“We Drink From Wells We Did Not Dig” Benjamin Wallace Sermon given on 7/29/12 at the First Unitarian Church of Omaha “We build on foundations we did not lay. We warm ourselves at fires we did not light. We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant. We drink from wells we did not dig. We profit from persons we did not know. We are ever bound in community.” Rev. Peter Raible (paraphrased from Deuteronomy 6:10-‐12) This is one of my favorite quotes ever. Sometimes I think that the most meaningful quotes in our history start to lose their impact because they are used so often and they stop being Awe-‐some, truly deserving of our Awe. I am guilty of this and in fact the title of my sermon today is an example of this. “We drink from wells we did not dig.” Somehow it loses its power without the context, especially the last sentence of the passage. “We are ever bound in community.” I personally have had a tendency to focus so much on the “drinking from wells” part of the quote that honestly I almost missed that last sentence. However, I realize now that this sentence is possibly one of the most important sentences for me spiritually because it sums up the reasons why I feel like we do what we do, why we are who we are as humans, and who we hope to become as communities and societies. The truth is that we are ever bound in community. We are individuals, but our true power has always Wallace
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been when we decide to unite and move together towards a common goal. This is true for the good and the bad. Very rarely are the stories of the heroes and villains of history told without the accompanying effect and movement they caused to their communities. Moses, Jesus, Hitler, Stalin, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, Napolean, Joan of Arc, The Pope, The Presidents of the United States, Malcom X, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. . All of these names are famous and meaningful for their own reasons, but none of them are famous for who they are, they are meaningful for the ways they affected the world, for the effect they had on history. They were significant because of the communities of other humans that they motivated to take action. As I reflect on my life, I realize that this is true of almost everything significant that I have ever accomplished in my life. Although I had to see the opportunity and take it, none of the things that I am truly proud of have been done on my own. There have always been elders who have paved the way, mentors who have provided me advice, the fabulous people who have provided their support and teamwork or at the very least people who have helped me learn the skills and given me the resources that I needed to take advantage of those opportunities.
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If you pay attention to the news, we find ourselves in a moment of time that seems more greedy, underhanded, and unhealthy than at many other times in our history. While the politicians play king of the mountain with our government , we see stories of sexual abuse, shootings, racial profiling, and even hate crimes nationally and unfortunately locally. However, if you pay attention to our communities made up of real people doing real things, we conversely find ourselves in a time that seems more forgiving, more patient, and more desiring to make the world a better place than many other times in our history. Same sex marriage is currently legal in six states with more to follow and just last week the Department of Defense cleared uniformed service members to walk in the gay pride parade in San Diego, CA. Sometimes I wish it was as easy to find the good things in the news like this as it was to find the depressing things. One thing I never get tired of noticing is that even when bad things do happen… especially when bad things happen, tragedies and stories of hurt and anger we always seem to come together as communities to support each other and help each other heal. As most of you are aware, we had a horrible example of this happen in Lincoln just last Sunday where a member of our community was brutally
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attacked. The most heart-‐wrenching part of this story was that the Lincoln woman who was the victim was attacked because she was gay. This loving, caring, woman who is an active and vibrant member of our community was attacked because she was a lesbian. I have to admit that when the shooting happened earlier this month at a Colorado movie theater, I found myself thinking, “What a horrible thing to happen. I am glad that doesn’t happen in Omaha.” Then of course it dawned on me as I brought myself back to reality and was reminded last Sunday, it does happen in our community, and it makes me sad. It hurts even more to realize that someone in our Midwestern community would target another human being because of their sexual orientation. In fact it blows my mind. Maybe part of it is that I get so engrossed in my own life and in the communities and organizations that I am a part of that sometimes I forget that the whole world… that our state, and our community isn’t completely made up of liberal, caring, standing on the side of love people. Sometimes I forget that even though Omaha and Lincoln have both passed city ordinances protecting GLBT citizens from discrimination that not everyone believes what I believe. Sometimes I get comfortable in my own little corner of the universe and start to feel like the fight is almost over… that the world, that our nation is finally coming around to see the light… and then I get smacked in the head by reality and wake up to a world that at moments seems more divided and
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backwards than it has ever been. But….. before my heart sinks too far, I am kindly reminded how amazing our community can be. In the face of the horrible hate crime that happened last week, suddenly our community springs into action. Members of our community like Royal Bush, Beth Rigatuso at Heartland Pride, and all of the other amazing leaders of our community lead us to come together. Just hours after the attack happened last Sunday there was a vigil in Lincoln attended by at least 500 people to speak out and stand up against hate and violence. To combat hate and violence with love, peace, and the spirit of human dignity. Thursday night the Omaha Vigil Against Violence was held at Memorial Park and if you weren’t there it was one of the most amazing and moving things that I have ever had the chance to witness in my life. In the face of adversity. In the face of this heinous attack on a member of our community, thousands of people gathered together to unite and lend their voices to a common goal, a common cause, a common message. Hate has no place in our city, in our community, in our state. And I have to say that it was magnificent and beautiful visually, emotionally, and spiritually. I was honored and humbled to be asked to say a few words at the vigil as a community member and GLBT Ally. And I took that chance to talk about our community and the Standing on the Side of Love movement.
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I have to admit to you that until I had a chance to stand in front of thousands of people and explain the message of this movement, Standing on the Side of Love had been something that I had paid attention to and certainly understood its value but did not truly feel its significance in my life or my community. It makes me a little sad that it took this act of violence, this example of hatred to deeply connect me to this movement that has been doing amazing things for years in our UU communities all across the country. My fear is that many of us here in our congregation and our community might have had the same relationship with the Standing on the Side of Love movement. I hope that is not the case and I am the only one who underestimated the power of what Standing on the Side of Love means. Standing on the Side of Love is not something that you subscribe to via email or something that you buy a tshirt for as if you have gone to a store and purchased a team jersey. Standing on the Side of Love is a commitment to all of the things that our principles stand for. I want to take just a moment and tell every one of you a little about the Standing on the Side of Love Campaign because I think it bears taking to heart the reasons why the campaign was created and what it truly means to Stand on the Side of Love.
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The message, “standing on the side of love,” emerged as a rallying point for people of faith in Massachusetts during their early efforts for fully inclusive marriage, and later during the fight against Proposition 8 in California. The Standing on the Side of Love Campaign was inspired by the 2008 shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which was targeted because they are welcoming to LGBT people and have a liberal stance on many issues. The Knoxville Community responded with an outpouring of love that inspired the leadership at the Unitarian Universalist Association to launch a campaign that would harness love’s power to challenging exclusion, oppression and violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration status, race, religion, or any other identity. This movement is about taking individual steps to make the world a better place. · We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all people. Everyone deserves respect and love for who they are. · Right now, both love and fear are rising up in our nation. We stand on the side of love. We harness love’s power to stop oppression, exclusion, and violence against people who are targeted because of their identity.
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· We are working to build a society where the color of our skin, the conditions of our birth, who we love, how we worship, and how we express our gender do not determine our worth, rights, and opportunities. · Our elected leaders have a responsibility to unify and advance our communities, not engage in scapegoating or divide neighbor from neighbor. · We are all created in God’s image. People of every faith honor God by honoring the diversity of God’s creation. · We believe that the essence of the individual is not based upon outward appearances. No one should be judged based on the size, shape, or functionality of their body. We celebrate the diversity of creation, including intersex bodies and transgender identities, and the gifts of differently-‐abled people of all shapes and sizes. This movement is about the POWER OF COMMUNITY · When we stand on the side of love, we commit to recognizing the common threads in the justice struggles of marginalized communities, and to remaining steadfast in our work to support these communities. Through our collective commitment to justice, we live out our faith in a better world, and we do so with patience, with hope, and with conviction that our collective love is far more powerful than fear—indeed, more powerful than anything else in the world.
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· When we wear Standing on the Side of Love shirts and carry signs and banners, we are telling everyone who sees us, including young people, that no matter how imperfectly we embody it, love is the reason we get up in the morning and standing on the side of love is our aspiration. · There is no easy fix to the numerous ‘phobias’ and ‘isms’ that plague society. This is why Standing on the Side of Love is such a meaningful campaign for us. It’s why we continue, day in and day out, to do what we can to stand with those who face exclusion. It is why we seek to live our lives in the most loving frame possible. · We lift up stories of courageous love and recognize those whose words and deeds exemplify the values of inclusion, diversity, community, and equality. “We build on foundations we did not lay. We warm ourselves at fires we did not light. We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant. We drink from wells we did not dig. We profit from persons we did not know. We are ever bound in community.” We have an amazing opportunity right now to make a significant contribution to the success of our community and to support actions that embody the principles we discuss and affirm every day in this church. The past few years inside the walls of this church and in the world outside have been a difficult road full of change, emotion, turmoil challenge and confusion. I personally feel that because of the complexity and confusion and the emotions that
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naturally go along with what has happened over the past few years that they goals of our community have gotten skewed and clouded for me. We have continued to talk about our principles and our spiritual sources and have even done some pretty amazing things in our community, but I think that we can do more. We need to start laying foundations even though we may not be the ones to build on them. We need to light fires from which we may never feel the heat. We must plant trees that we may never enjoy shade from. We must dig wells that we may never drink from. We must commit ourselves to doing these things because there are people who do not have the benefit of the foundations similar to the ones that our houses rest on, they do not have adequate fires to warm themselves, they do not have shade to protect them from the heat of the sun, and they do not have adequate water to quench their thirst. I had the pleasure of spending a week serving as a faculty member for the Youth Midwest Leadership School in Beloit Wisconsin earlier this month. We have a phrase that has been echoing in my head since I left that group of amazing youth and staff. “It is for us to change the world.” We all have our lives and our challenges, families to feed, livings to earn, tasks to complete. Each and every one of us has a complicated life full of to-‐do lists longer than the days have minutes. But what is the point? If we do not take
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this chance this moment to make a difference beyond these walls, if we only focus on what is happening inside of them, have we truly lived out our principles? I am not challenging anyone any more than I am challenging myself right now. Most of you have put forth effort to make this community, this neighborhood a better place far more than I have. Through involvement in Community Meals, OTOC, and all of the wonderful programs that this Church supports each and every day. I am challenging myself to focus just as much time on community action, and standing on the side of love as I do to meetings and television, the internet, Facebook and foursquare. You can not passively sit on the side of love or chill out on the side of love, you must stand up in body or spirit and take action to Stand on the Side of Love. We have an amazing opportunity in front of us starting in a matter of days. We have an amazing and compassionate leader joining us. Someone who has perspective, patience, a heart of gold and a will to make our community a better place. If I can ask one thing of you today, standing here, it would be to make a conscious decision to let the hurt, pain, anger, frustration, anxiety, and hectic nature of the past few years and our daily lives matter just a teardrop less and to use that energy to Stand on the Side of Love with our Minister Frank Rivas.
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He can help us make this community inside these walls as well as the community outside these walls more vibrant, more full of love. But he can not do it alone. We have dreams for our church and our children and ourselves. Take the first step with me to Stand on the Side of Love so that we can make the world a better place. Truly, It is for us to change the world. Thank you.
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