A House Divided

A sermon offered by the Reverend Hilary Landau Krivchenia
August 29, 2004
The Unitarian Universalist Church at Lafayette, Indiana

Sermon

“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it” said Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois in 1858.  He continued, “agitation … has constantly augmented… it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

As Mr. Lincoln was quoting scripture, he was mourning the deep division in America over the dire matter of slavery.  He was mourning but he was also trying to speak to the consciences of the legislators who were gathered there – the passage in the gospel of Mark continues, “no one can enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house.”  He was warning the people that it was paramount to resist being tied up by political manipulation – string by string until powerless to speak for the good or act in good faith.

Now, I know you didn’t come here this morning for a political discussion – but I am certain that, for many of us, myself included, political matters are much with us now.

It’s pretty risky talking about politics at church.  There are good reasons and there are laws that limit what one – in particular a minister – may say in the pulpit about parties and candidates.  It is even riskier to avoid it altogether – because the honest-Abe truth is that religion has always been engaged in politics – has always been the point of origin for the politics of most nations.  We maintain our distance at the risk of ceding the ground that was so hard won by our forbears.  So I won’t tell you who to vote for or who not to vote for.  The right to conscience is part of our principles.  But it isn’t simply a right – it is a responsibility.  My work is to call you back again and again to that responsibility.

The House United that Lincoln envisioned has never quite come to pass and today all around us are the gloom and doom pundits -- those prophets whose profit depends upon our remaining deeply divided as a nation.  Just as Lincoln was looking to draw the nation together by reminding them of deeper religious ground and the call to living in the spirit – so am I seeking – not so lofty a goal – nor from so lofty a place – but seeking the foundations that can reunite our house – our nation and our world – because of our differences.  We have never finished the work of Reconstruction – perhaps that’s because we never quite constructed our more perfect union in the first place.  Our divisions are historic and they are real as well as manufactured. That makes it more complicated.

At this year’s Democratic National Convention former President Bill Clinton said: “We are constantly told America is deeply divided. But all Americans value freedom, faith, and family. We all honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform… want good jobs, good schools, health care, safe streets, a clean environment … want our children to grow up in a secure America leading the world toward a peaceful future. At every turning point in our history we the people have chosen unity over division, heeding our founders' call to America's eternal mission: to form a more perfect union, to widen the circle of opportunity, deepen the reach of freedom, and strengthen the bonds of community. In the early days of the republic, America was at a crossroads much like it is today, deeply divided over whether or not to build a real nation with a national economy and legal system. In the Civil War, America was at a crossroads, divided over whether to save the union and end slavery. In the 1960s, America was at a crossroads, divided over civil rights and women's rights. Again, and again we chose a more perfect union.”

All is a pretty big word – but you have to give the man points as a speaker.  We are deeply divided – as we have been at other points in our history and in quite similar ways.  Think tanks both conservative and liberal admit that we are divided – this week in the New York Times I discovered a book – crammed with demographic research and, I might add, crammed with impassioned partisan arguments.  I admit I skimmed the arguments and looked more at the maps and read the tables.  The book called, interestingly, The Great Divide, divides the population into roughly two groups – and of course these are rough groups – you can’t slice people clean into groups like this – not really – the groups are called the Retros and the Metros.  Blech. The phrasing alone seems divisive.

The book’s strength is that it gives a giant serving of data to support the contention that: Retro America’s communal earmarks are conservative religiosity; social conservatism; an economic base of extraction industries, agriculture, nondurable goods manufacturing, military installations; and a commitment to one Party.  Current Retro America is defined as an grouping of contiguous geographic regions.  Retro America is large in expanse but relatively small in population. Its 25 states hold 66 percent of the land mass and 35 percent of the population, and a population density of 42 persons per square mile.

Metro states are loosely connected by common interests in promoting economic modernity, shared cultural values marked by religious moderation; a tolerance of differences of class, ethnicity, tastes, and sexual orientation; a support of inclusive civil rights, and a tendency with some exceptions to vote with the other party. Metro America is not geographically contiguous—New England, Middle Atlantic, Great Lakes states, and West Coast, plus Colorado and Arizona.  With 34 percent of the land mass, it has 65 percent of the population, and a density of 151 persons per square mile. It produces the bulk of the nation’s tax revenue. This is not surprising information or a radically new picture – as you read this book or recent research published by the Pew Institute and others.

It is not surprising to discover that our elections are close because we are a nation divided and that we are divided along lines that are both real and manufactured. 

Our divisions are particularly useful for people who wish to use them to further divide us – geographically, socially, and politically.  It can be hard to discern critical versus non-critical differences.  There are, indeed, critical differences that people hold – just as slavery was a critical difference – there are irreconcilable differences.  But I would challenge us to find an issue now that is truly, really, deeply, irreconcilable -- instead – I think that everywhere we look we find issues that have been used to drive wedges which are quite profitable in setting the political stage. But it is hard to find an issue that in conscience should be used to drive apart an actually more perfect union.

Okay – unity, itself can be used as a wedge – particularly when it means homogeneity.  We may share broad characteristics – but the poet spoke the truth when she said: “I've not seen any two/who really were the same.”

False unity can slam the door in someone’s face when they cannot be identical to the norm that is expected – and none of us is truly identical.  Even in the demographic studies of the great Divide it is clear that we are divided but two poles are somewhat permeable.  Swing voters.

All around us we can see signs and stickers that say “United We Stand.”  But what does that mean? Bill Moyers said, “A slogan is a dangerous thing.  Those who create it can loose control of its meaning.  It can mean everything or nothing.”  So when I contemplate those signs and stickers I find myself asking – what do they mean?  Do they mean that we all stand here, like this, in this place or else?  Or do they mean that we all stand together firmly, respecting our honest differences and seeking a more perfect union?  I always hope they mean the second interpretation.

It can be hard to discern honest differences in an environment of fear – but we’re not naturally fearful – in fact fear is so important to understand and to wrestle with that it will be the next part of this sermon series.  It’s important to realize that we’re neither naturally fearful nor divided – we are a fragile and dependent creature.  We depend upon one another for survival, for learning, we depend upon the gifts of this earth for our health and well-being.  We must trust and cooperate from infancy and this trust and cooperation can be used for us and be nurtured in us or misused and turned against us.  But we will trust and depend – because we have no choice – we are all the same in that way.

Because I’m standing at a pulpit it’s essential to confess that much of the division between us can be laid at the door of religion.  Religion can create real or false unity.  It can create a sense of superiority and judgment or acceptance and understanding.  In the present and the past – in this nation and others – people are worked into a frenzy of disdain for those who are defined as other.

I came to this work because I came to realize that by any name – the thing you hold most deeply, by which you live – that is your religion – whether you practice it at church or at home.  When I hear hate-filled and divisive rhetoric, I know that there is a hidden religion that the speaker is holding, beyond Christianity, Judaism, Islam -- something that shapes them as much as they shape it. 

Many religions have a sense of special place, chosen-ness, election – but far more deeply each religion points toward a unity – that is meant – like Paul of Tarsus said – to make of the people one body with different aspects and gifts, or like the Hindu wheel of life, meant to cycle people through lives and experiences until the oneness of being is recognized – profoundly recognized.  It depends on in whose hands the religion is wielded.

Even our Unitarian Universalist history has episodes of division that stratified and separated us.  Here’s a flyby: Class differences, gender disparities, urban and rural contrast, reason versus feeling, deism versus theism versus atheism versus pantheism, science versus poetry, art versus measurement, ministry versus secular political purpose… to name a few.  This is a house in which we balance differences and have been tempted as others are tempted – to see in stark terms, in sharper contrasts than are real – but that is not where our true history nor our true commitments stand.

I have a belief – that our faith holds a great promise to point beyond rhetoric and dogma to that deeper unity – among paths of faith, paths of life, geographical regions, diverse people, and even moral challenges.  And I have a hope – that this can be – and more, I think that it must be a house in which we practice standing together and finding a deeper unity.

We’re not simply about colliding our differences – nor must we be about tiptoeing our differences around each other.  We are, at our best, about thinking, living more deeply and learning because of our differences.  We are religious liberals – which means that we believe that the truth is ever unfolding and that we choose to have our minds open and ready and our hearts pointed toward that which is life-generating, benevolent, and generous. It means that we really believe that there are many paths to the river – and that we experience wonders as we bear witness to and learn from one another’s paths. 

Nice as that sounds it’s demanding.  Creative tension involves – well – tension – that sudden uneasiness of which Neruda wrote.  To be creative in our differences means that we have to engage on a deeper level – to be a religion of insights rather than sound bytes.  This requires far more than that we know ourselves or have an urge to persuade others of our good ideas – it requires that we participate with a firm, open-minded respect for the insights of others – and the willingness to be transformed by them.  Our differences can be used to divide us or to spark between us understandings we couldn’t have alone.  Again – not by creating false unity in homogeneity but through real unity in diversity.

So – just as, in too many houses of worship, there are voices preaching division – in our house let us speak of creating something new out of our differences.  Let us be a house in which the challenges that touch our world -- and often arise from the multitudes of religions – in hands that are loving and hands that would rend us apart – let us be a house in which our hands fashion a generous, vast wholeness.  

Yes, we do live in fierce times.  Sometimes our differences are frightening – facing someone who believes that you are condemned to hell can be unsettling, facing someone who is filled with hatred, can be unsettling and even dangerous.  It can be tempting to judge in return and to condemn.  We can – out of habit and short sighted self-protection – choose to hold ourselves apart and take refuge in this house. 

Here in this house we are trying the very thing that is needed – and while our times are fierce, as a nation we have endured other harsh times – and sometimes risen above our habits.  As a faith we have moved with those times and been moved by them.  We are of the lineage of a progressive history in the social sphere.  As a liberal religion we are the heirs of an open spirit that envisions and labors to blaze a new path.

We can see that there are deep differences – but we need not entrench in despair.  It is not only those whose minds are narrowed who become the strong person tied up helpless in his own house – it is also those who, fearful, are silent in the bright challenge of the day.

Rather, we can be part of the long standing effort to unite our larger house.  To be a vocal reminder in the larger community that our differences have sparked greater visions.  When we come here on Sunday to see one another’s friendly faces – that is only a part of what we really seek – our yearning for community is embedded in a desire for a world in which there is acceptance, openness and hope.  That’s not something that arises passively – we make it with our actions.  So rather than despairing of our deep social divisions or glossing them over – we can take them on – seriously and with a desire for that house united. We cannot avoid this challenge in wistfulness.  Our divisions will not lessen unless there is a voice that speaks again for that union – a strong, faithful voice.

At the Illinois Convention Mr. Lincoln continued: “Our cause, then, must be entrusted to, and conducted by, its own friends -- those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work -- who … care for the result.  Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under … constant hot fire …….Did we brave all then, to falter now? -- The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail -- if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.”

If we stand firm.  Let ours be a house where we stand firm and speak for our path among paths, for the clear mind and the generous spirit.  The challenges are great – and we face a season in which it is possible that no one will really speak and even fewer will really listen beneath the labels which divide to the needs and issues which matter – but here we can do both – seeking not the shorthand for our thoughts but expressing ourselves from our honest hopes and desires for a more perfect union.  Let us recollect the words of the poet in the silence between us:

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.

be together

in a sudden uneasiness.

perhaps a great silence would

interrupt this sadness

Service Cover reading:

From Too Many Names By Pablo Neruda

No one can claim the name of Pedro,
nobody is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain under rain.

They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,
of Chiles and of Paraguays;
I have no idea what they are saying.
I know only the skin of the earth
and I know it is without a name.

When I lived amongst the roots
they pleased me more than flowers did,
and when I spoke to a stone
it rang like a bell.

It is so long, the spring
which goes on all winter.
Time lost its shoes.
A year is four centuries.

When I sleep every night,
what am I called or not called?
And when I wake, who am I
if I was not while I slept? 

This means to say that scarcely
have we landed into life
than we come as if new-born;
let us not fill our mouths
with so many faltering names,
with so many sad formallities,
with so many pompous letters,
with so much of yours and mine,
with so much of signing of papers.

I have a mind to confuse things,
unite them, bring them to birth,
mix them up, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the oneness of the ocean,
a generous, vast wholeness,
a effervescent fragrance. 

Service Readings:

Native American Story of Unknown Nation Origin

An Native American Elder was telling his granddaughter about a fight that was going on inside himself. He said it wass between two wolves. One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.  The other wass good: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The granddaughter thought about it for a minute and then asked her grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"

The elder simply replied, "The one I feed."

Maya Angelou: Human Family

I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.

Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.

The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.

I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land.
I've seen the wonders of the world,
not yet one common man.

I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.

Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.

We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.

We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.

I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

Keeping Quiet

Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

 This one time upon the earth,
let's not speak any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing. 

What I want shouldn't be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,

I want nothing to do with death.
If we weren't unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I'll go.

-from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon

Translated by Stephen Mitchell