Sermon

The Spirit of Tolerance

The Rev. Jack D. Bryant

Hope Unitarian Church

August 29, 2004

First Reading: A. Powell Davies

You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer. A good character today is shaped by greatness, greatness in vision, greatness in courage, greatness in insight, greatness in purpose and devotion. Without this greatness, all the lesser things will soon be swept away. Let, therefore, the winds of God blow through our lives and sweep away all littleness, all triviality, all mean and narrow aims. And in lives swept open to the true, the limitless, the universal may there be room at last for the courage and compassion of the infinite, for the joy and tenderness of life's lovelier, holier spirit, for the power and the wonder of God.

Second Reading: A Traditional Zen Story

Once upon a time there were two Zen monks walking along a road. One was older with many years in their order; the other a young man who had been a monk for only a year. It had rained heavily the night before, but the road was paved with stones so they and the other travelers remained dry. But about midday their road crossed a stream - a stream so swollen with the previous night’s rain that its water was muddy and out of its banks. Standing beside the road was a young woman, beautifully dressed in fine clothes. She smiled at the two monks. The younger monk returned her smile with a scowl, because it was a requirement of their order that they not associate with, much less touch a woman. But the older month just smiled and asked if she needed help crossing the stream. She said yes and without another word the older monk picked her up and carried her across the stream so that her clothes were not ruined by the muddy water. She thanked him and went her way as the two monks took their own path. For the rest of the day the younger monk was silently angry. The older monk would nod and smile at each person they met, but the younger monk just glared and wouldn’t say a word. Finally, after many hours, the younger monk could no longer remain silent. He began to scold the older monk.

“How could you pick up that woman. You know you’re not supposed to. What you did was shameful, an embarrassment to our order.”

The older monk just smiled and said, “My dear young friend. I set that woman down hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

Sermon

One of the defining experiences of my life was seminary. I had been out of school for twenty-one years and was terrified by the thought of going back. But I knew I had to do it. I didn’t have a choice. And to make matters worse I was a Unitarian over a thousand miles away from the nearest Unitarian seminary. I couldn’t afford to relocate myself and my family. My only choice was to attend seminary right where I was in Austin, Texas. Going back to school was bad enough, but having to do it where I knew I would be all alone, where I would be the only Unitarian, where I knew I would not be accepted, where I knew I would be constantly questioned and where I knew I would spend my entire time getting those side way glances from people was more than I could bear - but I also knew that I had to bear it. So there I was: sitting in the office of the Rev. Eleanor Cherryholmes, Director of Admissions for Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, telling her my sad story of having a call to ministry. Was it possible that a Unitarian could enroll in a Presbyterian school? She calmly suggested I enroll as a special student and take one or two classes as a way of testing my sense of calling. That made sense as I knew I wouldn’t be able to go full time until the next year. But I was concerned that she hadn’t understand what I’d said, that I was a Unitarian, that I was different, that they probably wouldn’t want to tolerate my presence. I decided that I should speak openly of the elephant in the room, so I told her that like many - not all, but many - Unitarians I did not consider myself a Christian. I sat there silently waiting to be told I wasn’t welcome. She just looked at me for a moment, got a quizzical look on her face and said something like, “What’s your point?”

I sat there feeling stupefied. She calmly picked up a packet of forms, handed them to me and suggested I fill them out and return them so she could process my application. I did and a few weeks later I was notified that I had been accepted as a special student. But the story isn’t over. The next year I applied to be a regular student, to matriculate and become a degree seeking student. By then I thought they would accept me. I wasn’t quite sure, but I was reasonably sure. But the packet to be a degree seeking student included an application for financial aide. There, I thought, is the line. I knew there would be no financial aid for one who wasn’t a Presbyterian, especially one who wasn’t a Christian. I filled out the rest of the paper work and turned it in and was promptly accepted. A day or two after my acceptance I went by the campus to visit the book store. As I was leaving Eleanor Cherryholmes - all five feet of her - started yelling at me across the parking lot. I hadn’t realized how loud she could be. It was an imperial edict to approach and be questioned. She stood there with hands on her hips and demanded - and I do mean she demanded - to know why I hadn’t turned in my application for financial aid. I mumbled an excuse - a real excuse - that by the time I applied to be a regular student it was actually past the deadline for financial aid applications. And then I said, “Anyway, I know that as Unitarian I shouldn’t expect to get anything.”

She stood there and glared at me with one of the dirtiest looks I’ve ever received. I will never forget what she said next, with her fists jammed into her hips: “Jack,” she said, “you just don’t get it. Once we accept you, you’re one of ours. Turn in your application. I want it on my desk by tomorrow.” I did - and over the next three years I received financial aid that covered about 95% of my tuition and fees - 95%. Austin Presbyterian is a private school and that was a substantial amount of money. And the older monk just smiled and said, “My dear young friend. I set that woman down hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?” My fears of intolerance were all in my mind. My fear of intolerance from others was a reflection of my own intolerance.

Ours is a religious tradition that talks a lot about tolerance. It’s one of traditional core values of our larger movement. It’s also one of the core values of this congregation. But as I went through seminary I discovered that no one has a monopoly on tolerance - just as no one is exempt from being intolerant. The Presbyterians taught me - by their example - what it means to be tolerant. They didn’t agree with my theology. But that didn’t stop them from accepting me as a human being, as a child of God, who was welcome to break bread with them, welcome to study with them, welcome to disagree with them about important matters.

It was in the disagreements that I learned another important lesson about tolerance. After years spent in this liberal religious tradition I usually thought of tolerance as the process of having honest disagreements and arguments with people - often spirited arguments - yet still remaining friends despite the arguments. I discovered something different in seminary. With just a couple of exceptions the people with whom I disagreed theologically - which was everyone - felt no need to argue with me. Almost all of them were secure enough in their own beliefs, their own faith, that they didn’t need to argue with me. Instead, they had a genuine hunger to hear my story, to hear me talk about my religious journey, to explain - not to argue with them - but to explain my beliefs, my faith - and the life experience that had led me to where I was in life. Over and over I was asked to tell my story. And as time went by I discovered I had my own hunger, my own desire to hear their stories - not so I could argue with them, but so I could understand their own unique humanity, the unique individual experience that had led each of them to want to live their lives in service to God. I had always found theological arguments exciting. In seminary I discovered that theological listening didn’t just excite me, it enriched me.

Of course, life wasn’t perfect. I remember a professor who I thought had a theological bias against me - but the Methodists in my class felt the same way. And in my third year, there was the new student who told me one day that yes, he knew what Unitarians were and then said, “Better they had never been born.” He said this in front of several other students who I think were more shocked than I was. The next day he approached me and apologized profusely and spent the rest of the year trying to be my best friend. A week later I found out that one of my fellow students who had heard his remark had had a little talk with him. He never would tell me what he said to him, but I suspect he had been pretty blunt. Incidentally, the fellow who made the remark turned out to be a pretty nice guy. And I learned a lesson about tolerance from what happened: Part of tolerance is being willing to stand-up and confront behavior that isn’t tolerant. In other words, tolerance requires we be intolerant of intolerance.

Does that sound like a contradiction. How can intolerance of intolerance be tolerance? Isn’t that talking in circles? Doesn’t tolerance require us to be open to ideas and behavior we don’t agree with? I think that’s the frequent message that’s passed around about tolerance. But if that’s true, then are we called to be tolerant of white supremacist groups? or anti-Semitism? or sexual misconduct? or animal cruelty? And if tolerance is about being open to ideas and behaviors with which I disagree, does that mean I should support the teaching of something I believe to be nonsense? Does tolerance require me to support the teaching of creationism in public schools? The later is in fact one of the arguments made by supporters of creationism.

If tolerance is about the intellect, about the acceptance or open mindedness to ideas with which one disagrees; or if tolerance is about being open minded and accepting of behavior one cannot morally accept, then one must confront such questions. How does a person maintain one’s integrity? I think one answer is by defining truth as completely relative. Truth is whatever makes you feel good. Truth is whatever makes me feel good. That’s one way out, but I can’t say I like that solution. It sounds too much like: “If it feels good do it.” It sounds too much like: “What you do or believe doesn’t really matter.”

This began to trouble me while I was in seminary. My expectations about who was tolerant - that was going to be me, of course - and who was intolerant - that was going to be everybody else - hadn’t worked out quite the way I expected. Too many of the most tolerant people I encountered believed ideas I thought were supposed to make them intolerant. What was going on?

That’s where I was the summer after my second year in seminary, the summer I did my first unit of Clinical Pastoral Education, commonly called CPE. I was to spend four hundred hours working as a chaplain in Brackenridge Hospital in Austin Texas. I would be expected to provide pastoral care for Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics, Southern Baptists, Jews, Muslims, Pentecostals, the occasional Unitarian and everyone else who came through the door. Once again I wondered how I would handle it. Once again I was concerned about how others of different religious backgrounds would respond to me; and how I would respond to them.

I knew, of course, that some of the notions of tolerance I’d picked up as a Unitarian wouldn’t be helpful. Launching into a theological argument with a patient and then trying to tell them we could still be friends didn’t sound like a good idea. But what’s a fellow to do?

Fortunately, the man who supervised the program had a little experience with this problem. He was a Southern Baptist, an affiliation which initially gave me some concern, but I soon realized I was the one who was still carrying that woman around. The answer was straightforward. A chaplain never argues with anyone. A chaplain is there to be the calm in the midst of the storm, to be a listener, to hear the person’s story and to acknowledge it as real. A chaplain doesn’t have to agree with anything that is said. But a chaplain has the duty to be the person who acknowledges that that is how the person does feel - right or wrong. In other words the chaplain’s duty is to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other person’s feelings even though the chaplain does not share the beliefs or feelings of the other.

It was a humbling experience to hear this from a Southern Baptist minister. But when I did it answered a lot of questions for me. And it changed forever my understanding of tolerance. It led me to what I believe to be the true spirit of tolerance.

This model of tolerance is not about intellect. I don’t have to be willing to accept anyone else’s ideas or beliefs. And it isn’t about behavior. Tolerance is about accepting the essential humanity of the other person; and the process for doing so is the acceptance of the legitimacy of the feelings of the other person. I don’t have to agree that the person is right to feel that way - I only have to be willing to acknowledge that that is how that person feels - right or wrong. I only have to be willing to sit down and let the other person share their story with me.

A. Powell Davies, writing in the nineteen fifties, said, “You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart.” I’ve come to believe that one cannot be tolerant and have a small mind and a little heart. I’ve come to believe that tolerance is not about being able to argue with others and still be friends - it is about something that begins in the human heart, that begins when the heart discovers the capacity to grow - and having grown can set aside the fear that others might disagree with it. In place of fear comes not the desire to argue, but the desire to hear the other person’s story in the belief that the process will enrich both the one who tells and the one who hears.

Truth is truth. I don’t believe its relativistic. I believe I was right and most of my classmates in seminary wrong. I’m sure they would reverse it and have me be wrong. But why should anyone be threatened by that? Is truth so fragile that it must fear honest doubt or open disagreement? Or is part of the truth we seek that too often it is we who are fragile, we who are afraid? Are we not all travelers on the road, seekers of truth? Shouldn’t we heed the advice of A. Powell Davies and,

Let . . . the winds of God blow through our lives and sweep away all littleness, all triviality, all mean and narrow aims. And in lives swept open to the true, the limitless, the universal may there be room at last for the courage and compassion of the infinite, for the joy and tenderness of life's lovelier, holier spirit, for the power and the wonder of God.

I think that is the challenge this congregation has set for itself by adopting tolerance as a core value. It’s not an easy task. I know I fail it often - but my experience of life calls for me to keep trying. And that’s precisely what you’re setting out to do. You’re setting out to do something difficult, a challenge one can never meet all the time.

But think about the kind of church you will create by your efforts. Imagine a church where instead of being told what to believe, instead of being challenged to a debate - no matter how friendly - imagine a church where people say to one another, “Come, please sit down with me for a minute and tell me your story. I’d like to hear it.”

So tell me: What is your story? What is your neighbor’s story? I hope in the days ahead that each one of you will sit down with one another and share those stories. And I hope you will share them with me.

In the spirit of tolerance that binds us together, that leads us to walk together, and that makes us welcome in this place and to one another even when we have broken our vows a thousand times, I say Amen.