A sermon by Barbara W. ten Hove –
Sunday, Sept. 25, 2005 —
Paint Branch UU Church

Call to Worship (by Toni Vincent, from Been in the Storm So Long)

Here in this holy place, on this day of fading summer and beckoning fall, let us give ourselves to the spirit of the moment and find the sacred oneness which binds all life together. 
Knowing that much is beyond our ability to change, life calls us still to act in compassion and fairness where the opportunity presents itself.
Let us seize the strength of ritual; remember, renew and relive the taste of hard-fought struggles in the human search for justice.
We are hungry for the lessons of the past and for guidance toward the promise of the future. May we be open to all that expands our awareness, and welcome all to enter our embrace. Amen.

Sermon — War and Innocence (Follows Hymn #159, This is My Song)

“Oh hear my song, thou God of all the nations; a song of peace for their land and for mine.”

As many of you know, I am a fan of prayer. So it is not surprising that I love this hymn. It is a prayer, a prayer put to music, and it says, in inspiring ways, the prayer that I pray at least once a week if not more. “Peace, dear God, peace.”

You can’t pick up the paper or turn on the news these days without becoming quickly aware of how troubled our planet is. Hurricanes and war, poverty and racism, environmental degradation and inept leaders – I call this a recipe for disaster. And it is disaster we have witnessed in these last few weeks. Human and natural, disasters have piled upon themselves until it seems as if we will all collapse under their weight. Perhaps we will. But for the moment, it does not surprise me to hear the prayers of many people crying out – “Why, God? Why? Why are so many innocent people suffering? Why!?”

Late last fall, Carol Carter Walker purchased the right (at our church auction) to direct the topic of a sermon Jaco or I would give. When Carol told me her topic nearly a year ago, I was not to know how pertinent it would be on this Sunday. For Carol asked me that hard question: Why do the innocent suffer? How could Carol and I know that between the war in Iraq and two devastating hurricanes, we would see image after image of suffering? Her topic, given to me in the abstract many months ago, has become terribly real.

Carol and I talked last week about why this topic so interested her, and I think it is relevant to tell you a bit of her story today. So with her permission, I do so.

When Carol was about 13 years old, growing up in Washington, DC, she spent the summer, as do many kids of this age, reading. But any of you who know Carol will not be surprised to hear that while her young friends might have preferred Nancy Drew or even JRR Tolkien, Carol was reading the classics. And one such classic she read at that tender age was The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

This book had a tremendous impact on young Carol, particularly the famous chapter called, “The Grand Inquisitor.” For those of us who did not read the book (and I admit I did not until Carol asked me to) it helps to know a little bit about this chapter. In it, one of the brothers tells a story about a “Grand Inquisitor” – a bishop empowered by the Roman Catholic Church to interrogate and punish heretics. The chapter begins with these words, “He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, everyone recognized Him.” The “him” of whom the writer speaks is not the Grand Inquisitor – no, it is Jesus Christ himself. Yes, this story imagines that Jesus appears in a town where the Grand Inquisitor has been at work, rounding up and punishing heretics. And even as the people recognize Jesus and allow themselves to be touched and healed by him, they have no qualms about turning him over to the Grand Inquisitor when asked.

So it is in a cell that the conversation, entirely one-sided, begins. For the Grand Inquisitor treats Jesus as a heretic, even as he accepts that it truly is Christ before him. And the one-sided conversation by the Bishop makes clear his views. He does not trust the loving freedom and healing Jesus offers but instead believes humans need a stifling dogma that brooks no dissent.

What Carol remembers about her summer of reading is that the books she read, including the Brothers Karamazov, changed her worldview significantly. Like many here in this room, Carol grew up in a traditional Christian home. Her particular brand of Christianity was Christian Methodist Episcopal – a common religious community for African Americans in Washington, DC. As a child, Carol grew up with parents who offered competing worldviews; one parent accepting the dogma of the church with little complaint, the other always a skeptic. Nonetheless, Carol as a child was content in her church and her belief in a God on high who loved her and took care of her.

But like so many at age 13 (and it is no wonder this is when so many religions celebrate the entry into spiritual adulthood), Carol began to question. If God was the judging God about whom she was taught, why did so many bad people get away with their crimes? And if God was also the loving God the church spoke of, then why do the innocent suffer? To young Carol, this kind of God did not make any sense. And her slow but sure journey to Unitarian Universalism had begun.

As a Unitarian Universalist today, Carol, like many of us, has left behind the “man on the throne with a beard” kind of God. But as we talked about this sermon, she acknowledged that the question still plagues her. “Why do the innocent suffer?” And so I turn again to that question.

The first thing that must be said in response to it is this: God is not the one who causes suffering. Or perhaps it would make more sense to say that any God who intentionally causes suffering (for our own good, or to punish our sins) is, according to our Universalist theology, not God at all. The God to whom I pray does not separate us into saved and unsaved, worthy or unworthy, guilty or innocent. As my colleague Robert Hardies [Senior Minister, All Souls Unitarian in Washington, DC] has said, the God of our faith is not a God of Some Souls, but the God of All Souls.

This is important to understand because so many people do believe in a God of Some Souls. I was struck, throughout the horror of Katrina, how folks saw the hand of God in all that happened. One pastor of a church in Texas suggested that God was punishing New Orleans for being a cesspool of sin. And yet another minister was preaching on how God saved many Christians from the storm so He must love them a lot. Contradictions indeed.

That’s why I think it important that we look at the question “Why do the innocent suffer” from a different angle. Let’s explore for a moment the concept of innocence. It’s a loaded word. Most of us are familiar with it in a “Law and Order” sort of way. When someone commits a crime, they are innocent (meaning they didn’t do it) or they are guilty (meaning they did). But one can also look at the word more generally. The innocent victims of Katrina, for example, might be those who did as they were told (evacuate to higher ground) but were still injured or killed by the storm. In the war in Iraq, innocent victims are usually considered children or women, who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But I think that there is a quality of innocence that goes beyond whether victims deserved what they got or not. If we believe, as our principles challenge us to, that all people have worth and dignity, then to at least some degree all people are innocent—if by this we mean they are not inherently sinful. But if we carry this even further, one could argue that no one is innocent, that all people share in the good and bad stuff of what it means to be human. I think, as least as far as God is concerned, we are neither guilty nor innocent. We are simply people who have the potential to do right or wrong.

And that brings me right back to, of all things, the Grand Inquisitor. When Carol asked me to read this chapter in The Brothers Karamazov, she expected I would find a great debate about innocence and suffering, which is how she remembered it from her childhood. But childhood memories are inexact. The one-sided debate the Grand Inquisitor has with Jesus says nothing about innocence. The Grand Inquisitor never asks Jesus that loaded question, “Why do the innocent suffer?” So at first, Carol thought her memory was faulty. But as we talked and as I inquired more deeply into the Grand Inquisitor, I discovered at least one way of answering Carol’s question. For the Grand Inquisitor makes it clear that he has enormous power over others. And thus I came to at least one answer to the question of why the innocent suffer. They suffer because they are powerless. And far too often, it is the powerful who cause the suffering.

Almost three years ago, the powerful leaders of this nation made a decision to go to war. We know now that these leaders lied to us. War in Iraq, we were told, was necessary because Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. He didn’t. War was necessary because the September 11th terrorists were supported by Iraq. They weren’t. We were told that war would make us safer. It hasn’t. And we were told that the Iraqi people would greet us with open arms and hostilities would be over in a few months. No, and yet again no.

And yet we went to war anyway. The war wasn’t necessary but it was inevitable. Why? Because the people in power decided that they would take us to war. And, unfortunately, no one else had enough power to stop them.

And so thousands have died. 2000 US troops. Tens of thousands of Iraqi people. And thousands of others, American and Iraqi, have been injured and maimed. And yet we are told to “stay the course.” And the killing and dying just goes on and on.

And thus do the innocent suffer. Not because God is punishing them but because they have very little power to stop what is causing their suffering.

The innocent also suffered during Hurricane Katrina. Where were the buses to take the poor citizens of that city to shelter? Why wasn’t food and water brought to people who desperately needed it? Where was the National Guard who might have provided order? (We know where they were–in Iraq.)

I am not unaware of the reality that powerful people were also displaced by this awesome hurricane. We heard quite a bit about poor Trent Lott’s vacation home being destroyed. But few among the rich and powerful suffered anything close to what the poor and powerless did. The rich and powerful had the resources to get out.

This gap between rich and poor, powerful and powerless is growing. Such a gap is dangerous, for we have already seen the blind eye those in power often turn toward those who have little. And this is not simply a national problem. It is global in scale.

So what are we to do?

I think the most important thing we can do is to work to broaden the base of power to include more people. Power in and of itself does not have to be a bad thing. Power over others is profoundly dangerous, for the powerful and the powerless alike. But power with others can change the world.

Unitarian Universalists are powerful people. We are extremely well educated. Most of us are generally well off. And here in the DC area, many folks are in positions of power in our government. I believe it is time for us to use our power. To use it wisely and well to make our nation and world a better place.

How might we do this? Let’s begin with faith. Let’s have enough of it to speak the truth to those who, as my friend Rob Hardies has said, “believe in a God of Some Souls and dare to call that the Good News.” We need to find a way to move beyond our vaunted tolerance toward everything and everybody, and take a stand. Our faith in the oneness of all creation with love at its heart is a desperately needed message. Let us not be afraid to preach it, to speak it, and to teach it.

Second, let’s not be ashamed to use our power. Yesterday [Sept. 24], thousands of people gathered 10 miles from here [in Washington, DC] to proclaim to our government and the world that war is not the answer. Can we channel that power into policy? Can we work in coalition with others to bring an end to a government that moves further and further away from democracy and closer every day to a regime? Can we work in our own local communities to help the poor here as much as we have helped those impacted by these terrible storms? We can and we must.

And third, let us remember that there is power in everyone. The poor and disenfranchised may seem powerless, but that is not necessarily so. Those in power have mostly rendered them powerless. Thus, it is imperative that we support them in reclaiming what is already theirs – their power. So we need to pay attention to their ideas, to their vision for their lives, and not try to just go and fix them. We have much to offer that is true. But we also have much to learn.

When I planned this service, I called it War and Innocence because I knew I wanted to talk about both. But perhaps it would be better titled Power and Innocence. For the more I read and thought and prayed, the more I realized that until we get some handle on this power gap that is so great, the potential for war and suffering just gets larger and larger. I know, as I expect you do, that we will never end suffering all together. All people, if we live long enough, will experience loss and grief and pain at some point in our lives. And it will take a very long time to move toward a world free of poverty and war.

But we must start somewhere. Innocent people (and I don’t mean blameless or perfect) are dying because our nation is at war for the wrong reasons. Innocent people are suffering because the gap between rich and poor widens each day. Such problems may seem intractable. But not long ago people learned how to use their power in ways that brought about much needed change. We need only look back to our nation’s civil rights struggle for an amazing example. It’s time to bring that kind of spirit back to life in our congregation, in our county, in our state, in our nation and in our world.

We have power. Let’s go out and use it. Amen.

Closing Words

This is our song, Thou Spirit of all the Nations. We sing and pray for peace, but also for justice.

We give thanks for the young ones among us, who remind us how much we need to do to create with them a better world.

And we acknowledge the challenges ahead, even as we vow to take one more step toward peace, toward justice, and toward love.