Atonement
Sept 27, 2020
Rev. Dr. Judith E. Wright
Our Jewish friends and family members have wisely placed within their yearly religious calendar
The Days of Awe, with the celebrations of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
This is a time of self-reflection, of looking within for ways one may have harmed another.
For whom among us has not done harm to ourselves or others through our thoughts and actions over the course of this past year?
I personally do not often think of using a word such as atonement when trying to talk about harm done.
Yet, I remember well my struggle in the Christian seminary I attended for three years, The United Church of Christ seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the late 1980s with words such as “sin” and “atonement.”
I came to understand for myself a meaning of “sin” as “missing the mark,” and that is the meaning of sin that I believe up to this present moment.
But atonement. Atonement has seen foreign to my UU way of thinking, perhaps because of the theological meaning within the Christian tradition of the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ.
This is a beautiful meaning of atonement for those who are Christian. For me personally, this meaning of atonement is not theologically wide enough for my UU heart.
And yet today, I believe we UUs best claim this word, atonement, for ourselves as well.
A wider definition of atonement easily is found within Wikipedia, that contemporary font of knowledge, is one that I can owe:
“Atonement is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part,
either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act,
equivalent action to do good for others,
or some other expression of feelings of remorse.”
Thus, to atone is to take some action to correct a harm done. The action one does is to undo the harm, if possible.
If not possible, then to act in ways that create an equivalent amount of good to counter the harm done.
This definition of atonement includes an expression of remorse.
The word “atonement” comes from Middle English words, such as “attone or atoon,” meaning “to be at one” in harmony with another.
Words such as forgiveness, reconciliation, sorrow, remorse, reparation, are embedded as part of the necessary steps of becoming “atoon” with others.
I was greatly impressed with the programming at this year’s Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in late June.
One of the primary themes was the issue of white supremacist colonialism.
Presented clearly was programing aimed at changing our faith’s relationship with the indigenous nations of our country, as well as challenging systemic racism within the American culture and our faith tradition.
This morning let’s just look briefly at the issue of white supremacist colonialism.
Ninety-four percent of the delegates at our faith’s General Assembly affirmed an Action of Immediate Witness that calls us as UUs across the continent to address 400 years of white supremacist colonialism through solidarity with “all indigenous peoples.”
In terms of atonement, it is time that we, as a nation, reverse our destructive policies towards indigenous people.
I read this summer Jill Lepore’s almost 800 pages of the History of the United States, entitled “These Truths.” Jill Lepore is a professor of American History at Harvard University, and a staff writer for the New Yorker.
Her account of our US history gave me, for the first time in my life, an account not only of the history of white Americans, but also, a more complete history of Native Americans and people of color, as well as women’s history.
Our actions as a nation towards indigenous people has been brutal and heart-breaking, and clearly demonstrate cruel treatment by those in power of seeing Native people as less than, or sub-human, instead of seeing them as people who deserve to be treated with inherent dignity and respect.
Shirley Richardson and I will be speaking more about this in our service on October 18th, when we hope to focus on Native Americans and a Day of Mourning, instead of celebrating Columbus Day.
For this morning, however, it is important to know that at our General Assembly we UUs, as a people of faith, have moved together to try to “atone,” if you will allow me to say, for the wrongs committed against Native Americans.
This Action of Immediate Witness calls us as UUs to not only become aware
of the wrongs committed against indigenous folks, but to importantly stand with them now to work towards correcting what harm has been done.
This includes being:
So, in terms of the theme of atonement, this Action of Immediate Witness offers us as UUs ways to take action for wrongdoings towards Native Americans, by joining with them, and then doing whatever we can to undo the great harms suffered by Native peoples.
We begin, I believe, by first understanding how we have unwittingly mainly, as a people of faith, benefited from the harms created by those in power against indigenous people.
Then, the work of asking for forgiveness and atonement come next. .
Our service of Yom Kippur this morning also asks us to look within for ways we personally may have been harmful, and to seek forgiveness and ways to repair what has been broken.
In 2008 I spent five months in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Nepal, where I did a spiritual practice for three of those months of basically looking within myself for ways that I had harmed others or myself throughout my life.
In the silence of that time I examined in four two- hour sessions each day ways that I had harmed or wronged others.
Needless to say, this was a painful experience, yet in the end, liberating. Part of the practice was to find antidotes for whatever harm was created, and to apply the antidote.
For example, if I held onto a hurting experience and let that experience become a wound, I came to see that I needed to face that experience, reflect on it, examine it, and find ways to clean up such a mess in my life. I came to see the need to make amends with people whom I had hurt or they me.
This is the self-correction aspect of our Days of Awe service.
To this very day I do an almost daily meditation practice of self-reflection, self-examination and self-correction, based on my Tibetan Buddhist experiences in Nepal in 2008.
When I returned to the United States from Nepal in 2008, and the fall season came around, my congregation and I in Northborough, MA, observed a service of Yom Kippur quite similar to what we are observing today.
At the time, I was estranged from an important person in my family, and I had no idea why. I had no idea as to whatever I had done to create this disconnection.
But when we said in the liturgy “For injuries I may have caused you or any other person, I ask forgiveness,” I knew what I had to do that morning.
That afternoon I phoned the estranged person in my family and asked for forgiveness. (I still don’t know what happened to make this relationship become disconnected. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the relationship is repaired).
My asking for forgiveness was accepted, and today I can say I have a much closer relationship with this person.
So, yes, I know that asking for forgiveness can work. Even if one is “atoning” for something one doesn’t know what it is!
One’s heart can reopen, and life be much better.
Some of us may hold onto pains and sufferings from long ago.
Such holding onto what is from the past can cause us to continue to suffer in a present time where there is no longer any reason to hold onto such pain.
Letting go can open us up to the present, and help us to move into a future with hope and promise.
We can decide to no longer repeatedly dredge up the past, using certain remembrances to place a wedge between ourselves and another, but instead learn to give up such memories, to give up control.
Everyone makes mistakes, large and small, and it is best if we can learn to forgive ourselves and others as quickly as we are able.
There comes a time hopefully when we can see the futility of carrying old grudges.
This service of Yom Kippur is one way to help us grow in forgiveness.
Even when others have hurt us, we can forgive them, and ask for forgiveness, knowing that forgiveness will heal our relationship, helping it to mend.
It is easier, with the passage of time, for most of us to forgive others. It is harder for us to learn to forgive ourselves.
Perhaps one way is to offer to ourselves the same forgiveness that we are eventually able to give to others.
Whether you ask a higher power to help you forgive, or you agree with the Jewish sages that transgressions against one’s neighbor can only be healed through reconciliation and good will, forgiveness can open our hearts and minds and spirits, liberating us from much suffering.
Let me end with this story about Mahatma Gandhi, who demonstrated through his compassion what true atonement and forgiveness can become.
During one of his hunger strikes, a man whose daughter had been killed, came to him, extremely distraught. The man told Gandhi he would stop fighting those who he was against, if Gandhi would eat.
Gandhi, knowing that the healing needed was much greater than stopping the fighting, said he would start to eat again, if the man would forgive the man who had killed his daughter.
Apparently, the father fell into deep sobs, but then, did as Gandhi had asked.
He embraced the man who had killed his daughter, and the fighting then totally ceased.
Mark Nepo, spiritual writer reflects that this story not only reveals the tremendous courage that it takes for a person so violated to act with love towards one that has so harmed you, but also it shows Gandhi’s revealing the truth “that only when the broken are healed, no matter what they have done, will we as a people be healed”
So, atonement invites us to forgive, to become one with those who have harmed us or whom we have harmed.
Atonement also asks us to act, to not just be sorry for whatever harm we created, but to do whatever in our powers to correct the harm done. So that a new day can arise, free from a past that may pull us down.
Instead, a present and a hopeful future may arise, inviting us to “atoon,” to be One together.
A new way of being can then arise that liberates and frees us from the negativities and destructive emotions that have caused us to harm ourselves and others.
Peace and love to you.
Sept 27, 2020
Rev. Dr. Judith E. Wright
Our Jewish friends and family members have wisely placed within their yearly religious calendar
The Days of Awe, with the celebrations of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
This is a time of self-reflection, of looking within for ways one may have harmed another.
For whom among us has not done harm to ourselves or others through our thoughts and actions over the course of this past year?
I personally do not often think of using a word such as atonement when trying to talk about harm done.
Yet, I remember well my struggle in the Christian seminary I attended for three years, The United Church of Christ seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the late 1980s with words such as “sin” and “atonement.”
I came to understand for myself a meaning of “sin” as “missing the mark,” and that is the meaning of sin that I believe up to this present moment.
But atonement. Atonement has seen foreign to my UU way of thinking, perhaps because of the theological meaning within the Christian tradition of the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ.
This is a beautiful meaning of atonement for those who are Christian. For me personally, this meaning of atonement is not theologically wide enough for my UU heart.
And yet today, I believe we UUs best claim this word, atonement, for ourselves as well.
A wider definition of atonement easily is found within Wikipedia, that contemporary font of knowledge, is one that I can owe:
“Atonement is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part,
either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act,
equivalent action to do good for others,
or some other expression of feelings of remorse.”
Thus, to atone is to take some action to correct a harm done. The action one does is to undo the harm, if possible.
If not possible, then to act in ways that create an equivalent amount of good to counter the harm done.
This definition of atonement includes an expression of remorse.
The word “atonement” comes from Middle English words, such as “attone or atoon,” meaning “to be at one” in harmony with another.
Words such as forgiveness, reconciliation, sorrow, remorse, reparation, are embedded as part of the necessary steps of becoming “atoon” with others.
I was greatly impressed with the programming at this year’s Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in late June.
One of the primary themes was the issue of white supremacist colonialism.
Presented clearly was programing aimed at changing our faith’s relationship with the indigenous nations of our country, as well as challenging systemic racism within the American culture and our faith tradition.
This morning let’s just look briefly at the issue of white supremacist colonialism.
Ninety-four percent of the delegates at our faith’s General Assembly affirmed an Action of Immediate Witness that calls us as UUs across the continent to address 400 years of white supremacist colonialism through solidarity with “all indigenous peoples.”
In terms of atonement, it is time that we, as a nation, reverse our destructive policies towards indigenous people.
I read this summer Jill Lepore’s almost 800 pages of the History of the United States, entitled “These Truths.” Jill Lepore is a professor of American History at Harvard University, and a staff writer for the New Yorker.
Her account of our US history gave me, for the first time in my life, an account not only of the history of white Americans, but also, a more complete history of Native Americans and people of color, as well as women’s history.
Our actions as a nation towards indigenous people has been brutal and heart-breaking, and clearly demonstrate cruel treatment by those in power of seeing Native people as less than, or sub-human, instead of seeing them as people who deserve to be treated with inherent dignity and respect.
Shirley Richardson and I will be speaking more about this in our service on October 18th, when we hope to focus on Native Americans and a Day of Mourning, instead of celebrating Columbus Day.
For this morning, however, it is important to know that at our General Assembly we UUs, as a people of faith, have moved together to try to “atone,” if you will allow me to say, for the wrongs committed against Native Americans.
This Action of Immediate Witness calls us as UUs to not only become aware
of the wrongs committed against indigenous folks, but to importantly stand with them now to work towards correcting what harm has been done.
This includes being:
- “in solidarity with the Mashpee Wampanoog Tribe, the Standing Rock Nation
- To continue to push for release of Indigenous Water Protectors from prisons. I believe there were five incarcerated at the time of General Assembly.
- To work nationally, statewide, and locally on public policy that is decolonizing – such as establishing an Indigenous Peoples Day, including Indigenous peoples’ histories in public education curricula, and eliminating racist monuments, flags, and mascots.
- To work to stop, and reverse ecological harm in genuine collaboration with and taking leadership from communities most consistently and harshly impacted by extractive exploitation of land, water, air, and all beings.”
So, in terms of the theme of atonement, this Action of Immediate Witness offers us as UUs ways to take action for wrongdoings towards Native Americans, by joining with them, and then doing whatever we can to undo the great harms suffered by Native peoples.
We begin, I believe, by first understanding how we have unwittingly mainly, as a people of faith, benefited from the harms created by those in power against indigenous people.
Then, the work of asking for forgiveness and atonement come next. .
Our service of Yom Kippur this morning also asks us to look within for ways we personally may have been harmful, and to seek forgiveness and ways to repair what has been broken.
In 2008 I spent five months in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Nepal, where I did a spiritual practice for three of those months of basically looking within myself for ways that I had harmed others or myself throughout my life.
In the silence of that time I examined in four two- hour sessions each day ways that I had harmed or wronged others.
Needless to say, this was a painful experience, yet in the end, liberating. Part of the practice was to find antidotes for whatever harm was created, and to apply the antidote.
For example, if I held onto a hurting experience and let that experience become a wound, I came to see that I needed to face that experience, reflect on it, examine it, and find ways to clean up such a mess in my life. I came to see the need to make amends with people whom I had hurt or they me.
This is the self-correction aspect of our Days of Awe service.
To this very day I do an almost daily meditation practice of self-reflection, self-examination and self-correction, based on my Tibetan Buddhist experiences in Nepal in 2008.
When I returned to the United States from Nepal in 2008, and the fall season came around, my congregation and I in Northborough, MA, observed a service of Yom Kippur quite similar to what we are observing today.
At the time, I was estranged from an important person in my family, and I had no idea why. I had no idea as to whatever I had done to create this disconnection.
But when we said in the liturgy “For injuries I may have caused you or any other person, I ask forgiveness,” I knew what I had to do that morning.
That afternoon I phoned the estranged person in my family and asked for forgiveness. (I still don’t know what happened to make this relationship become disconnected. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the relationship is repaired).
My asking for forgiveness was accepted, and today I can say I have a much closer relationship with this person.
So, yes, I know that asking for forgiveness can work. Even if one is “atoning” for something one doesn’t know what it is!
One’s heart can reopen, and life be much better.
Some of us may hold onto pains and sufferings from long ago.
Such holding onto what is from the past can cause us to continue to suffer in a present time where there is no longer any reason to hold onto such pain.
Letting go can open us up to the present, and help us to move into a future with hope and promise.
We can decide to no longer repeatedly dredge up the past, using certain remembrances to place a wedge between ourselves and another, but instead learn to give up such memories, to give up control.
Everyone makes mistakes, large and small, and it is best if we can learn to forgive ourselves and others as quickly as we are able.
There comes a time hopefully when we can see the futility of carrying old grudges.
This service of Yom Kippur is one way to help us grow in forgiveness.
Even when others have hurt us, we can forgive them, and ask for forgiveness, knowing that forgiveness will heal our relationship, helping it to mend.
It is easier, with the passage of time, for most of us to forgive others. It is harder for us to learn to forgive ourselves.
Perhaps one way is to offer to ourselves the same forgiveness that we are eventually able to give to others.
Whether you ask a higher power to help you forgive, or you agree with the Jewish sages that transgressions against one’s neighbor can only be healed through reconciliation and good will, forgiveness can open our hearts and minds and spirits, liberating us from much suffering.
Let me end with this story about Mahatma Gandhi, who demonstrated through his compassion what true atonement and forgiveness can become.
During one of his hunger strikes, a man whose daughter had been killed, came to him, extremely distraught. The man told Gandhi he would stop fighting those who he was against, if Gandhi would eat.
Gandhi, knowing that the healing needed was much greater than stopping the fighting, said he would start to eat again, if the man would forgive the man who had killed his daughter.
Apparently, the father fell into deep sobs, but then, did as Gandhi had asked.
He embraced the man who had killed his daughter, and the fighting then totally ceased.
Mark Nepo, spiritual writer reflects that this story not only reveals the tremendous courage that it takes for a person so violated to act with love towards one that has so harmed you, but also it shows Gandhi’s revealing the truth “that only when the broken are healed, no matter what they have done, will we as a people be healed”
So, atonement invites us to forgive, to become one with those who have harmed us or whom we have harmed.
Atonement also asks us to act, to not just be sorry for whatever harm we created, but to do whatever in our powers to correct the harm done. So that a new day can arise, free from a past that may pull us down.
Instead, a present and a hopeful future may arise, inviting us to “atoon,” to be One together.
A new way of being can then arise that liberates and frees us from the negativities and destructive emotions that have caused us to harm ourselves and others.
Peace and love to you.