"To Err is Human, To Forgive, Divine"

Liturgical Materials for Sunday the 19^th of September 1999

Mark Belletini, Minister First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, Ohio

Opening Words [Next] [back to top]

We are here
       to remember and forget,
to learn and unlearn,
       to praise and ponder,
to lift up and set down,
       to offer song and keep silence,
to work and to play,
       as a gathered community of spirit
and as singular human hearts.
       Love, open the gates of this day in peace.
Brothers and sisters, let us enter and be glad.

Amidah, by Marge Piercy [Next][back to top]

We rise to speak, a web of bodies aligned like notes of music.
Bless what brought us through the sea and the fire
to reach out a pull each other along,
to strive to find a way through.
We rise to utter ourselves in every breath,
against the constrictions of fear,
to know ourselves, born out of rock and desert.

Bless what stirs us to compassion, what shows our face in the face of a stranger.
Bless what teaches us that whatsoever we clutch shrivels, but what we give goes off in the world
carrying bread to people not yet born.

Bless what forces us to invent goodness
every morning, and what never frees us from
the cost of knowledge, which is to act on what we know, again, and again, and again.

All living things are one and holy, let us remember
as we eat, as we work, as we walk and drive.
We must act out justice and mercy and healing
as the sun rises and the sun sets,
as the moon rises and the stars wheel above us.
We must repair goodness.

We will try to repair the world given to us to hand on.
Holy is the foot that walks toward mercy.

Praise the light that shines before us, through us, after us.

amein.

Kaddish [Next] [back to top]

Look around us, above us, below and behind.
We stand in a great web of being joined together.
Let us praise, let us love the life we are lent,
passing through the bodies of nations,
and our own bodies, and let us say Amein.

Time flows through us like water.
The past and the dead speak through us.
We breathe out our children's children, blessing.

Blessed is the earth from which we grow,
blessed is the life we are lent,
blessed are the ones who teach us,
blessed are the ones we teach,
blessed is the word that cannot say the Glory
that shines through us,
and let us say Amein.

Blessed is light, blessed is darkness,
but blessed above all else is peace,
which bears the fruits of knowledge
in its strong branches
and let us say Amein.

Peace that bears joy into the world,
peace that enables love, peace over the nations,
everywhere, blessed and holy is peace,
and let us say Amein.

The First Reading [Next] [back to top]

comes from one of the great liberal theologians of the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote these words in 1952 in a book on history.

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime, therefore we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense
in any immediate context of history; therefore we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone, therefore we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
therefore we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.

The Second Reading [Next] [back to top]

comes from the pen of Yiddish poet Kadya Molodovsky, who wrote these words in 1979.

And yet…
My skin is so thin
That a single bullet
One small steel bee
Can kill me,
Can kill you,
Can kill him,
My darlings.

My heart is so small
That it won't hide all of my tears;
And even if one tear spills
It would choke me,
It would choke you,
It would choke her,
My darlings.

My life is so hard
That no boats at sea
Or trains on the land
Can ever take me
Where I want to go,
My darlings.

And yet….and yet….
With death coming,
And though I hide my tears
In desperation
I am an arrow set in the bow
And my will is the hand
That aims me
Where I will go,
And where I will arrive,
My darlings.

Sermon: To Err is Human, to Forgive, Divine [Next] [back to top]

"To err is human, to forgive, divine." I don't know how many times I've heard that phrase in my 50 years, but I'd wager its at least a thousand times. My mother used to say it, my father, my grandparents, my friends, my colleagues, and the people in every church I have served.

Sometimes folks say it sarcastically because they don't have any intention of forgiving... something like Queen Elizabeth the First who once said of one of her enemies "Let God forgive the man; as for me, I cannot."

Others say it as if its time worn wisdom that just ought to be said, not sure whether they believe it or not.

As for me, though I confess I have been known to say it, I promise you here I will never say it again. Why? Because I don't think it tells the truth. In order to make it true, I would have to change the words. I would have to say: To err is human, and therefore it's just as human to forgive.

Now please don't read anything theological in my rewording. I am not against using the word "divine" at all. I think it's a rich and resonant word, with many possible meanings, and deep connotations. But it simply does not belong in that particular sentence. Why? Because I am convinced that it is our own humanity that asks us to consider forgiveness, not any part of us that intersects with the divine. We do not forgive because we are godly, but because we are human. Let me tell you what I mean.

But in order to do that I have to do a review, and then offer a bit of spiritual anthopology.

You have figured out by now that I am very careful in using words. This is because I believe words are powerful, and effective, and shape the very reality we all claim to share. There are words and phrases I use with some frequency, because they are luminous and healing and beautiful. And there are words and phrases I do not ever use, because I think they are fundamentally dishonest or destructive.

Last year I explained to you why I will not say "I am offended" when something bothers me. I told you that if I use that phrase in talking to you, I am using a dishonest code to tell you that since I am bothered by something, I expect you to simply bow to my personal discomfort and change your opinions for that reason alone.

I told you then that I would simply be taking you hostage with my emotions. I would not be communicating with you. I have to tell you why, and explain it carefully to your mind and heart. I trust you are at least a somewhat reasonable person, and that if I carefully state the reasons I have for being bothered, I may have every chance of convincing you to change your behavior or ideas.

But if I do not take the time to reason with you, then I am actually refusing to treat you as a sovereign human being. I am valuing you only as a rubber stamp for my ideas. If your attitude toward racial issues, or Native Americans, or gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered folk, or even theology bothers me, I must never say "That offends me." I must tell you why I am bothered carefully, respectful of your humanity.

Thus, I encouraged each of you to join me in fasting from the phrase "I am offended" as well, since our shared principles as Unitarian Universalists encourage us to value persons even if they do not personally share our theology or politics, even if they are very different from us.

I understand that saying what I said is a tough thing. I had many interesting discussions last year about my suggestion that we give up using the words "offensive" or "offended" in our communications with each other.

This morning, let me tell you about another phrase I will never use. Another phrase that may be tough for some people. The phrase is "Human nature."

Now let me tell you why I don't like to use it.

I don't think there is anything in that phrase that applies to me. I don't have "a human nature." I have my nature, my own inner and external realities; but they are not yours. Nor are yours mine...or each others'. Oh sure, I understand that you and I share mortality, that we all evolved form the same sources, and that we are all physically limited by time and place. But that is not usually what folks mean when they talk about "human nature."

Whenever I hear anyone using the phrase "human nature" I only hear them putting it in this sentence "Oh, its just human nature." It's a way of acting nonchalantly "forgiving" about a certain event. Say some man or woman has "an affair." If his or her friends find out, they might dismiss the affair as not being very important by saying "Oh, its just human nature you know." Or, there are those who say of students who cheat on exams at the university "Well, it doesn't surprise me...its just human nature you know; what can you expect in a world where you have such pressures to achieve academic excellence in order to get ahead?"

But let me point out the limits of that phrase. I am telling you now, you will never hear one person, while talking about the man who killed all those people at that Fort Worth church this week, say "Well, what do you expect? It's just human nature, you know." I am telling you will will never hear people appealing to "human nature" to explain the shootings at Columbine either. The young men who killed Matthew Sheperd hadn't slept in five days because they were both racing high on a form of "speed" when they killed him. Tens of millions of folks use street drugs of various kinds in this nation; some of them even use the same drug as Sheperd's killers. Yet none of them toss away this murder lightly by saying "oh its just human nature...people have been murdering people in gruesome ways since the biblical days of Cain and Abel."

Because this phrase is used so cavalierly in some cases, and so inappropriately in others, I don't find it useful at all.

I say this...our natures are all different. A man with a tumor in his brain has a different nature than a woman who does not have a tumor in her brain. A woman with estrogen flowing in her system may react or think differently from a man who has different hormones in his system. A man who is hypoglycemic and can eat 5 meals a day without gaining weight has a different nature than a woman who eats very little by comparison and is quite heavy for her height. Someone who needs medication to get through the day has a different set of considerations within his nature from someone who does not need medication to get through the day. A person who grows up in a family where every one shouts all the time is going to have different way of being in the world from a man who grew up in a family where silence reigned supreme. In a single family, one child may be very "sensitive" and another may act very "insensitive." Their biological natures may very well be different, even though they share the same genes and chromosomes.

We do not share one singular "human nature." We have different human natures. Our biologies make us different. Our cultures. Our families. Our experiences of power and powerlessness. Our illnesses or health. Our ages. Our religious or secular backgrounds. Our metabolisms. Our generations. To say of any human behavior "Oh, its just human nature!" does not tell me anything useful at all. Its just a way of telling me to stop thinking about consequences, and I'd rather not do that, thank you very much.

I would redefine the phrase "human nature" if I could, but I don't think I am that powerful. If I could, however, I would say that the phrase "human nature" could refer to this portrait: "We are all mortals who live on the skin of a small green and blue planet orbiting a small yellow star at the edge of a very ordinary galaxy someplace in a Vastness called 'the universe.' We live for a short time both alone and in community, but we communicate across generations by writing and art, so that even though our individual lives are short, we can say we have been around a long time.

We are all different, but we seek to find similarities and our reflections in each other's eyes. We are all fallible. No matter what our brain chemistry, we all seem to hurt each other in big ways or small, and thus, our nature is to find ways to live together despite it all. We don't know very much, not because we are stupid, but because there is far too much to know for small, and quite limited creatures as ourselves. We have made some progress in ten thousand years, sure, but we know how much further we have to go. And thus, we live and forgive, so that we don't go on reliving the same damn things over and over forever."

You see, I agree with the Jewish poet Molodovsky in the second reading. I think we are all fragile, vulnerable creatures, easily killed by a single bullet, or dropped by single virus. We each have had great grief and loss in our lives, and whether we cry openly or privately, or in the recesses of our inner lives, we could each probably choke on the amount of sheer tears we could cry if we just let go for a few minutes.

Each of us have had unique difficult times in our lives, tough unrepeatable experiences that have bent us this way or that. But in the end, she says, we have to make up our mind to go forward, to shoot ourselves forward in the bow of the will that we hold in our own hands. Staying motionless is not an option, she suggests. Holding on the past with all of our strength is not a viable choice either. Going toward the target...deeper love, deeper peace, deeper kindness...that and that alone is what we should expect of each other as human beings. This, no matter how different our natures are. This, no matter that some will always go further than others are able to go.

As Niebuhr says in the first reading, we live by faith and hope and love precisely because we are so small and limited in space and time. We live by faith and hope and love because we really know very little about ourselves and each other. And we forgive...the highest form of love, he calls it....because "our foes and even our friends" know so little about our choices, and we know so little about theirs, that not to forgive is almost arrogant.

But forgiveness is hard, you tell me. The hurts are real. I know. I too have been hurt many times. I have cried myself to sleep many nights. I have turned hard-hearted and cold many times to protect myself. I cannot forgive such hurts, you tell me. It was so terrible, you tell me. You have no idea, you tell me. Correct. I have no idea. Your life is yours and mine is mine.

But we are all human. And if we cling to the past, refusing to forgive and let go, and if we continue to let the past paralyze us, and clutch at our feet so they cannot move forward, then I say we are as good as dead, for the dead do not move. Only the living go forward. And I say in this Jewish holiday season of Yom Kippur, l'chaim, to life! To life! To life! To going forward, not staying behind.

But how do we forgive, you ask me? I can see a bit why you think it's so important, but I am not sure I know how to do it. Surely its more that simply saying to someone "I forgive you." Absolutely. Its a lot more than that. In fact, that too is an almost useless phrase. Best not to use it.

Let me give you seven suggestions for how to forgive one another, how to forgive me, and even how to forgive those who have hurt you the worst.

1. Remember first that forgiving is not condoning or forgetting or excusing. There's no reason to wear blinders, or be foolish, as Molly Layton says at the top of your orders of celebration. No, as I defined it last year, to forgive is quite simply "to give up all hope that the past could be different than it was." No more. No less. Maybe what happened shouldn't have happened. Undoubtedly. But it did. And that is the reality forgiveness addresses, not whether it should have happened or not.

2. Remember that forgiveness can only begin if you are clear that you were indeed hurt. If you simply find someone obnoxious or overbearing, you do not need to forgive them. They have not hurt you. They just annoy you. Thus, you simply do not need to spend time with them, if that is at all possible. Or at least less time. But if you were genuinely hurt or wounded, and you know how, then you can begin to forgive. Clarity is just as important for forgiveness as it is to highway driving. You don't drive in a deep fog; you can't forgive in a deep fog either. And, we need to have real clarity about what we expect of people. Maybe, just maybe, we expect a bit too much of some folks.

3. You have to let the other person know that they were hurting you, if they do not seem to know it. If they do know it, then you can talk to them about their hurtful behavior and ask them not to do it again. Now, obviously, violent behavior does not fall into this category. The only way to begin to let go of the effect of violent behavior in your past is 1. leave the violent situation no matter what, and 2. commit yourself to a lifetime of reflection. Violence must never, ever be condoned, or explained away as inconsequential.

But if someone merely shouts at you just because they always did that in his family, or if someone is sarcastic toward you, and you are hurt because no one ever shouted in your family, or used sarcasm as a form of attack, then maybe its not forgiveness you need to work on so much as an understanding of your different upbringings. Or, better yet, maybe that's what forgiveness is in this case... simple education about another human being. After all, there is nothing inherently nasty in either loud voices or a tendency to silence. Sometimes forgiveness is just a form of finding out more about the other persons nature, that is, their way of being in the world. When that is coupled with explaining to the other person that you find shouting and sarcasm terrifying and painful, you will be able to begin to let go of the past event and move on.

4. Always take into consideration all the human possibilities. Individual "human natures" so to speak. If they were drunk, realize that. You don't have to condone the drinking, or the cutting remarks and crazymaking behavior that the drinking unleashed. You may, however, have to face the difficult issue of confronting the very real and sad presence of unacknowledged alcoholism or drug addiction in your life. Forgiveness in your case will look a lot like attending 12 step or similar meetings, or seeing a therapist that has some expertise in this issue. It cannot possibly look like the phrase "I forgive you." That would be a meaningless gesture. It requires of you more work than that. You may be resentful that you have to do that work, but forgiveness may also be getting over that resentment as well, and accepting the broken nature of the person who has wounded you so, and accepting the time and commitment on your part to recover from the wounding past.

5. Try not to confuse forgiveness with continuing on with the same relationship. To give up all hope that the past could be any different than it was might also mean that you have to protect your present life as well. You may have to cut someone out of your life if you do not perceive any change in their behavior, or any possibility for such change. You may have to break off a relationship. To forgive is not to condone, please remember that. If it hurt you in the past, it will still hurt you in the present if it does not stop. And if the other person cannot even admit that you are hurt, then I do not see how forgiveness looks like anything but a clear end to the relationship. There is no shame in this. No shame at all. It will be sad, yes, but not all relationships are redeemable.

6. If you use the word Hitler and forgiveness in the same sentence, you are still not clear on the subject. Your job is not to figure out how to forgive Adolf Hitler. Your job in regards to Mr. Hitler is to make sure that you stand up against anyone who claims to have his kind of power in the present day. You diminish the whole concept and beauty of forgiveness by bringing up great catastrophes of human nature. You cannot bring back the 6 million Jews who died due to his insanity by claiming to be so masterful as to forgive him. You can best relate to him by understanding that he was a human being with serious problems, and that there will be human beings with serious problems again, and your job is to confront them, not to try and redeem the past.

7. Lastly, to forgive is not to imagine that you will succeed in this life-time. Some people have wounded greatly, I know. Your job may simply to begin to walk the road of forgiveness, not to arrive at the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. By prying past hurts off your heart like so many sticky, clinging vines holding you back, you are doing the work of forgiveness, even if you never ever succeed in making them stop growing. But to live a human life, I think at the very least you have to walk the road of forgiveness.

These are some suggestions. You may think of others.

But there is nothing terribly divine about all this work. Nothing terribly godly about it. It strikes me as very, very human. And in this season when our Jewish sisters and brothers are looking at the concepts of forgiveness and expectations so thoroughly, can we do any less?

I can give you no good reason to tell me you are offended.I can offer you no good reason to tell me "oh, its just human nature." But I can think of a thousand reasons to forgive, all of them gloriously human. Praise be for the opportunity to forgive, today, tomorrow and forever.

Ending Thought: Kol Nidrei  [back to top]

And now all vows we have made or shall make in the year to come, vows to conform and say we are all the same; all promises we have made under duress of the modern age which offers us idols of unending achievement and fame if we would but conform and refuse to think or love, are now, by the power of these words and the presence of the spirit of love, nullified, cancelled, undone and made as nothing.

Now the work of forgiveness can begin, for we are once more free to no longer give ourselves away or sell ourselves for the price of approval. For all vows of conformity are nullified, cancelled, undone and made as nothing. Now we are free to be ourselves, for all vows, all promises we have made to not be ourselves are cancelled, nullified, undone and made as nothing. Amein.

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