Wakefield UU Church 
Sermon by 
Norma J. Burton, M.Div. 
January 11, 2004 
Do You Believe in Love? 
Of course you believe in love! “What's there to talk about?”you might say. Upon second thought, let us drop into the complexity of this question in the reality of our lives.  Do we act as if we believe in love? Love of our families and dear ones, our church community? Yes, we often strive to be our best loving selves in those contexts? And when people irritate or even hurt us? How about love then? Is it naive to go on loving sometimes?  To go further is it possible to love our enemies? Even those who are carrying out real atrocities? Can we love those who have hurt, killed, stolen from us? All these are choices about when to practice our belief in love, choices that we humans have to make.  

So, to BELIEVE in love… what does that mean? To believe is to trust enough to commit our actions toward a certain end. It is one thing when we are feeling the warmth of blissful encounters with a loving partner or the delightful welcome of our child. Within our family, our clan, our nation, actions of love just flow from us. But what about outside our comfort zone? Or when we are not being loved in return? To act or even think in loving ways when we perceive that we are under attack; how long can we sustain love then? Is it ever just naïve or foolish to believe in love? How can believing in love help resolve an impossible situation? How can believing in love help the people of this earth in our dire straits? 
When Jesus, was asked, what did he think was the greatest commandment, the most important thing we humans needed to do, he said, ‘To love God with all your heart, all your mind, all of your soul, and all of your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.”  When I re-read the gospels I am overwhelmed by how much Jesus talked about relationally and love as the preeminent answer to our human woes. Oppression ceases where love is practiced. 
Jesus taught about the rule of love - you will know them by how they love one another. He envisioned communities of interbeing here on earth and the great power to be found in abiding together in love.  If you abide in me, as I abide in God (that is in divine love), then these things that I do, you shall also do, and indeed greater than these. 
As we heard in the readings this morning, along with Jesus, the Buddha, the Sufi teacher Rumi, so many have preached the practice of love above all else. There must be some important key here for our planetary survival. Do you agree with this? 
But, I have to stop and wonder, if so many have known and preached love for so many eons, and if love is such an effective tool, why has love not taken hold already and had its victory on this planet? Why are we not living in harmony and peace? Why has the reign of love not been realized upon the earth? Will it ever come, before it's too late? 
  
Jesus was great at rallying against the powerful, but had he not been killed would he have been able to enact and maintain his vision of an egalitarian order?   
In seeking an answer to this dilemma, I came upon the writer Derrick Jensen, who declares that the revolution of love on this planet has not yet succeeded essentially because of our economic system. The problem with our economic system is that it values money over all else. Money over human life, over animal life, over trees, over communities. This is enough to guarantee widespread misery, degradation, and ultimately the destruction of most, if not all, life on this planet. In his book, A Language Older Than Words, he goes on to say: “Because our cash economy is predicated on the idea of a society composed of atomistic individuals pulling in selfish directions, it can do no other than reward selfish behavior. Communal behavior is not rewarded in this system, which means the cash economy can do no other than destroy communities. It damages relationships too, because any relationship based on atomistic individuals pulling in selfish directions is not a relationship at all. Our economy can do no other than destroy life on this planet because life has neither value nor voice, whereas two–by-fours, instead of living trees, while voiceless have value. Given the system of rewards in our economy it is a surprising testament to the tenacity of life that any viable natural communities persist. It is an open question how much longer they may do so. If monetary value is attached to something it will be exploited until it is gone.” 
There have been revolutionaries on the earth, since time began it seems. Most revolutionaries guarantee their revolution won't change fundamental power structures because they don’t question the primacy of production. When the seizure and ownership of private property is valued over human and non-human needs, it doesn't matter whether the revolutionaries are capitalists, the Supreme Soviet, Marxists proletariats, the Church, or the intellectuals. If they seek to control the means of production, the truth is that this group - fill in the blank - then controls the means of production. The property is just as private no matter what ideology the owners claim to hold. In our economic system, wealth funnels toward the producers and away from the community as a whole. As the band The Who sang, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Don’t we feel this way sometimes as elections draw near? 
Derek Jensen warns us that if we wish to do away with the never ending drain of bosses exploiting the earth, the people, and all living things, then we must do away with the primacy of production. The emphasis of society must switch to be on process and not on the creation of things and the accumulation of monetary or political power. We must learn from the systems of egalitarian religious beliefs and especially from the few remaining indigenous groups that our focus must be on the acknowledgement and maintenance of relationships on the personal and grand scales. Relationships are about caring and love. That means that all beings are listened to, their needs are important enough to be heard. Love means committing to listen to other humans, to animals, to trees and plants. Hence, “The Language Older Than Word,” an language we humans need to remember. Cultures which listen respect life. 
The anthropologist Ruth Bennedict observed that there are basically two types of culture on this planet  - the "good "decent culture which is peaceful and in which members are mostly nice, and the indecent, “cruel” cultures in which the value is self above all, in which its members are warlike and finally even cannibalistic. The common characteristic of the good cultures was that they had a siphoning system - to shuttle the wealth from the rich to the poor. This siphon system is antithetical to the primacy of private property. In our economy of greed the wealth funnels toward the producers and away from the community as a whole. The siphon system….  A liberation theologian has suggested that Jesus was demonstrating the siphon system when he performed the “miracle” of feeding the five thousand. They point out that it was actually after this act that the established leaders of his day started organizing to remove him. 
  
Jensen admonishes us, “An economics like ours can arise only from a conscious-ness like ours. We need to look to the hidden wounds and presumptions that lead us first to the conceptualization and later to the implementation of our economics. In order to change our economics, we must fundamentally change our consciousness, and in so doing fundamentally change the way we perceive the world.” A change in consciousness this sounds like a spiritual practice to me. Could it be that our consciousness must change to believing that we are beloved of the Creator? And that all life is beloved, intimately known, and loved and cared for?  
  
In Starhawk's futuristic novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing, she describes a society that committed together to believe in love and thus change its fundamental consciousness.  Set about fifty years in the future, things have gotten much worse: genetically engineered human war machines have been created; fundamentalists have taken over most of the planet; resources even as basic as water are in short supply and hoarded by a wealthy ruling class, while the masses suffer grand scale degradation and control. Militaristic powers are attacking a last bastion of those who have held out against the all -consuming economy against all odds. 
  
Faced with a huge militaristic onslaught coming nearer and nearer their city, they have a complete lack of means to defend themselves with weapons. Years ago they chose not to put any of their resources into developing weapons, and to commit to non-violent solutions. Was it naïve to have believed in love? The council of elders meet and decide their course of action as the massive armies approach. The whole city would gather to meet the armies.  Shoulder to shoulder, line after line, in solidarity with one another, men women and children would stand.  Unlike in the Return of the King, they were weaponless. As the killers drew near they called out to the military forces - one continuous chant; "There is room at our table for you. There is room at our table for you." 
  
Line by line the women, the children, the men, were shot down. Row after row of them stepped forward to face the murderers with the invitation. There is room at our table for you. Finally, while there were still some lovers left, the ranks of the enemy broke. They stopped firing, and began to desert the military machine. There was a way out; there was a community of love inviting them to a viable alternative. They chose to believe in love's invitation: there is room at our table for you!" In her story a revolution of love was accomplished. So may it be. 
People are varied enough in their skills that given the thousands of historical revolutions, large and small, someone or some group along the line somewhere it seems would have been able to pull off a solidly egalitarian revolution like this. It seems that having been set on this nonhierarchical path some groups would have been able to maintain it. Well many indigenous cultures have been able to construct and maintain relatively egalitarian societies, like the thousand years of peace of the Iroquois people. As have a few religious groups, like St Francis of Assisi and his band of followers, held to the values of  love for a short while. But especially within mainstream Western culture, these groups are despairingly rare. 
As we have observed in recent history, any small group who does succeed in establishing a peaceful nonhierarchical community is not allowed to survive, for reasons of the Western world economic system. I think of Chiapas, Mexico and how as the peasant’s power and reputation grew, it has been revealed that the US media and corporate lords ordered and paid for them to be executed. This is especially true if this community contains anything of resources useful to those in power. Voluminous evidence supports this. Yet even in those communities which maintain a peaceful egalitarian structure against great odds of the onslaught of outside forces, the governmental and economic forms still eventually revert to the same old patterns of dominance and abuse. Why is this? 
Perhaps revolutions fail because we humans are adaptive – we are so good at getting along in the most atrocious situations – we shuffle along at the expense of actions that would bring a change in those original circumstances that cause our suffering. We shuffle and bow before the established order, taking our place in the line of those satisfied with work we don’t really like for a paycheck and material rewards. Instead of opposing both the old and the new tyrannies we adapt again, perhaps even believing the new slogans for a time. And when the new slogans prove false, amnesia sets in, the most adaptable of all forms of adaptation. Then we die and new adaptable models come along. 
I recall the image of the Jews lined up in a big stadium taken out in groups of ten or so at a time – gun shots heard – they don’t come back –then the next group is ushered out quietly – they don’t put up a fuss – they walk quietly hand in hand with their children to be shot. Why is this? 
Undoubtedly some were in denial until the end, but others must have realized that even when your external choices are removed you can at least still act with dignity. Maybe this is it, instead of creating a revolution, rushing all together and over powering the guards -both tangible and immaterial -we adapt as best we can, and put our heads down to get through the day. 
Then again perhaps those of us striving for egalitarian culture, or even just trying to create a fine, noble, happy life, get tired of this struggle more quickly than those whose wounds, for whatever reason, give them a super-human stamina in their indomitable quest to control and destroy. How passionately do we seek to believe in love, with all our heart and mind and strength and soul ? Perhaps revolutions of love, equality, respect for life fail because those in power believe more adamantly and energetically in fear than we believe in love. 
There is a story of a man who underwent tremendous adversity in his life and still was able to make this difficult paradoxical choice to believe in love.  We can gain courage and insight from how he did it. 
In the summer of 1989, the Harvard Medical Journal published an article about a Tibetan medical doctor named Tenzin Choedrak, who had been a personal physician to the Dalai Lama. Imprisoned in 1959, Dr. Choedrak was held by the Chinese for twenty-one years. 
As he described it, for seventeen of those twenty-one years he was beaten and tortured daily, both physically and psychologically. His life was under daily threat. In the medical journal article he described four points of understanding that made possible for him to survive psychologically and spiritually intact, with a heart that remained open to love and did not close down in anger and fear. 
Dr. Choedrak's first insight was to have seen his situation in a larger context. He saw that even in the most deplorable human circumstances some human greatness could be accomplished; that in the face of great suffering and injustice he could practice love. What a reminder for us as we bring this perspective to our own lives, even in much less trying circumstances. 
His second understanding was that his enemies, his torturers, were human beings like himself. He did not forget the commonality of the human condition and the laws that govern it. The law of karma means that all actions have consequences for the people who perform them, and Dr. Choedrak knew deeply that these people were actually in adverse circumstances, just as he was. They were creating the karma that would bring their own future suffering. But rather than reflecting on the law of karma as a vehicle for revenge, Dr. Choedrak understood karma as a vehicle for compassion. 
His third insight was an understanding of the need to let go of pride and self-importance. He actually attributed his very survival to his ability to let go of self-righteousness, even when it might have felt justified. Letting go of these feelings is an indispensable practice on our spiritual journey. 
The fourth of his insights that allowed him to triumph was the understanding that hatred, anger, and ill will never cease if we act with the same kind of feelings. They cease only in response to love. Dr. Choedrak accepted that there is no viable alternative but to love, hatred and anger would accomplish nothing. 
Therefore, he begs us Westerners at the end of the article, that we too must be vigilant in the search to uncover the very root causes of suffering in our lives, so that suffering in all of us may cease. 
Well, let's take a moment to make this question personal again. Do you believe in love?  Will you close your eyes for a moment and ponder with me, can you remember a time when you felt deeply loved by someone, human or animal, in your life? What was that instance? What were some of the elements of it? Recall the bodily sensations? The thoughts and feelings? Does it cause you to take a sigh of relief just to remember it? 
Now recall a time when you were being hurt or irritated and what did you do?  Did you blow up and forsake love? If you chose to express love when it wasn't easy to do so, what did that look like? Did it cost something? Did this expression of love make any noticeable difference? 
Believing in love made a difference for a woman named Corrie ten Boom. She was a Dutch woman whose family hid the Jews. The only one of her family who lived through the Nazi concentration camps, she was very close to her sister and they entered the camps together. But her sister was beaten in front of her and starved and did not live through the ordeal. One time many years later, Corrie was speaking at a church on the power of God's love to heal and a very difficult test came to her. At the end of the service walking toward her she recognized the very man who had mercilessly beaten her sister. She remembered all of the hatred she had felt toward him then and for all the years that followed. Here, now, walking toward her with his hand outstretched and smiling, after she has just preached on the power of love. What was she to do? Everything in her wanted to scream out at him or at the very least turn away, but she chose in that difficult moment to believe in love and reached out her hand to shake his. In that instant, as she extended her hand in a gesture of love and forgiveness, she was flooded with a sensation of love that literally surged through her arm and hand. The man she touched began to weep and cry out.  Kneeling down, sobbing, he begged her forgiveness. This profound experience reminds us of the fact of grace that can come to help us when we take the leap and put ourselves on the line to believe in love. 
My spiritual friends, will you be one who stakes your life on believing in love? Will you reach out your hand and with your warm human touch say to another, I believe in the power of love? Will you be a community who offers a viable alternative to judgment, hatred and exclusion? Will you believe in love more strongly than others believe in fear? Will you call out above the angry, hateful voices of our times with the radical invitation: “There is room at our table for you!”