Pastoral Prayer
As New
England approaches the final harvest festival—Samhain, Halloween, All
Souls—we enjoy beautiful, crisp autumn days. As the gathering north
wind blows harder and colder, we search for patches of warm sun, mindful
of the shortening days, mindful of the coming winter, mindful that a time
of darkness and rest is upon us.
Nothing
rivals the glory of New England’s autumn. No other region matches its
rich splendor, its apples and cider, its nutmeg and cinnamon, its pies, its
squashes and pumpkins, its oranges, yellows, crimsons, golds and, in the end,
its browns. Brown, the endmost color of all leaves, the last color of autumn,
before winter’s grey and white. Brown, the color of dry grass and the
dead, inner branches of pine trees. Brown, the color of soil, the color of
dirt, the color of earth. After autumn’s beauty has shown forth, after its
grandeur has lifted our spirits, after its fanfare has filled us with inspiration,
it all finally gives way to dark, brown earth. No more pageantry. No more colorful
fanfare. Only dry brown leaves, decaying on the floors of New England woods,
settling into dust and dirt, becoming part and parcel of the dark, brown earth.
On this
beautiful day in mid-autumn, let us remember our oneness with the dark, brown
earth. Let us remember our origins in the dark, brown earth. Let us remember
our final return to the dark, brown earth. Let us remember so many generations
of human beings and their precursors, who lived as one with the dark, brown
earth; their gods and goddesses one with the dark, brown earth—their
names and powers perhaps forgotten, but their spirit still infused in the dust
and muck of the dark, brown earth.
On this
beautiful autumn day, no matter what forces conspire to keep us distant from
the earth, callous towards the earth, fearful of the earth and all its wild
things; no matter what forces conspire to instill in us a desire to keep our
hands clean, let us find some way to embrace the dark, brown earth; let us
find some way to touch the dark, brown earth; let us find some way to offer
thanks to the dark, brown earth; let us find some way to love the dark, brown
earth. Let us find some way to work and play in the dark, brown earth. Amen
and Blessed.
First Reading
Genesis 25: 24 – 34
When
her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first
came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. Afterward
his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was
named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
When the
boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was
a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game;
but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was
famished. Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff,
for I am famished!” (Therefore he was called Edom.) Jacob said, “First
sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what
use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So
he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread
and lentil stew and he ate and drank and went his way. Thus Esau despised
his birthright.
Second Reading
Excerpt from “Spirituality and Native American Personhood:
Sovereignty and Solidarity”
By George Tinker
Lakota peoples … have a short prayer that captures the general cultural and spiritual sentiment of all native Americans. Mitakuye ouyasin, they pray, “For all my relatives.” In this prayer relatives are understood to include not just tribal members but all two-leggeds, and not just two-leggeds but indeed all “createds” of the world: the four leggeds, the wingeds, and all the living-moving things, the trees and rocks, mountains and rivers, fish and snakes, and so on. It is for this reason, then, that not even an animal or tree is harmed without appropriate spiritual reciprocity in the American Indian world. In the act of hunting or harvesting, ceremonial acts of reciprocity must be performed in order to maintain the balance and harmony of the world in the midst of perpetrating an act of violence. To act without such responsibility is to introduce imbalance and disharmony into the world. All the createds of the world are our relatives and command our respect as fellow createds.
And the First Shall Be Last
The Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek
Unitarian Universalist Society: East
Manchester, CT
October 22, 2006
Have
you heard the saying, “the first shall be last, and the last shall
be first?” It’s a Biblical saying, a Jesus saying. It appears
in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It
is what Jesus says to people who ask about salvation. He answers their questions
and then adds, “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” So,
in the context of the Christian New Testament this saying offers wisdom about
salvation. But I contend if we look deeply enough into this saying, we will
find staring back at us evidence of humanity collectively moving, over centuries,
from a state of embeddedness in nature to a state of dominion over nature.
We will find an increasing fear of the earth and wild things. We will find
an increasing need to subdue and control nature. We will find ancient and
still potent theological misconceptions about humanity’s relationship
to the whole of life. We will find the remnants, not of a golden age—for
no such age ever existed—but rather of a time when human beings lived
in right relationship with the earth. And the question will be—and
it is a critical question for our time—how do we rekindle that right
relationship?
This sermon
is about our Unitarian Universalist connection to Earth-centered religious
traditions. This is the third sermon in a series on the sources or building
blocks of our Unitarian Universalist living tradition. I’ve preached
on Judaism and Humanism. This morning I’m addressing the sixth UU source, spiritual
teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of
life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature. On
the surface, the connections seem obvious. We love and care for the earth.
We value sustainability, simplicity, environmental justice, recycling, composting,
organic gardening, passive solar architecture, geo-thermal energy systems,
etc. Below the surface, the connections are not as obvious. Though Unitarians
and Universalists have drawn inspiration from nature in a very intentional
way since the Transcendentalist movement of the 1800s, our tradition is not
an Earth-centered tradition in the same way that, for example, Native American
religions are. It is one thing to draw spiritual inspiration from nature. It
is another thing entirely to be Earth-centered, to live collectively in an
Earth-centered way. Such living is radically different than what most of us
are used to. We are slowly moving towards it, but still have a long way and
many generations to go.
The identification
of Earth-centered traditions as a spiritual source for Unitarian Universalism
is very new relative to the other five sources. When the Unitarian Universalist
Association’s General Assembly adopted the language that describes our
sources twenty-five years ago, Earth-centered traditions were not included.
Open your hymnal and find the statement of Unitarian Universalist principles
after the preface. There you will find the language describing the sources
beginning in the middle of the page. If the hymnal in your hands is from the
first print run in 1993, Earth-centered traditions isn’t included. They
were added as a source in the mid-1990s. The absence of this source from the
original list speaks to me about a certain degree of ambivalence we still hold
toward Earth-centered traditions—a certain degree of distance still residing
between ourselves and Earth-centered traditions.
“The
first shall be last and the last shall be first.” What does this cryptic,
Biblical saying have to do with Earth-centered traditions? The reading from
Genesis 25 provides some insight—though I must warn you: what you are
about to hear is not standard Biblical criticism and might not be taken seriously
by most Biblical scholars. It is somewhat speculative criticism in the tradition
of Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael.
In Genesis
25 we heard the story of the birth of twins, Esau and Jacob. Jacob is the famous
brother. He is one of the fathers of Judaism, one of the patriarchs—the
son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham, and father of Joseph. Esau was born first.
Jacob was born last. In ancient Jewish tradition, as in many cultures, the
birthright goes to the first-born male. In this story, Jacob, the last-born,
figures out a way to acquire the birthright from Esau. They switch places in
the familial order. The first becomes last; the last becomes first. This is
a consistent pattern in Genesis. Ishmael was born to Abraham first, Isaac was
born second, but the birthright went to Isaac. Joseph was born second-to-last
of twelve brothers to Jacob, but he received the birthright. The first
shall be last; the last shall be first.
Who was
Esau who lost his birthright? What does he represent? In Jewish tradtion he
is the father of the Edomites. Some Rabbis see him as the father of the Christians.
But I’m looking at something else. Remember the birth scene: “the
first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle.” Red,
like the color of the earth; hairy, like an animal. When Esau grows up, he
is “a skillful hunter, a man of the field.” I
take this to mean he is wise in the ways of the earth. His brother, Jacob,
is “a quiet man, living in tents.” Jacob
is later portrayed as refined, settled, sophisticated, intelligent. He’s
cosmopolitan, though that is not a term the ancient Hebrews used. Esau is portrayed
as a brute, driven by instinct and hunger—he comes in from the field
and says, “I’m famished.” The Biblical writer wants the reader
to experience Esau as an animal, as a creature of the earth. Jacob is elevated
above the earth, above the animals, above the wildness of nature. We are led,
as readers, to abhor Esau, and in the process to shun our own earthly, animal
nature. Instead we are encouraged to admire the elevated Jacob who easily manipulates
his brutish twin to acquire the family birthright.
Do you see it? The Biblical writer leads us away from a sense of being embedded
in nature, part of the earth, interdependent—towards a sense of distance
from the earth, an attitude of dominion over the earth. Jacob is born grasping
Esau’s heel. The name, Jacob, is a play on the Hebrew word for “heel” suggesting “he
takes by the heel” or “he supplants.” The son who lives
in tents supplants the son who is of the earth. The first shall be last;
the last shall be first.
This story
is one small example of a larger human movement away from embeddedness in nature,
a movement which was quite common throughout the ancient world, stemming back
at least to 2,000 BC and taking place over many thousands of years—perhaps
still taking place today in some quarters. We can also see this movement
very clearly in the way the ancient goddess traditions, which were very much
Earth-centered traditions, were supplanted by male, warrior and sky god traditions.
In the Babylonian epic poem of creation, Enuma elish, the Goddess
Tiamat, a huge, chaotic female dragon, the primordial mother of all that exists,
is defeated by her grandson, Marduk, who then becomes the supreme deity. In
the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the God-Man Gilgamesh refuses
the romantic advances of Ishtar (also known as Innana) the mother goddess,
fertility goddess, the goddess of spring, goddess of storms, goddess of the
hunt, goddess of marriage and childbirth. He heaps insults upon her; and then
destroys the Bull of Heaven which she sends to do battle with him. The rebuke
and defeat of Ishtar are often interpreted as evidence of the great shift from
worship of female dieties to worship of male deities. Wrapped up within this
shift is a movement from an assumption of human embeddedness in nature to an
assumption of human dominion over nature. The first shall be last; the last
shall be first.
Or consider
Athena, who reigned as a local goddess on Minoan Crete for many centuries.
Like so many female deities, she was associated with aspects of the natural
world: the owl of wisdom; the serpent of rejuvenation; weaving and other crafts.
Yet when the Minoans were finally defeated, Athena was abducted and changed
to reflect a more patriarchal world-view. Feminist theologian, Charlene Spretnak,
writes, “the flowering of the Minoans was slashed. Northern barbarians,
more fierce than the Aegean Goddess had ever known, invaded the island and
carried Athena away to Attica. There they made Her a soldier.” She
dons a helmut and sword, and becomes a Goddess of War.
Isis, the
ancient Egyptian goddess, known as the “Queen of Heaven, Mother of the
Gods, The One Who is All, Lady of Green Crops, The Brilliant One in the Sky,
Star of the Sea, Great Lady of Magic, goddess of magic, fertility, nature,
motherhood, and [the] underworld” —Isis
was more successful at surviving in-tact through this period of transition.
The religion of Isis was international, spreading far beyond Egypt south into
Africa, east towards Persia; throughout the Mediterranean lands, and as far
north as the British Isles. But in time her star faded and Isis worship was
eventually banned by the Roman Catholic Church in the 6th century A.D. (If
you’re following the evolution of the drawing on the cover of our order
of service, Eric Vogel has added an image of Isis as a way to symbolize the
teachings of Earth-centered traditions.)
This vast
human movement towards dominion over the earth didn’t end with the destruction,
decline, co-optation and banning of the ancient goddess religions. We know
all too well that European settlers brought their assumptions about the earth
to the western hemisphere and committed war and genocide against the first
nations of this land. They brought strange ideas about property rights, erecting
fences, and signing treaties they refused to uphold; strange ideas about stealing
land; about cutting down trees until none were left; about hunting wild game
without asking permission of the Gods and the game itself; about slaughtering
the buffalo; about “civilizing” the children of the first nations
so that the ancient ways of reciprocity with the earth and the very language
in which the ancestors spoke would be forgotten. Tens of millions of first
nations Esaus, grasped firmly at the heel by a growing population of European
Jacobs, supplanting them on their ancestral lands, acquiring their birthright
in any way they could, so that the first would be last, and the last would
be first.
This history
is painful. It creates a gulf between Unitarian Universalism and Earth-centered
traditions. We are not the natural heirs of the Earth-centered traditions.
Rather, as a movement, we are heirs to the Puritans, the first Europeans to
settle on this land. We are heirs to the religious traditions that cast out
the goddesses, banned their worship and killed their followers. We are heirs
to the traditions that sought to distance humanity from the earth, sought to
elevate humanity above the earth, sought to define the earth as fallen, sinful,
and evil. We are heirs to the invaders, not the invaded.
And yet,
despite this legacy of dominion we inherit from ages past, our Unitarian Universalist
allegiances are shifting—and have been shifting for decades. 200 years
ago, when our Unitarian and Universalist forbears rejected the harsh and damning
Puritan theology, they opened theological pathways that would enable us, their
spiritual descendents, to love and value the wisdom of Earth-centered traditions
in ways they couldn’t yet imagine. Today we are able to acknowledge the
incredible violence that has been done to first nations people throughout the
world, and the incredible violence that has been done to the earth. We are
beginning to acknowledge how our own way of life, until this time, has not
been in right relationship with the earth, and we are able to say, “that’s
not how we want to be.” We are beginning to identify more and more, spiritually
and politically, with those who inherit the Earth-centered traditions, those
whose ancestors were made last through processes of invasion, colonization
and genocide, through the murder of goddesses, through the stealing of birthrights,
through subverting the original order of things. We are beginning to be able
to ask the question, what does it mean for us to make ourselves accountable
to first nations people in their struggle for justice? Our allegiances are
shifting.
When we
see our children harvesting organic vegetables they planted six months ago
and then roasting them on a Sunday morning and serving them to us, we are witnessing
a new movement back towards right relationship with the earth. When we institute
composting and recycling and energy-saving devices at UUS:E, we are witnessing
a new movement back towards right relationship with the earth. When we hire
an architect who offers designs for a building situated on the land in such
a way that it can use the sun, wind, rain, shadows, and ground water for heating
and cooling we are witnessing a new movement back towards right relationship
with the earth. When Unitarian Universalists said, in 1979, that women ought
to be equal in numbers to men in our ministry, and thus opened the door to
feminist theology, feminine images of the divine, goddess worship and Neo-Paganism,
we were witnessing a new movement back towards right relationship with the
earth. The Unitarian Universalist movement to teach healthy human sexuality;
our movement to welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, to ordain
them to ministry, to bless their marriages; our movement to confront racism
and the legacies of colonialism—each of these efforts, I contend, seeks
to heal massive social and spiritual wounds whose deepest roots lie in the
soil of humanity’s great turning away from right relationship with the
earth.
As we come into right relationship with the earth, we begin to see—really see—that the greatest lie ever told—and it has been told in a myriad of ways over the millennia—is that some are first and some are last. The Lakota people have a prayer, Mitakuye ouyasin, “For all my relatives.” As George Tinker points out, “no one can be left out….We all belong.” And this refers not just to humanity, but to all living things. This is the great spiritual teaching of Earth-centered traditions. No one and no thing can be left out. We all belong. This is the wisdom that was supplanted and banned and destroyed. No one can be left out. We all belong. This is the original legacy, the claiming of which Unitarian Universalists have set as a cherished goal. No one can be left out. Everyone belongs. This is our path into the future, our path to healing. For all my relatives. For all my relatives. For all my relatives. Amen and Blessed Be.
Tinker, George “Spirituality and Native American Personhood: Sovereignty and Solidarity” in Abraham, K.C. and Mbuy-Beya, Bernadette, eds., Spirituality of the Third World (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994) p.128.
I am basing this discussion of Gligamesh and Ishtar on lecture notes from a seminary course in world religions. The Epic Of Gilgamesh is an easy book to find and quick to read. Many editions have been published over the years. The stories of Gilgamesh are filled with themes related to the shift in human thinking from embeddedness in nature to control over nature: The cutting down of the cedar forest to build his city; the efforts to civilize Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s friend who is part man and part beast; and Gilgamesh’s anxiety about death and his search for eternal life. In all of this there is an attempt to distance humanity from nature, from wildness, from perceived chaos, and even from death.
This list of epithets for Isis comes from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis.
Tinker, George “Spirituality and Native American Personhood: Sovereignty and Solidarity” in Abraham, K.C. and Mbuy-Beya, Bernadette, eds., Spirituality of the Third World (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994) p.128.
