Homily by Rev. Pat Hoertdoerfer

In this country, we live in a culture of violence. Today and every day

• 2,140 babies are born in poverty
• Nearly 12 children and youth under the age of 20 die from firearms
• 399 children are arrested for drug abuse
• 218 young people are arrested for violent crimes
• 144 children are abused and neglected

We live in a world of hate crimes and teen suicides, violent music videos and internet pornography. Violence permeates American life from the private sphere to the public arena. We are a country born in violence and continually formed in violence – the violence of conquest, colonization, conversion, and “civilization.” The macrocosm of American culture and history is reflected in the microcosm of our communities and UU. congregations.

Each day we read news stories detailing the latest allegations and arrests of violent crimes, sexual abuse and acquaintance rape in communities across our country. This culture has entered our lives, our communities, and our congregations. Family conversations and congregational discussions often take on violent language and heated rhetoric inappropriate for a UU family or a faith community. It happens in UU households or congregations when one person offers a different perspective or asks a different question, when one member passionately takes a position or accepts a leadership role. If this disrespectful, uncivil behavior is not confronted and addressed, it becomes accepted and condoned. We must name the abusive behavior in its many forms, overcome the secrecy and shame, and address interpersonal violence. You know and i know that until all relationships – between young and old, black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, liberal and conservative – can be respectful and healthy no one is safe.

Our religious heritages – Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist – compel us to address the important, widespread and complex social issues of interpersonal violence. Physical, emotional, sexual, or spiritual abuse and neglect; domestic violence, exclusivity – all profoundly affect all participants by diminishing human dignity and free choice. In our religious communities breaches of trust, faith, and safety undermine the foundations of our personal and communal covenants.

• Our faith calls us to service in promoting and creating communities of peace, love and justice for all.
• Our faith calls us to practice our relational theology by respecting the worth of every person while honoring the wholeness of life in the interdependent web of existence.
• Our faith calls us to treat others with justice, equity, and compassion while working to create environments that lend themselves to modeling liberty, peace, and justice in human interactions.
• Our faith calls us to act in ways that foster well-being in ourselves and others by doing no harm and acting responsibly to create communities that are safe and nonviolent.
• Finally our faith calls us to be courageous and committed leaders in the ongoing search for truth and meaning, spiritual freedom and ethical responsibility.

Today we focus on our fiduciary responsibility, managing risks of abuse and violence in our congregations, and ministering to the members and families in our communities. Every person here shares a commitment to serve our UU congregations and our UU faith as religious educators, ministers, youth advisors, and lay leaders. May I remind us of our roots and our heritage: a UU congregation is members gathered in covenant to promote our values and principles. The congregation confers the power of ministry – calling a minister, hiring a religious educator, and empowering ministry to/with youth / social justice ministry / pastoral care ministry / campus ministry … and all of these ministries are accountable to the board of trustees in the name of the congregation. Congregational life is created to preserve safety and trust in which spiritual growth and ethical practice can occur and individual and communal faith develop.

My experience has taught me that everything that happens in a congregation and everything that happens in the lives of congregational members and friends is theological. When dishonesty and conflict, tragedy and trauma happen people suffer not only from the abuse they experience but from the threat of meaninglessness that comes with it. The fact is that suffering does happen to every human being and most likely it is the result of human incompetence, inadequacy, or cruelty. And people struggle to make meaning of their situation, their lives, and their faith.

We minister to the children, youth, adults and elders in our congregations. We are called to be peace-makers and justice builders in situations of incivility, dishonesty, exclusivity, and abuse. We know that the consequences of interpersonal violence and abuse are profound. For the victim, there is anger and mistrust toward the perpetrator, depression and anxiety, alienation from their congregation and betrayal of their faith. For the perpetrator, there is a betrayal of their office/profession, damage to his/her reputation, and impact on his/her family. For the congregation, there is divisiveness and discord, confusion and doubt, and a sense of violation.

What are we called to do and to be in our ministries?

As we suffer with survivors and victims, as we talk with perpetrators, and as we walk with by-standers in our congregations, we bring the resources of our faith. Our theology and our faith traditions require that we attempt to bring justice where there has been injustice. Our moral imperative is to do justice in the face of abuse and violence. Our fiduciary responsibility is to bring healing in the name of the principles of our Unitarian Universalist faith.

Marie fortune, founder of the center for the prevention of sexual and domestic violence and UCC theologian, articulated seven elements of justice in her book is nothing sacred? We have worked often with our UCC brothers and sisters and we have used her elements of justice-making again in our new safe congregations handbook.

Let us examine these elements of justice-making and the parallel UU principles as we strive to make our congregations safer and our relationships just and caring.

Yellow handout is provided for us to dialogue responsively.

Elements of justice and UU principles
Pat leads, and participants read corresponding UU principle

• Truth-telling : breaking the secrecy that usually surrounds abuse (and the silence that usually allows it to continue); a chance to speak the truth about what the person has experienced; to tell the story.
  • Free and responsible search for truth and meaning
    
• Acknowledgement: to be heard and understood by someone who matters; and to have the moral quality of the experience acknowledged.(“this behavior is wrong and should never happen.”)
  • The inherent worth and dignity of every person
    
• Compassion: literally “to suffer with”; for the by-stander to be able to listen and be present to the suffering without “fixing” or turning away; creates a connection between ourselves and the victim which is the first step toward healing.
  • Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations
    
• Protect the vulnerable: to protect anyone else who might be vulnerable to harm from this perpetrator; congregational leaders naming the steps to be taken to prevent further harm.
  • Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth
    
• Accountability: to hold the perpetrator accountable; “confession” and apology are the best case scenario but absent that, some process that seeks thorough consequences, to prevent further harm; the theological term is repentance.
  • The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process in our congregations
    
• Restitution: material compensation for the losses incurred by the victim; ideally provided by the perpetrator as an act of repentance; if not, then by community; helps to repair the damage (symbolic and material sense).
  • Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are part
    
• Vindication: not revenge; to be vindicated is to be set free from the multiple layers of suffering; scars remain but healing is sufficient so as not to continue to be held in bondage to the trauma.
  • The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all

Many of us have worked with our congregations to reduce the risks of abuse and violence, to confront situations of dishonesty and exclusivity, and to promote covenants and behaviors of right relationship. It is my personal hope and prayer that you find the resources and resource people here today helpful to you as you pay attention to safety and trust, justice and faith in your congregation.

What does our faith require of us? Is a faithful response to interpersonal violence possible in our congregations? Our faith calls us to work for justice that makes for healing – and justice that makes for equality and compassion.

May we cast our lot with those workers who adrienne rich names:

My heart is moved by all i cannot save:

So much has been destroyed.

I have to cast my lot with those

Who, age after age,

Perversely, with no extraordinary power,

Reconstitute the world.