Are we looking to connect to some ultimate reality beyond ourselves?
Let's say we are.  Let's also say that we conceive of the great
religious traditions of the world as also engaged in this same quest,
each with its own particular set of sacred texts, stories and ideas
about ultimate reality.  To use the metaphor developed in Scotty
McLennan's book Finding Your Religion, if all the roads ultimately end
up on top of the mountain, does it matter which one we take or whether
we follow one all the way up?

 Yes, I think it does.  Religion is not an individual enterprise, it
is a collective one.  The paths that have been blazed and marked will
get you further than setting out on your own over uncharted terrain.
Judaism and Christianity and Buddhism and Hinduism are all
well-established paths, but I insist that so is Unitarian
Universalism.  It sometimes feels like everyone else is definite and
we are wishy-washy or, as one seminarian put it to me, a great big
ship without a rudder.  But we have long and rich traditions and they
are informed by the sources we list in our Principles and Purposes.
Look inside your hymnbook for the traditions on which we draw.

 Unlike other religions, we do not require you to leave behind the
tradition into which you were born.  This is why Phil can be Jewish
and a UU, as about 15% of our members are nationwide.  This is how the
new minister in West Newton, James Ford, can be ordained into the
Buddhist priesthood and a practicing UU minister.

 So on this New Year Day, my hope for us all is that we can continue
to taste the rich fruits of our individual heritages, and inform our
common life here with the sweetness of the year.

Amen.