A sermon by Bill Neely
Summer Minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Rockford, IL

August 21, 2005

Reading

A Religious Background, by Mary Brown

In the year that I was born, at a small religious college

in northern Illinois, witnesses recall how just after dinner

one winter evening, a young confessor sparked a fervor:

forty-two straight hours of repentance, studious coeds

and baseball stars alike, suddenly afire. They were warm

with desire to admit the wrongs to their peers, to make

their sins public and announce themselves godly and free.

I was born nor long before those penitents were born

again, before they streamed boldly onto that sacred stage,

became oddly patient and waited their turn in choir

chairs to declare their shame--articulate, eyes wet.

While they wept, I wept too, a generation and states

away, until Mother, who knew nothing of fire or college

or regret, lifted me from cradle to font and rocked me

in an arms-and-flesh theology, both of us quiet now,

neither of us with much, maybe nothing at all, to confess.

Reading

A Confession, by Czeslaw Milosz

My Lord, I loved strawberry jam

And the dark sweetness of a woman' body.

Also, well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,

Scents of cinnamon, of cloves.

So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit

Have visited such a man? Many others

Were justly called, and trustworthy.

Who would have trusted me? For they saw

How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,

And glance greedily at the waitresses neck.

Flawed and aware of it. Desiring greatness

Able to recognize greatness wherever it is,

And not quite, only in part clairvoyant,

I know what was left for smaller men like me:

A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud.

A tournament of hunchbacks. literature.

Sermon

"Confession and Passion"

Bill Neely

Elizabeth is a young single mother of a baby boy named John. She lives in the city, with no family living near her, and works overnight cleaning buildings, leaving her son to sleep alone in her apartment. She asks a neighbor whom she doesn't really know to keep an eye on John, but the neighbor isn't very trustworthy, leaving Elizabeth to pray that the building does not catch on fire during the night. Elizabeth wears a wedding band on her finger and tells the people who ask that she is a widow as she moves through her days without significant engagement with anyone except John.

Elizabeth is quiet, and when she is unreceptive to the offers of company by men who are interested in her, she gets labeled as stuck up, a label that she doesn't seem to mind if it means they'll leave her alone. Elizabeth is tired, from working throughout the night and being the sole caretaker of a baby boy day after day after day. Elizabeth is sad, over the recent death of the love of her life. Elizabeth is angry, at a system that not only offers her no assistance, but one whose systemic racism supports the racist acts of individuals that have and continue to target her and other people of color. Elizabeth is worried, over what kind of man her little boy might grow up to be, worried because there are no positive male role models in his life and she sees on the street corners and in the jails what might happen when that is the case. Elizabeth is alone, and lonely, living in poverty and scared, running from her past, unhappy in the present, and anxious over the future.

Elizabeth is a character in James Baldwin's brilliant semi-autobiographical novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain, a novel that I've mentioned in this pulpit before, and one that, as a lover of literature, I've devoured excerpts of again and again. I've spent hours on a few pages, reading the words of the writer, preacher, and poet that Baldwin was, aloud and silently, over and over. There's something about the intimacy, the honesty, and the urgency, with which he writes that keeps calling me back to his pages. In reading and re-reading and re-re-reading his words, I find myself able to sustain a deeper conversation with the challenging images and ideas of his messages. I actually read this novel the first time in college, and do not remember anything about it, but since picking it up again last year, I've considered it my favorite piece of writing, even surpassing the works of my favorite poets. And like poetry, I've come to realize that this novel is better when read aloud. Perhaps because Baldwin was a preacher when he was in his teens, which was right about the time he was also reading voraciously, much of his writing lends itself to the spoken word better than it does to the inner voice.

And certainly because Baldwin was a preacher when he was in his teens, which was right about the time he was reading voraciously, much of his writing is overtly religious in tone, and that which isn't is more subtly infused with thoughts on God, church, morality, sin, confession, and all that good stuff. And certainly, because Baldwin's experience was as an African American man alive between 1924 and 1987, much of his writing, fiction and nonfiction and that hazy world in between, examines issues of race and violence, of oppression and discrimination. And certainly, because Baldwin was a gay man alive during those years, much of his writing examines internal and external homophobia, how the natural passion of his heart was forbidden in the eyes of the church that surrounded him and the nation that he lived in. And certainly, because Baldwin spent many years of his life overseas, mostly in Paris but in other places in Europe also, much of his writing has the feel of an ex-patriot, of someone whose experience in this country led him to want to leave it, for extended periods of time.

And certainly, the mosaic of Baldwin' life is highly-textured and multi-hued. His body of work reflects this mosaic, with different anthologies using different segments of the overall image of his life to represent the separate thematic underpinnings of the collection. He is a gay American writer for collections of writings by gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered Americans. He is an African American writer for collections by African Americans. He is a civil rights era protest writer for works that elaborate on what was being written during those years. He's a writer on the black church in America for works that seek to discern the history and trajectory of those institutions in our country. And connecting all of these separate lenses, these smaller pieces of a much more complex image, is his life, his one, unified life, contradictory and painful, loving and hopeful, alone and with others.

I'm reminded of a tour that I once took in an art museum. The professor who was leading it stopped in front of a huge painting of, if I remember correctly, a man on a horse. The painting was monstrous, going from just above the floor to well over our heads, and was comprised of huge sweeping brush strokes that depicted a very strong man riding an even stronger horse. It was a dark painting, which added to a disturbing sense of awe that I felt when I tried to take in the image. Unintentionally, I backed away from the painting, trying to put some distance between the work and myself so that I could see it all. Unintentionally, I backed away from the painting, the way one sometimes does when surprised by a confrontation with unexpected strength sourced from an imposing presence. Unintentionally, I joined several other patrons in doing this, something the professor pointed out with a smile, noting that people always did that.

The professor assured us that our reaction was probably the painter's hope, why else would she or he create something to that scale? But then the professor said that our reaction, if we leave it there, may leave us with that disturbing sense of awe without offering us the chance to glimpse the intricacies of the work, to notice the details of talent and beauty that we might miss if we just step back and move on. We should take time with the painting, he advised. And to help with this, he asked us to close one eye, to make a frame with our fingers in front of us, and focus on just the piece of the painting that was in that frame; to notice the brush stokes and the way the colors blended; to envision the hand that painted the canvas in the moment of creation; to think like the painter, and hold in our minds eye how the section we were focusing on might relate to the larger image.

I'm sure we were quite the sight, twenty or so of us, standing in front of a huge painting with little finger frames in front of our eyes. I'm sure the painter never envisioned that. Nor have the other museum-goers since who have observed me doing the same thing to works large and small in other venues. Nor, for that matter, do people who come across me doing the same thing outside, when I see a landscape or tree and remember to do the exercise again. Its application is larger than just the world of painting. You can even do it to people, sectioning off the fuzz on the head of a baby, the smile on the face of a lover, the eye of a friend watching another friend. You can't do it to the preacher in the middle of a sermon, but other than that, everyone is fair game if you're willing to risk looking a little silly. What you'll notice, regardless of the subject, is how the exercise can enforce the point that sometimes, focusing on just a small section of a larger experience can significantly shape our interpretation of that larger work. With Baldwin, the smaller piece that I use to interpret the larger picture, right now, is the theme of confession, a kind of personal confession, a re-connection between an individual and Truth, a reflection of reality imposed upon the vision of promise that we aspire to reach. Confession, as it is made manifest and effective in the writings of Baldwin.

And I confess to you, that confession has just recently become an interest in my spiritual life. For many years, I avoided the topic and the practice not out of the belief that I had nothing to confess, I know better than that, but because I wasn't sure exactly who or what I'd be confessing to and to what end. It actually took me a while to warm up to the ambiguities of those questions in general, to begin moving past an approach that prohibits an embrace of the unknown into one that engages, actively, the evolving mystery of eternity. To move past the approach that demands a name for the unnameable, concrete answers for the unknowable, justifications for the unjustifiable, and a tangible representation of the ethereal. To move toward an approach appreciates the music, even if every single note is not discernable, an approach that receives the summer rainfall, even if every drop can't be felt, an approach that receives a blessing, even if that which blesses can't be quantified, an approach that believes Eternal love abides, even though hatred exists, an approach that values a humble rabbi of peace and justice, regardless of whether or not he could walk on water.

Confession in Baldwin's works, expressed in various ways, moves toward this approach as well, as it is in the relationship between the finite individual and the infinite ideal in which some glimmer of that Eternal love might become known. It is in the acts of acknowledgment and confession of a young, gay, African American boy, surrounded by virulent and violent opposition to the natural and beautiful and hidden passions of his heart, that a more Eternal Love might become known. Formal or informal, through structured prayer or rambling honesty, it is in the confessions of passion surging through the body of a child of the holy, that the child comes to understand a truth deeper than that which society legislates and his church moralizes. The very face of that to which the boy prays changes, as the confession of honesty leads to a deeper relationship with that source. That relationship is one that creates a heightened appreciation of freedom, of self-worth, and of the right to love. It's a relationship that moves from holding an idea of God expressed in many of Baldwin's works as an angry, judgmental Being worshiped by good people caught up in bad preaching, to one that holds an idea of God that Baldwin describes as follows: "If the concept of God has any validity, or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving." Baldwin concludes, "If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of him."

The obvious objection that I feel and I suspect most of you do, as well, is that there is nothing to confess here. That being a young, gay, African American, child is a gift from God. That every child is, in words very familiar to us, born one more redeemer. One more chance for humankind to get it right. One more voice for compassion and justice, one more soul aimed toward unity with life, one more unique manifestation of a Creative love seen in the eternal eyes of the newly alive. We would take issue, we do take issue, with theologies that persecute people on the basis of their sexual orientation. We need to take more issue with that, and we need to be louder and more insistent about it. We need to engage people, we need to emphatically, intelligently, spiritually, and emotionally advocate for fairness and inclusion in marriage and parenting laws, and we need to do it regardless of who we offend. And we need to center it in our religious values of freedom, diversity, reason, and the belief that ultimately, universal love will prevail.

All of which would mean nothing to a young James Baldwin, struggling with issues of sexual orientation, unable to fully confess to a human what feelings move through his body. Only able to acknowledge and admit those realties to his maker. And the acknowledgment and admittance leads toward acceptance, in his case, by God. Acceptance of a fuller human identity. Acceptance of the beautiful lure of love in his being, even though society views it as depraved. Once accepted by God, Baldwin accepts himself, not believing that he is perfect, but believing that he is perfectly human. What Baldwin needed to confess was the truth, that he was who he was and was going to stay that way, and once he did, the world began to open up for him.

This is what confession can do for us. By allowing ourselves the time and space to be with that of ultimate concern in our lives and acknowledging our own shortcomings, regardless of whether or not anyone else would view them as shortcomings, we might move toward admittance and acceptance. We might come to a place of secure awareness in our relationships with that of most meaning. We might come to glimpse the outline of an evolving presence calling us through love toward unity every moment of our lives, calling all of us, even the parts we wish did not exist and would stay hidden.

As we raise our voices in song to approach the divine, as we bless the warm, fuzzy heads of babies to approach the divine, as we gather in religious community to approach the divine, as we serve the greater good to approach the divine, all exhibiting us when we're at our best, so can we acknowledge, admit, and accept our shortcomings to approach the divine. We can bring our whole selves to the relationship, an act that will change not only the ourselves, but whatever it is that we are relating to. This happened when Baldwin's God changed from one destructive and violent to one centered in values of love and freedom and Baldwin changed from someone internally oppressive about homosexuality to someone externally appreciative of the gift from God that his sexuality was. To really understand whatever it is that animates our hearts and infuses our minds we must engage all parts of our beings with that presence. We must praise, we must serve, and we must confess.

I began this sermon by describing the setting of Elizabeth and her baby boy, John. John is actually Baldwin, Elizabeth is his Baldwin's mother. And you remember she is alone and tired, scared and angry. At her place of employment where she cleans buildings overnight, she is eventually befriended by a woman named Florence. Florence cleans buildings, too, and she appears to Elizabeth to be a proud, independent, very self-sufficient woman. As the two gradually come to know each other, Florence tells Elizabeth of her earlier troubled marriage to a man who didn't provide much, a man who worked sporadically and spent constantly. A man who when he was alive left Florence to acquire life's necessities on her own before he eventually was killed in France in the war. Florence, like ELizabeth, had led a tough life and had nothing but difficult days on the horizon. Florence shares all of this with Elizabeth saying very little, only noticing the need for confession that Florence seemed to have.

But eventually, as the two becomes closer, Elizabeth's need for confession overtakes her. When she and Florence and John are having lunch one day at Florence's house, Elizabeth finds herself suddenly admitting spoken and silent deceptions about her life. She bought the wedding ring that she wears, but she was never married. That boys father is dead, but he committed suicide after being falsely imprisoned and beaten. This happened while Elizabeth was pregnant, but before the father knew she was. And what weighs most heavily on Elizabeth's mind, was that she chance to tell him that he she was pregnant with his baby, but she didn't, and she thinks that if he knew this, he would not have ended his life. He was the love of her life and the father of her child, now gone, and she blames her sin of omission for this loss. The guilt is overpowering, and Baldwin writes that she wept, "as though she would never be able to stop." Florence calms her down, tells her everything will be alright, and assures young John who had stopped playing to watch the two women in the seriousness. Elizabeth apologizes for ruining the nice meal, to which Florence replies, "don't say a word about being sorry, or I'll show you to the door. You pick up that boy and sit down here in that easy chair and pull yourself together. I'm going out in the kitchen and make us something cold to drink. You try not to fret, honey."

Neither Florence nor Elizabeth nor John had perfect lives after that moment, but the two women were able, through exercising their needs for confession, to draw closer together in relationship. They were able to support each other in ways that they could not support themselves, and were able survive days that threatened to completely drain their sprits and take away their lives. They were able, by calling out their confessions to each other, to respond with assurances of love and community. Their confessions deepened their senses of place in the world. It is in this way that confession, that process of acknowledgment, admittance and acceptance, can guide us on the paths of healing that we all need to travel. It can reconcile our lost ways by allowing the lights of both eternal love and communal support to shine forth. It can help us embrace our whole selves, can invigorate our whole lives, can elucidate our own understandings of what we'd like to do differently, and can help us be in right, honest, relationship with other people doing the same things. I'll close with this poem not by James Baldwin, but by Pesha Gertler, who writes to what I glean from Baldwin's works. In The Healing Time, she writes,

Finally on my way to yes

I bump into

all the places

where I said no

to my life

all the untended wounds

the red and purple scars

those hieroglyphs of pain

carved deep into my skin, my bones,

those coded messages

that send me down

the wrong street

again and again

where I find them

the old wounds

the old misdirections

and I lift them

one by one

close to my heart

and I say holy

holy.

Blessed be, and Amen.