Neighborliness
This sermon was presented on November 14, 2010. It was the first sermon I wrote for the Unitarian Universalists of Fallston following my return from maternity leave.
UU congregations affirm and promote seven principles. We’re taking time to examine these principles this year at UUF. Our November theme was “justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.” This sermon explores whether the concept of “neighborliness” is a good lens for thinking about our second principle.
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I’m so glad to be here with you. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve this congregation, a congregation that blesses all of us in our going out and our coming in. This is the first sermon I have written since the end of the last liturgical year in June, and the first sermon I have written since the birth of my twins. I feel a little rusty, so I hope you will bear with me.
So many people supported our family in one way or another surrounding the birth of the twins. Of course, people from UUF sent gifts and cards, as did people from our other religious communities. I thought often about how this is one of the reasons people form attachments to each other, and how so many people need and don’t receive this kind of support.
Throughout the spring, I attempted to keep my blood pressure down by taking walks around the block. Neighbors stopped to chat in the middle of walking their dogs or gardening. That may seem mundane and commonplace, but I haven’t lived in a neighborhood where people spoke to each other since I moved out of my parents’ house in the early nineties.
The first week in July, just before the babies came, our neighbor two doors down invited us over. She asked how things were going and delicately asked about how we plan to handle being an interfaith family. We told her that the children will be raised Jewish, and that we were concerned about finding a mohel who would do a child dedication for an interfaith family. She had the contact information for just such a person, plus enthusiasm and not too much advice for Jewish family life in our neighborhood. When we came home from the hospital two weeks later, she brought over a delicious and healthy casserole and preemie-sized clothes that her own daughter had worn.
What surprised me most were the cards from aunts and uncles on the conservative side of the family. They know my household is a little bit different, and we don’t agree on issues such as marriage equality or including LGBT folks in non-discrimination laws. Our communication is usually limited to holiday letters. Nevertheless, they addressed their cards to all three of us (the babies have two moms and a dad) and wished us joy and welcome to parenthood. All of the good wishes from near and far got me thinking about neighborliness.
Last week, Mark Bernstein touched on the parable of the Good Samaritan in his sermon about compassion and generosity. In case you aren’t familiar with this story, the upshot is that a traveler is attacked and injured on the Jericho road. Respected members of his own community don’t stop to help. A Samaritan, a member of a culture on the other side of a bitter divide, is the person who not only stops, but invests in the injured traveler’s future care. The parable demonstrates that obligations to our neighbors include those beyond our immediate circle of relationships, even to those we may consider “them” instead of “us.”
It’s easy to say in theory, of course we would help someone from another group, of course that person would be our neighbor. What if that person were an activist in a political movement with which I heartily disagree? What if that person is a member of an organization that betrayed me? We live with rancorous divisions, and I’m not always able to see every person as my neighbor. There are also questions of personal safety, and we all have times in our lives when just getting through the day takes everything we have. I like what C said last week about setting a goal for a number of acts of kindness per day rather than beating ourselves up about what we can’t do. Even so, I probably make more excuses than I need to. If the roles were reversed, if I needed help, there are people who would surprise me by stopping. Overcoming my assumptions about “us and them” is a constant discipline.
I think the story of the Good Samaritan is relevant today, not only because we still need to be challenged with the question of “who is my neighbor,” but also because we as a society haven’t solved the question of what it means to be a neighbor. As a simple parable, the larger implications for what it means for people and religious communities to be neighborly is left as an exercise for us as the readers.
This particular religious community puts a lot of work into being neighborly. It’s one of the things I love about you. UUF is committed to being a respectful member of the interfaith community. We are persistent in doing our part to relieve poverty in Harford County. From the clear sign on a visible street corner, to the Circle of Hope providing direct assistance, to our open-invitation events like Soulful Sundown, this church shines like a friendly porch light on the way home.
I would like to suggest that being neighborly will grow into action on a larger scale. If we take our values seriously, reflect on them, and challenge ourselves to spiritual growth, I think we will find that our congregation is called to be a neighborly institution, an organized group that not only takes the time to help, but also addresses the root causes of suffering.
Who is our neighbor and what does that mean? For us as Unitarian Universalists, neighborliness encompasses several of our core values. The values I want to lift up today have to do with justice, equity, and compassion, which comprise the second of our seven UU principles and our theme of the month.
Being neighborly involves considerate curiosity. Somewhere in between apathy and nosy-ness, there is a sweet spot of taking interest in one another. Considerate curiosity allows people to speak for themselves and to know that they will be heard warmly.
Recognizing our interdependence is a second value of neighborliness. What happens to one affects us all. Alliances of responsibility help us to respond with strength.
A third value of neighborliness is the willingness to expand our comfort zones. Building relationships means risking things like awkwardness and disagreement.
Neighborliness means a lot of different things. Today we’ll start with considerate curiosity, interdependence, and expanding our comfort zones.
Considerate Curiosity
In Henry Works by D. B. Johnson, our hero bear walks through the town, noticing and being noticed by his friends. “Are you being a rain cloud today?” one of his friends asks as Henry waters the milkweed flowers. The postmaster asks him to deliver a letter. Emerson asks him for help with the woodchucks. At the end of the book, Henry runs into Channing again.
“Did you go to work, Henry?” he asks.
“I’m just getting to work now,” says Henry.
“What IS your work?” Channing asks.
“It’s writing,” says Henry. “I’m writing a book.”
Henry turns toward his cabin. All day he has taken care of things in the woods and in town. Now he is back where he started. Inside he lights a fire. He hangs up his hat and coat. Then Henry sits at his desk to begin his book.
“Today,” he writes, “I took a walk in the woods.”
Henry Bear, of course, is modeled after Henry David Thoreau, one of our UU ancestors, whose walks to work produced the book, Walden. In the children’s book, I am struck by the curiosity of the other characters. They ask what Henry is doing, they invite him to be part of their plans. In the bright, idealistic world of the book, people (er, bears) seem to be paying attention.
This is harder than it sounds. Cultivating an atmosphere of considerate curiosity is a group discipline. We have to commit to it as a shared expectation. Here at UUF, we listen warmly during Joys and Sorrows. Sometimes we notice without prompting when someone isn’t well or is having a tough time or has something great going on. Sometimes we don’t notice. That’s something we can work on. I don’t think it’s possible for a congregation to notice 100% of the time when a well-placed question is in order. We can increase our success rate by being more organized. There’s room here for a Caring Committee, for small group ministries, or for mentoring arrangements that would give us more reasons to ask after each other.
Considerate curiosity is a practice for institutions as well as individuals. Through the connections formed between groups and the growing we do within groups, we learn how to ask the questions that improve our world.
When I was in college, I was part of a community service group. For the first time, my circle of friends included people with disabilities that I knew of. We didn’t talk a lot about low vision or using a wheelchair, but it came up. Traveling around campus together, those of us who never had to think much about getting from place to place started to notice barriers to full inclusion, including the barriers of our own attitudes. I had to learn to be less defensive about my own ignorance in order to begin working on ableism within myself and in my environment.
A leader in our group checked with a disability advocacy organization to find out what else we could do. We got information about doing an accessibility survey in the neighborhood around campus. Someone got permission from several of the restaurants and bars to check out their buildings, in case more could be done to welcome customers with disabilities. One Saturday morning, well before the lunch rush, we broke up into small groups with measuring tapes and checklists. How wide were the doorways? If a ramp was necessary, was it in the front, or would someone using a wheelchair need to find the secret, unattractive entrance off the alleyway? Could the restroom door be operated with a closed fist? Were stairways marked so that people with low vision could walk on them safely?
I don’t know if the local businesses made any changes, but at least they knew we were paying attention, and we learned something about how to pay attention. Completing the survey as a large group had a greater impact than any one of us would have had alone.
In terms of the Good Samaritan parable, the Samaritan shows considerate curiosity when he stops and notices what has happened. It’s a first step.
Paying attention seems like a basic practice. I don’t expect a reward for noticing pain or discrimination or how someone’s day is going. Even so, considerate curiosity is a learned skill and it takes time.
I think people in this congregation do a good job with considerate curiosity, and I think we can do better both individually and with our shared work in the world. Organizing our intentions will help us to mature in our capacity to pay attention.
Interdependence
The second step is recognizing our interdependence. That’s the crux of the issue in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The injured traveler is not some irrelevant object. The danger on the Jericho Road affects all travelers. Acts of kindness are not simply benevolent gifts to people who have nothing to do with us. Neighborly behavior is an act of relationship, not pity.
Here’s where it helps to have already completed step one. If we have already met the people with whom we are in relationship, if we have already noticed when something needs our attention, finding our place in the web is easier.
This concept is very familiar to environmental activists. Not only do we have sympathy for the animals of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, we know that what happens to the Bay affects us directly. Henry Bear in this morning’s story saw those connections, too, as he took note of changes in weather and the needs of plants along the path.
If the issue is poverty, systemic thinking still applies. When all of our neighbors are fed and housed, we enjoy greater quality of life. Beyond self-interest, when we see ourselves in relationship to the community, addressing the root causes of suffering makes more sense.
Richard Gilbert has a story about this in his book, The Prophetic Imperative. Gilbert is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister and continues to be a voice for social justice. He writes:
Some years ago during the Reagan administration, at a meeting of Rochester’s Southeast Ecumenical Ministry (SEM) clergy, the coordinator of our food cupboard read a directive from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Henceforth, all private gifts of food and the like to indigent individuals would have to be reported and deducted from their federal benefits. Thus, people who ran out of food stamps at the end of the month and used the food cupboard to survive could never keep up, much less get ahead. [Gilbert continues.]
The SEM churches were at first dealing in direct service, a course of action with nearly unanimous support. A modest bit of social education told us that the federal government was exploiting not only the service providers, who had to work harder and could not make headway, but also the needy people, many of them elderly and handicapped, who could never get beyond bare subsistence. Our social witness was to cry foul and mobilize our constituencies to speak out at this policy obscenity. Social action was to focus all this energy on the people in power and the policies they implement—with sermons, letter writing campaigns, and congressional visits. Policy reversal was the result.
Gilbert’s story about the Southeast Ecumenical Ministry demonstrates increasing levels of building relationships. Start with providing direct service, getting to know the neighbors who mingle as clients and volunteers at the food pantry. Listen with considerate curiosity and notice that there is something systemically wrong when hard working people can’t make ends meet. Having grown in respect and friendship with neighbors, answering the call to justice is not an abstract, intellectual choice; it is an act of love and a recognition of our place in the larger system. Being neighborly on a larger scale means participating in alliances of responsibility.
There’s a saying that grows out of the Australian Aboriginal movement, often credited to Lila Watson. “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
Expanding Comfort Zones
After considerate curiosity and recognizing interdependence, the third neighborly step is expanding our comfort zones. This is the extra mile between being polite and being a good neighbor. The above-and-beyond actions of the Good Samaritan from the Book of Luke are a good illustration here:
He went up and bandaged his wounds, bathing them with oil and wine. Then he lifted him on to his own beast, brought him to an inn, and looked after him. Next day he produced two silver pieces and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Look after him; and if you spend more, I will repay you on my way back.’ (Luke 10:34-35, Revised English Bible)
In other words, being a good neighbor involves going out of your way. All around, I see people challenging themselves like the Good Samaritan. I think of the person on my block who went to the trouble of bringing us preemie-sized clothes. I think of the Fall Festival and how many volunteers cooperated to invite neighbors into the Circle of Hope.
I think of S’s comment last week, when she suggested that Frog and Toad could take their cookies to the forest, where squirrels and other animals could eat them as well as birds. Her comment stayed with me all week. Sharing is pretty good when it’s convenient, bringing cookies to birds waiting just outside the door. But think of the impact of bringing cookies to the place where a greater number and diversity of hungry beings reside. That’s generosity.
In this morning’s story, Henry walks all around the farms and towns to end up where he started. He could have stayed inside to write all day rather than run his neighborly circuit, but he would have ended up writing a very different book.
The real Henry David Thoreau wrote about being a “surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all season, where the public heel had testified to their utility.” That quote reminds me of people who volunteer to maintain hiking and bike paths. Millions of people have been inspired and transformed by reading Walden. I would suggest that part of what readers yearn for is being asked to stretch, to travel the long way around, to be part of something larger than the self.
As a congregation, I wonder if addressing the root causes of suffering, over and above assisting with food and shelter, is the growing edge of our comfort zone. If we wanted to engage in advocacy like the Southeast Ecumenical Ministry did, we would have to have a long talk first as we planned how to go about it.
Yet, it seems to me, expanding our comfort zone is an opportunity to grow spiritually. We would need to be honest and vulnerable. I imagine neighbors as the people who loan each other tools and cups of sugar. Interactions like that risk awkwardness, conflict, and scarcity. What if our neighbor says no? What if the lawnmower gets damaged? What if we want to bake but we don’t have enough sugar? The institutional scale of neighborliness is no different. What if the topic is sensitive? What if we disagree? Do we have the resources to make an impact? Social action is an opportunity for spiritual growth because it means confronting things like awkwardness, conflict, and scarcity.
I do think social action matters. As a bisexual person, I feel a lot safer in a religious movement that has taken a public stand for LGBT equality. Unitarian Universalists have marched, written songs, gone to court, and –time after time—voted in ways so that I know it’s more than lip service. This week, the UUA is calling attention to Transgender Day of Remembrance on the 20th. If it weren’t controversial, it wouldn’t have made a difference.
As an ally working for racial justice, it matters to me that delegates from our congregations all over the country deliberated and prayed about how to support immigration reform given the scheduled 2012 General Assembly in Arizona. The months leading up to that debate were tense. I have to confess that I was rather strident in some of my private conversations with colleagues. Important conversations are risky. The solution our delegates came to is that our denomination’s annual meeting in 2012 will be focused on the work of racial justice and immigration reform, with the only other business on the agenda being what is required in the bylaws. Meanwhile, UU congregations continue with their public witness against racism through the Standing on the Side of Love campaign.
If our aim is to be good neighbors to those who are facing a challenge—whether that challenge is grief, homophobia, poverty, or racism—our actions make a difference. Showing up when it’s risky is part of the extra mile between a tolerance and true community.
This is spiritual work. Ever the militant mystic, Richard Gilbert wrote about this aspect to social action:
The experiences are transforming because people feel deeply and are committed to putting their lives on the line. It is spiritually exhilarating to realize that in our small efforts, we are part of a great living stream of reformers, a great cloud of witnesses who seek to create the Beloved Community on Earth, who seek to place the stubborn ounces of our weight on the side of justice.
As Gilbert says, putting our hearts into this work is an opportunity for spiritual growth.
Obviously, no one person or congregation can address every issue. I believe that, if we listen to each other and to the still, small voice within, our experience will lead us to a unified calling. Maybe we will find deeper ways to fight poverty in Harford County. Maybe we will assist our schools in improving anti-bullying programs or outdoor education. Maybe we will advocate for more resources for our veterans. Whatever this congregation’s calling, I know it will grow in strength, fueled by the power of love.
Conclusion
Being a good neighbor is held in high esteem at this church. Members here already practice compassionate curiosity. We reflect together on interdependence. We grow our comfort zones in our outreach and our honest discussions with one another. May we continue to grow in our practice and in our understanding of neighborliness.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
