Mind Your Business

Legacy 

Rev. Ron Sala

Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford

Easter, March 31, 2002 

 

People have high expectations for their ministers. But, of course, no one is perfect—including clergy. Almost everyone has something in their past someone else would disapprove of. Take, for instance, these notes from a hypothetical ministerial search process:

Adam: Good man, but problems with his wife. Also one reference told of his wife walking naked in the woods. 

Noah: Former pastorate of 120 years with not even one convert. Prone to unrealistic building projects. 

Abraham: References reported his sleeping with another man's wife; the facts show he never did sleep with another man's wife, but did offer to share his wife. 

Joseph: A big thinker, but braggart, believes in dream-interpreting, and has a prison record. 

Moses: A modest and meek man, but poor communicator, even stuttering at times. Sometimes blows his stack and acts rashly. Some say he left a previous position over a murder charge. 

David: The most promising leader of all until we discovered the affair with a neighbor's wife. 

Solomon: Great preacher, but our parsonage would never hold all his wives. 

Elijah: Prone to depression. Collapses under pressure. 

Elisha: Reported to have lived with a single widow at his former church. 

Jonah: Refused God's call to ministry until he was forced to obey by getting swallowed by a great fish. He told us later that the fish spit him out on the beach. We hung up. 

Peter: Too blue collar. Has a bad temper, has been known to curse. Had a big run in with Paul. Aggressive, but a loose cannon. 

Paul: Powerful CEO type leader. However, short on tact, unforgiving with younger ministers, harsh, and has been known to preach all night. 

Timothy: Too young. 

Methuselah: Too old. WAY too old. 

Judas: His references are solid. A steady plodder, conservative with excellent connections. Knows how to handle money. We are inviting him to preach next Sunday, real possibilities here.... 

And me? I’m no exception. Let me share with you a scandalous scene from my wild past. Well, it’s not too scandalous or wild, but it was fun! It’s back in my high school days. My friend Ross and I are working an evening shift in a place called Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

The main shopping district of Pottstown is High Street. It is also a hot rod cruising strip famous around the state. People in Pottstown are very proud of their cars and the young (and the not-so-young) come from miles around to cruise up and down High Street in hotrods and vintage vehicles. Ross and I don’t want to go home just yet, so, with High Street so close, we get into my car for a drive. I have a tape on the stereo. When U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)” comes on, I crank the volume up to a deafening level and we both sing every word, passionately, at the top of our lungs. Ross, who is black, and I, who am white, both know the song is a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King. The emotional highpoint of the song is in the final verse:

Early morning, April 4, a shot rings out in the Memphis sky.

Free at last! They took your life. They could not take your pride. 

Ross and I were too young to remember King, whose life was tragically taken from him before we were born. But King’s legacy lives on, and it’s by this legacy that we’ve came to know his courageous and world-altering ministry.

The 34th anniversary of his tragic death is coming up this week.

Martin Luther King seemed to have known something of the legacy he would leave. On April 3rd, 1968, the day before he was assassinated, King preached his last sermon, in which he said, “...I've been to the mountaintop.... And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. ...Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

That remark of King’s about having been to the mountaintop refers to a passage in the Hebrew Bible, in Deuteronomy, chapter 32. God commands Moses to go to the top of Mount Nebo where he may view the Promised Land of Canaan. Though Moses is given the privilege of seeing the Promised Land from afar, God tells him he will not enter it with the people but will die on the mountain.

Moses has led the people through an incredible journey. It began in Egypt where the children of Israel were demoralized slaves. He led them into the wilderness where many wanted to go back to bondage rather than face the trials of freedom. Now, finally, Moses has come so close to the goal, yet knows it will not be he but the next generation that will enjoy the fruits of his labor. No wonder Martin Luther King could identify with Moses on that mountaintop. He knew that, even if his life were not to be taken from him, that the fulfillment of his dream of racial and class equality was far away, and might only be reached by a future generation.

Some of this idea of having come so far yet having so far to go comes out in the Jewish festival of Pesach or Passover, which we are in the midst of now. The Passover tradition comes from the passage from Exodus 12 that Tony read for us this morning. In the passage, God gives instructions to Moses and Aaron about a festival the Israelites will celebrate to commemorate their freedom from slavery in Egypt. A striking aspect of the chapter is that God is giving these instructions “in the land of Egypt.” The deliverance itself has not yet occurred.

One thing to remember is that, though tradition says that Exodus was written personally by Moses, most contemporary scholars believe that it actually wasn’t written until centuries later. This means that we are better off interpreting the book as a later piece of literature or myth rather than a blow-by-blow recording of what actually happened, written at the time. Nevertheless, the ordering of events is important. Clearly, the writer of Exodus intended something by the placement of this particular set of instructions where it is in the story—before the release of the slaves and during the supernatural battle between God and earthly power. It’s as if the war is not at an end, yet victory is secured, and the celebration is already being planned. In this sense, Passover is both a celebration of victories already won and those not yet achieved.

This simultaneous orientation to both past and future is found at many of the points in the Seder, the ritual meal that begins Passover. Through much of their history, the Jewish people have been poignantly aware of the many ways in which their bondage never ended in Egypt, that it continued in the forced removal of Jews from many of the countries of Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. That the bondage continued in the pogroms in the stetls of Russia. And, of course, that it continued in the death camps of the Shoah, or Holocaust, in the last century.

Indeed, the quaint custom of opening the door at a certain point in the Seder to let the prophet Elijah come in had a very practical origin. From the 11th century even to the early 20th century, Jews have been accused by anti-Semites of murdering Christians and drinking their blood on Passover. In many times and places, the door was opened to protect those inside from this infamous Blood Libel. Jews often drank white wine at the Seder table to make abundantly clear to their neighbors that this hideous accusation had no basis.

Jews have also been aware that the exile, the Galut, of wandering in the wilderness has never really come to an end. Wandering has continued to be felt in the lack of peace in Israel. Wandering has continued in the rising anti-Semitism in recent years across the US and Europe.

There is a sense in which the phrase in the Seder, “Next year in Jerusalem,” refers, in our age, not just to the physical city of Jerusalem, but a worldwide embodiment of the principle Jerusalem stands for, its name being related to Shalom, the Hebrew word for peace.

This symbolic interpretation of the Seder has been used by many Jews over the centuries to broaden the Passover spirit beyond just a celebration of a long-ago, semi-mythical event. Such interpretation has sometimes been used to redefine what a Seder is.

For instance, interfaith Seders between Jewish Americans and African Americans have been held in recent years to show the similar struggles for freedom blacks and Jews have engaged in—and the unity that can exist between these communities.

In 1976, Gloria Steinem inspired some friends to celebrate the world’s first Feminist Seder. The next year, part of it was printed in Ms. magazine and Feminist Seders began to spread across the country and are still being celebrated today. Feminist Seders highlight the role of women in Jewish history and the Bible, a book in which women are often woefully underrepresented and misrepresented.

According to Jewish law, before a house can host a Seder it must be cleansed of leaven—yeast. Traditionally, the patriarch of the family takes a bunch of feathers and a wooden spoon and sweeps up any crumbs of leavened bread he finds. Like the annual cleaning during the Hindu festival of Divali, this is a ritual cleaning that many commentators in both religions relate to an inward cleaning of the heart of its “tendency to evil.” In Judaism, this Tendency to Evil is called the Yetzer ha-Rah. There is also, of course, a Tendency to Good, called the Yetzer Tob. According to the teaching, the Yetzer ha-Rah and the Yetzer Tob are parts of us that continually struggle to influence our behavior. It’s good to remember that each of our struggles to change the world can only begin with a decision in ourselves. We must clean our own houses first.

Once the house is cleansed, literally and metaphorically, the Seder meal can begin. The meal consists of several symbolic foods, some of which are:

“z’roah (shank-bone of roast lamb), to recall to the worshipers the paschal lamb that was sacrificed in ancient times; a beitzah (roasted egg)—one of several allegoric explanations given for its inclusion by the rabbis is that the egg, usually a Jewish symbol of the Resurrection and Immortality, also stands for Israel: the longer you cook it, the harder and more indestructible it becomes; a piece of maror (“bitter herbs”—i.e., horseradish), to recall the bitterness of life during the Bondage in Egypt ... [and] a mound of charoset (a mixture of ground apples, raisins, almonds, cinnamon, and wine) that symbolizes the brick and the mortar that Israel’s enslaved ancestors had been forced to make in Egypt....1 

To comment briefly on each of these in turn, the biblical instructions for the first Passover called for the sacrifice of a lamb to demonstrate one’s identification with the people of Israel. In Seders today, the sacrifice is symbolized by a shank of bone. But the idea of sacrifice has been enlarged to include what each of us are willing to give up for the sake of freedom. The ways of the world present us with many such choices. Am I willing to give to others in need? Am I willing to reconsider my own privilege in the light of others’ oppression? What sacrifice am I willing to make to show solidarity with my community?

The roasted egg is not mentioned in Exodus, but what a beautiful symbol, nevertheless. It stands for hope, knowing that though individuals are mortal, the people will endure forever. It stands for a community of conscience and resistance that persecution only makes stronger.

The bitter herbs, horseradish among Ashkenazi Jews and vinegar among Sephardic Jews, are mentioned in Exodus. Like the charoset, which resembles mortar, they are to remind Jews of the hardships of oppression. Time and again throughout the Hebrew Bible comes the warning, Remember that you, too, were slaves in Egypt. This warning was to avoid the trap of the formerly oppressed becoming oppressors in their own right. And how important it is to remember also today, oppression past and present, whether we are Jewish or not. Virtually any ethnic group can name a time in its history when it was on the receiving end of injustice. Remembering those times, no matter our background, can lead us to empathy and justice-seeking with those who suffer now.

There is a legacy in the celebration of Passover, especially for Jews, but also for non-Jews who can appreciate the Jews long struggle for justice and survival against all odds. We can each put into practice the spirit of the Seder, found in the Haggadah’s opening, “Let all who are hungry enter and eat thereof; and all who are in need come and celebrate the Passover!”

But this is a bitter Passover, both in the Middle East and for concerned people all over the world. I was deeply saddened, as I know you were, too, to hear of the suicide bomber who brought death and destruction to people observing a Seder meal in Israel. Unimaginable, but real, along with all the other violence we have seen this past week. The suffering is so deep, both for Israelis and for Palestinians.

I’m reading through the Koran this year. As if by design, one of the selections I read this week was the Prophet Mohamed’s retelling of the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt. God’s concern for people and demand for justice are themes just as important to Moslems as to Jews. How ironic that two peoples, worshipping the same God and cherishing the same stories are consumed in such bloody conflict with each other! And that conflict will continue until both sides can recognize each other as brothers and sisters, until both realize that God or righteousness or justice are not the exclusive possession of Jews or Moslems or any other single group. Until that day, there will, sadly, only be blood and tears….

Christians, too, reverence the powerful story of the deliverance from Egypt. Many people forget that the Last Supper recorded in the Christian Bible was a Passover Seder! Jesus was a rabbi celebrating the meal with his students. John chapter 17, our second reading this morning, is a prayer Jesus gave at his Last Seder.

One thing to note is that, similarly to Exodus, scholars tell us the book of John was not written by its traditional author, the Apostle John, but instead by an anonymous writer some time later. We don’t know that these are the exact words of Jesus that evening after sundown. All the same, the story that these words tell is fascinating. John was probably written sometime in the late first or early second century. By then, Christians lived in fear of official persecution. How comforting this prayer must have been to them, to read of Jesus himself praying for their safety! How they must have gathered at their communal meals with trepidation, just as Jews have often had to. Christians then, and in many places now, live in fear because of the legacy they carry.

Like Martin Luther King, who on the eve of his murder looked to the legacy he would leave, the 17th chapter of John is a prayer Jesus gives for his disciples who will carry on his work.

These are the very last words Jesus speaks before soldiers and police come to arrest him. Like King, Jesus seems to have known that he would soon be separated from those he has struggled with and loved.

Jesus, like King, had a radical message. Jesus' ouster of the moneychangers in the Temple has enraged the authorities, as has much of his career: eating with tax collectors and “sinners,” talking with a Samaritan woman, breaking the Pharisaic Sabbath and purity laws, or railing against the religious establishment. There has already been an attempt to kill him by stoning.

He knows that his message is hazardous to those in power and that he and his disciples are in mortal danger. But Jesus is undeterred. In John chapter 17, verse 14, Jesus prays, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” Nevertheless, he goes on in the next verse, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.” (Some of the ancient manuscripts simply say, “to protect them from evil.”)

And Jesus does not only pray for his immediate disciples but also for those who would come after. In verse 20, we read, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word....”

Jesus is praying for his legacy. His legacy is not merely a set of beliefs or of moral teachings. His legacy is rather those carry on his work of love and justice. Inasmuch as we do this, loving our neighbors, being peacemakers, treating people as we would like to be treated, his legacy is us.

Some try to tell us, of course, that we can only be Jesus legacy if we believe he rose bodily out of a tomb. They say Jesus legacy has to do with a miracle that happened one Sunday some 2,000 years ago. But that’s not the only way to see it. In biblical Greek, there are two words for body, sarx and soma. Sarx and soma. Sarx is the flesh and refers to the physical human body. Soma means body in a more general sense, and can be used metaphorically, the way that we today talk about a student body or a body of opinion. The Western Christian Church has claimed that Jesus rose in the sarx, in the flesh. The tradition of the Eastern Church is different. They emphasize that Jesus rose in the soma. That is, we need not claim that a dead man rose from the grave, but that the body of Jesus’ legacy—in the form his teachings, his story, and his followers—has risen! Easter is not about a ghost story of dead man walking from a tomb but about Jesus legacy that can rise daily to live in us.

I was inspired to hear a story this week about the Via Dolorosa, the route Christians believe Jesus walked through Jerusalem carrying his cross, which pilgrims follow each Good Friday. But there was another procession this year, as well, the story went on to say. This one was through the streets of Manhattan. The destination was not Calvary’s hill, but rather the former World Trade Center site. To me, this says that the spirit of Jesus’ legacy was present in the many brave firefighters, police, and ordinary people who risked, and even gave, their own lives to help others.

We can be Jesus’ legacy. (Yes, even us Unitarian Universalists!) We can be Jesus’ legacy when we thoughtfully ask the question, “What would Jesus do?” and try to live the answer. We can be Jesus’ legacy when we comfort the afflicted. We can be Jesus legacy when we afflict the comfortable. And we can be Jesus legacy when we bring hope into the world.

From the living legacies of Martin Luther King, of Passover, and of Easter may we be inspired to change the world—starting with ourselves.

I will conclude this morning with something by Peter Drucker that moved me. He writes,

When I was thirteen, I had an inspiring teacher of religion, who one day went right through the class of boys asking each one, “What do you want to be remembered for?” None of us, of course, could give an answer. So, he chuckled and said, “I didn’t expect you to be able to answer it. But if you still can’t answer it by the time you’re fifty, you will have wasted your life.” We eventually had a sixtieth reunion of that high school class. Most of us were still alive, but we hadn’t seen each other since we graduated, and so the talk at first was a little stilted. Then one of the fellows asked, “Do you remember Father Pfliegler and that question?” We all remembered it. And each one said it had made all the difference to him, although they didn’t really understand that until they were in their forties. 

At twenty-five, some of us began trying to answer it and, by and large, answered it foolishly. Joseph Schumpeter, one of the greatest economists of this century, claimed at twenty-five that he wanted to be remembered as the best horseman in Europe, the greatest lover in Europe, and as a great economist. By age sixty, just before he died, he was asked the question again. He no longer talked of horsemanship and he no longer talked of women. He said he wanted to be remembered as the man who had given an early warning of the dangers of inflation. That is what his remembered for—and it’s worthwhile being remembered for. Asking that question changed him, even though the answer he gave at twenty-five was singularly stupid, even for a young man of twenty-five. 

Drucker concludes, 

I’m always asking that question: What do you want to be remembered for? It is a question that induces you to renew yourself, because it pushes you to see yourself as a different person—the person you can become. If you are fortunate, someone with the moral authority of a Father Pfliegler will ask you that question early enough in your life so that you will continue to ask it as you go through life.2 

In this season of Passover and Easter, ask yourself, What will my legacy be?



1 Nathan Ausubel, The Book of Jewish Knowledge (New York: Crown Publishers, 1964), 327-28.



2 Peter F. Drucker, Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Practices and Principles (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 201-02.



1