a sermon pondering sexism and patriarchy

Not only am I not the world’s leading authority on gender issues, but I also can’t even claim to be the authority in the room or any authority.  I have lived my entire life identifying as a male in the culture of north America in the 20th-21st century.  I don’t claim any extraordinary wisdom, I can just reflect from own perspective and learning, pondering the evils of patriarchy and sexism as a man trying to eliminated them.

A prompt in the course Trans Inclusion in Congregations asks, “When did you realize that you had a gender and that there were particular roles expected of you?”  This surfaced a string of memories for me.

The first time I remember having a conscious thought about gender and consciously identifying as a boy I was four years old, my mom confirmed that this matches her memory.  I was grocery shopping with my mom at Iandoli’s supermarket in Fitchburg, MA and a person that looked a lot like my mom, same general body shape and build, very similar hairstyle, same cut of dress,  came up to me as I held my mom’s hand came up to us, tousled my hair, and said, “What a beautiful little girl.”  My mom smiled.

I said, “I’m NOT a girl.” And the person walked away.   I

I envision her ducking away in shame, but I really don’t remember that part. I understand her mistake. It was 1970. I had bright orange hair, and I didn’t like getting it cut so it was usually longish like an extra-long Beatles cut.  It was summertime so I was wearing the uniform of all the kids my age in our neighborhood: a t- shirt, shorts, and sneakers.  Looking back, it’s easy to see how that person mis-gendered me.  And when I’ve told this story people laugh, but being misgendered isn’t funny. It can be painful and traumatic. This is the earliest memory I have of seeing myself as a “boy,” of understanding in some basic way there was a gender  binary and what side of it I was on or supposed to be on. 

Two years later, in 1972, I remember my dad threatening to sue my hometown and its education department in the wake of Title IX because they wouldn’t let my stepsister enroll in the drafting program in the town’s trade high school.  It never went to court, but it took Title IX and the threat of a lawsuit to let my sister Teresa enroll.

My dad was a tennis player as well as a high school and college tennis coach. I watched Billie Jean King defeat Bobby Riggs live on television with my dad in 1973. He won a bunch of money betting on Billie Jean King.

My parents divorced in 1975 and my mom struggled financially. What I didn’t learn until I was older was that she had trouble getting a credit card and refinancing the mortgage.  

I remember going to church with my mom sometime shortly after my parents’ divorce was final and my mom being turned away from communion during Sunday mass by a rigid catholic priest.  She said to him, “Fine, we’ll go somewhere they understand what Jesus was talking about.”

My wife Tuesday is coming to Meriden this afternoon – to pick up the car.

She’s participating in a special service at the Episcopal Cathedral celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women to the Episcopal Priesthood.  The Episcopal Church is in the middle of a year of celebration  recognizing the historic event of July 29, 1974, when 11 women (the “Philadelphia Eleven”) were ordained Episcopal priests at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia. 

Universalists and Unitarians have been ordaining women ministers since the 19th century. We like to point to Universalist Olympia Brown as the first woman ordained and  recognized by a denomination in 1863, although there were other women ordained by local congregations, but not recognized beyond their congregations by denomination such as Antoinette Brown Blackwell in 1853.But Unitarian Universalists can’t pat ourselves on the back too much because by the time of consolidation in 1961 women UU ministers were still extraordinarily rare and in 1980 less than 5% of UU Ministers we women. We’ve made recent progress, however,  with over 60% of our minister identifying as women today. 

Misogyny in religion is not reserved for Christianity or Abrahamic traditions including Judaism and Islam or western religion. Many Buddhist schools still aren’t fully open to women’s leadership. Some early Buddhist scriptures tell of  how Buddha rejected his foster mother ‘s requests for the equivalent of ordination three times, before being persuaded by a disciple to accept women into the monastery.

Religion isn’t the cause of patriarchal misogyny but it’s one of the all-time great practitioners.  Religions with ancient histories such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam pick up a lot of their misogyny and patriarchy from the cultures in which these traditions developed.  As religion held political power as well as social and cultural power, religion’s refusal to adapt to gender egalitarianism gave sexism credentials and helped keep it strong.

The election results last Tuesday point to how much Sexism is ingrained in our culture.  Back in 2016 I had two members at the congregation I served, both women, both over 70, both now passed away, who were liberal in many, many ways but who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton. They believed a man should be presidents…and ministers. Neither of them had liked  the colleague who preceded me because she was a woman.  There’s much more of this type of thing left in our culture than I wanted to believe. It’s not hard to believe, I just wish it were better.

As we travel through this year learning about how to be more inclusive of Trans and non-binary people in our congregation, we will be dealing with long stain of patriarchy and sexism.  Our culture is still steeped in gender binary understanding and culture eats strategy for breakfast and it eats reason and facts for lunch and dinner.

Our trans inclusion study asks us to reflect on gender and gender binaries before we go further into reflecting on trans inclusion.  Mary Zaborskis says “Gender studies asks what it means to make gender salient, bringing a critical eye to everything from labor conditions to healthcare access to popular culture.  Gender is never isolated from other factors that determine someone’s position in the world such as sexuality, race, class, ability, religion, region of origin, citizenship status, life experiences, and access to resources. Beyond an identity category,” she says that reflecting on gender means focusing on “The structures that naturalize, normalize, and discipline gender across historical and social contexts.”

If this seems like common sense, realize that for most of us, it’s difficult to think differently about gender even if we’d like to as it has layers upon layers to peel away from the covering it puts on our thinking and our emotions. 

Think for a minute about intersex babies. About 2 percent of human beings are born with sex characteristics of both sexes. They are often surgically altered to fit society’s conception of what gender they “should be.”   This may at first seem like kindness, but it’s done out of an unshakable persistent cultural norm that there are only two binary genders.  

Think for a minute about marriage equality. It’s justice and equity in terms of moving the institution of marriage away from a heteronormative male and female couple, but what about the wide variety of human sexuality and partnering relationships that do not fit a two-person monogamous relationship model.  Why can’t there be poly marriages of various configurations? Why is marriage necessary?  Aren’t these ideas still tied into a subjugation of female to male in a patriarchal, hierarchical and binary model?

In her 2010 book  , "Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference," Cordelia  Fine say much of the research on the topic of gender difference in neurology is not only deeply flawed, but dangerously misleading. Women aren't worse at math and girls' preference for girlish toys probably has more to do with social expectations than what's in their brain.

If people still believe girls are intrinsically bad at math, they’re not even getting to the starting gate of trans inclusion. So for the next couple of weeks,  I invite you to ponder gender and binaries with the Transforming Hearths collective. 

JETPIG and the Preamble: Taking Refuge in our Core Values and Community in Turbulent Times.

Like many of you, I’m anxious this morning as we wait for the election results. What makes me most anxious, like many of you, is the fact our country exhibits all the classic markers for nations that turn into dictatorships and autocracies. In their book How Democracies Die Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt say these four characteristics point to emerging totalitarianism:

 (1) The rejection, in words or action, of the democratic rules of the game

(2) The denial of the legitimacy of political opponents

(3) Toleration or encouragement of violence, and

(4) A willingness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media (pp. 21-24).

These are scary times.  And the frightening aspects of our situation are not going away today, tomorrow, or whenever the results are in, no matter who wins the election.   It’s still a long walk home to the promised land of the beloved community.   It's gonna be a long walk home. No matter who wins.  Longer one way than the other, but long just the same.  

So, what are we going to do?  We’re going to do the same thing we’ve been doing. We’re going to listen to wise teachers, lean hard into our most cherished values, side with love over hate, and rely on each other in loving community.  I said during the Covid quarantine time that the only way out is through and the only way through is together.  We don’t get to avoid the time we live in, and we don’t get to hide from its difficulties.

Together as a community of faith and as citizens we have an anchor, a place of safety, a stronghold, a tactic and a tool, and a team. We have, as Buddhism teaches, 3 Treasures as people of faith and 3 Treasures as Citizens. The three jewels or treasures of Buddhism are:

1. I take refuge in Buddha.

2. I take refuge in Dharma.

3. I take refuge in Sangha.  

   
   

These things can be thought of as wise teachers, a body of teaching or wisdom, and a learning community of practice. In Unitarian Universalism, this body of teaching can be condensed to our core Values – our JETPIG - and the Covenants we make about how to live them.  And as citizens this body of teaching centers on the core values Preamble of the Constitution and the covenants we make about how to live them. These treasures, both sacred and secular are not perfect,  but they’re powerful.  We have a refuge. A refuge that won’t excuse us from the hard work of freedom, justice, democracy, and love, but one that can and will continually refresh us and reinforce us in difficult times.

The treasures of our faith are the things in which we put our most profound trust.  I think people of any spirituality or faith possess these jewels and treasures.  The details are different but the Teacher, the teaching, and the community of practice exist in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,  in Paganism, in Humanism, and in our faith of Unitarian Universalism.  Who the teacher is, what the teaching is, and who makes up the community of practice will be different, but a person of faith – a person who puts their trust in a particular tradition, will find it a refuge, an anchor, a stronghold, a tactic, a tool, and a touchstone. In dark times, we turn to our teachers, the wisdom they’ve taught us, and others who live by that wisdom. 

In Unitarian Universalism, although we have Buddha, we also have Jesus, and Moses, and Mohamed, and Shiva and Sati, Vishnu and Lakshmi, we have Channing and Balou, Emerson, Margaret Fuller and Olympia Brown, an all the wise sages, teachers, and exemplars of human history.   Which ones are your jewels and treasure? Which ones are  the teachers who have a way of reaching your heart and reminding you of your best self and how to live into being that best self?

Unitarian Universalism has a Dharma – a body of religious teaching – we call it the living tradition. It includes the world’s scriptures and other important religious writings, also philosophy, ethics, science, and the arts.  Because it’s so vast, perhaps it’s best summed up as our core values of Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Generosity, (JETPIG ) all ground in  JETPIG Love.  All the Living Tradition boils down to these values. The  big question of our faith is “What does Love call us to do?”  or “How do we take the side of love?”  Its’ been said that Justice is what love looks like in public, and we believe it also looks like Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Gratitude.   How do we put these things into practice? How do we live them?

Justice means dismantling oppression and using democratic processes.

Equity means ensuring fairness, accessibility, and inclusion.

Transformation means we’re always open to learning new things and changing for the better.

Pluralism means embracing difference with curiosity and respect.

Interdependence means we base relationships on mutuality and respect not exploitation.

Generosity means sharing our resources and approaching things with an attitude of possibility. 

To Love is to do all these things with care and compassion and kindness.

Unitarian Universalism is itself a Sangha- a very large sangha – The Unitarian Universalist Association, but we have a more local Sangha - the congregation, our congregation. In our congregational life we find a learning community of practice - a loving, covenanted community, helping each other more deeply understand and live our core values and side with Love.

During this time leading up to the election, and in the time after the election, let us take refuge in our Teachers, our Wisdom and Values, and in the covenanted community that helps us live them, even when it’s difficult, even if it becomes illegal or dangerous to do so.  This is how being people of faith can keep us strong and courageous, especially when we’re scared – and it’s not brave if you’re not scared. 

Courageously, let us turn to our most treasured values as citizens as well as ] people of faith.  Let our practice of citizenship make three treasures or jewels out of our democratic tradition.  In terms of citizenship our Buddha or teacher might be the founders of our country, and all the wise citizens who have called to our best selves, people like MLK, the notorious RBG, The Suffragettes, The Obamas and all the others who beckoned us to create, as Langston Hughes urged us, “the dream the dreamers dreamed,”  the America that never was but could be.  

Our  Dharma or teaching as citizens, is centered in the constitution, especially the preamble, which consolidates and encapsulates the essence of American values the way JETPIG does the Living Tradition of Unitarian Universalism. Our Sangha might be all ethical citizens committed to democracy and justice, upholding our institutions, and helping to create Beloved Community. Just as our Living Tradition of Unitarian Universalism can be encapsulated in Love and the core values.  I think the constitution can be encapsulated in the Preamble.

I’m a Gen X er so I grew up with Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings in between cartoons and bowls of sugar frosted sugar bombs.  I bet just about anyone my age not only has the preamble memorized we can SING it to you. Just like you heard in the video today.

Watching this video today, I’m practically horrified at the depiction of America as empty land, waiting for the white Europeans to move across it in manifestation of their destiny.  There are no women’s names among the candidates in the voting booth ballot, all kinds of things could be better in this video, it’s true. But this song, like the acronym JETPIG, helps us condense our long history and tradition into a manageable and memorable summary.

Edwin Chemerinsky is a constitutional lawyer and professor at Berkeley Law School who has argued cases before the Supreme Court.  In his books We The People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-first Century and No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States he says the preamble to the constitution isn’t just introductory language. He says the preamble sets out the core values through which the rest of the document and the government it describes must be considered.

Yes, the Constitution itself is problematic, and Chemerinsky himself says that in addition to its history as a racist, sexist, and classist document, the equal distribution of senators and the electoral college create more problems for democracy than they solve, and it’s time for new constitution. For example,

• 1 electoral vote accounts for 195,000 people in Wyoming and over 700,000 people in Texas, Florida or California.

• 12 states can win the electoral college, but 11 with more population can lose to 39 that equal less than half the population

• 5 times the popular vote winner lost electoral college, twice in last 25 years.

• 2 senators per state is undemocratic. The 50 Democrats in the current Senate represented 42 million more people than the 50 Republican senators.

AND YET…

The core values of the Preamble  (and thus the Constitution) are Democracy, Effective Government, Justice, and Liberty. We the People means what it says. The constitution is written by people and for people. These words imply democratic process.  The history of the document has been to expand who is included in “We.” Y’all means all.   Effective Government means creating internal peace and peaceful international relations, conditions under which everyone should be able to thrive not just survive. Justice means fair treatment of all – not just citizens – and that the government uses fair processes. Government action and intervention should result in just and equitable outcomes.

Liberty should be guaranteed by the government so that unless something infringes the humanity and rights of others, the general welfare or threatens domestic tranquility, people need to be left to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. 

Chemerinsky reminds us that until the mid-19th century, the SCOTUS held the preamble in esteem, but since 1905 in Jacobsen vs Massachusetts ( a case about state mandated vaccinations) the SCOTUS held that a law can’t be challenged as unconstitutional because of disagreement with the preamble and since the 1950s the SCOTUS has considered the preamble merely rhetorical flourish.  Chemerinsky says that this attitude toward the preamble has been a factor in enabling the recent string of SCOTUS decisions that take away freedoms, especially the right to abortion and voting rights.

Our core values are important because character is developed by living your values consistently over time.  In difficult times, character matters exponentially more than in stable times, because in difficult times the dangers and stresses of daily life increase and it’s easier to abandon our core values and ethics when our safety and survival are threatened. 

In these days before and after the election, no matter who wins, practice being your best self. Read and re-read, watch and re-watch your teachers.  Lean into and upon your core values and side with love – even when it’s uncomfortable or unsafe. Don’t isolate, participate and revel in community – our congregation, and all other communities of practice that share your values.

One reason we live in such tough times is that our values have made huge progress, and the pushback is strong and surging.  I’m convinced that the rise of authoritarianism in our country and around the world is the old, white, hierarchical, hetero-normative, capitalistic hierarchy is threatened. It’s like a wild animal cornered in a trap. It will lose, but it’s still very dangerous.  The moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, but it’s never really a smooth arc,  it’s more like a lightning bolt of a jagged  movement, two steps up, one step back - and more the progress we make toward Beloved Community, each step back seems bigger and stronger, but we are moving forward, and I am convinced that in the end love will win. Because Love isn't just at the center of our values, Love is at the center of everything.

RSVP: On hearing and accepting the invitation to membership

This is my sermon from last Sunday, September 22, 2024 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Danbury, CT. I reflect on how we hear and respond to the invitation to relationship, covenant, and participation. My focus is on the invitation to be part of a congregation, but I think what I have to say applies to many relationships and involvement in any voluntary association.

Being a member of a congregation is to accept an invitation into a deep relationship. This is what we call covenant.  We’re invited into sacred vows, promises, a marriage, a monk in a monastery, a partnership, comrades in the struggle of human existence.   Here in our congregation that covenant relationship is one that practices diverse, loving community, encourages spiritual growth, works for justice, and celebrates the good in life.

This relationship is  an invitation to comfort and care for others.  An invitation to know and experience the variety of human differences. An invitation to do what you can to create a just and sustainable society. An invitation to pursue a continuous journey of spiritual growth. 

How do you experience this invitation?  Do read a weekly email?  Do you speak with Me and Sierra Marie and Jerry and Sherry and Margaret? Are notifications always popping up on your phone? Are you getting your mail from the mailbox every day checking for a formal envelope?  Are you listening for opportunities to get involved, participate, and attend things as they surface in casual conversation? Do you look for announcements from the order of service and spoken notices on Sunday morning asking for your help?  How do you experience this invitation to Covenant? 

I believe that congregational life and membership mirrors life in general.  Invitations are constant but it’s only when we notice them that they seem to pop up.  I believe that we experience the divine, God, spirit, through the people, places, and events in our lives.  Life is one long, continuous invitation to come along, join the party, hang out, go on a date, be part of the club of humanity.  Please join us, we’d love to have you. Most Sincerely Yours, All THAT IS.

Every moment of every day, the phenomenon of the cosmos swirls around us. But it’s that morning we get up early, maybe with a loved one, and go outside, maybe to the back porch, maybe to a city park bench, maybe to the beach and watch in wonder as the sun rises, devastated by the star moving through the early hour atmosphere. Letting there be light everywhere.   Every moment of every day strangers walk past us, drive past us, flash by us on the internet, but it’s only when someone steps in front of us and holds a door with a huge smile taking up their entire face that we notice our fellow passengers on spaceship earth. 

Being a member of a congregation is going to church. Showing up on Sunday. Attending an event. Joining a committee. The week to week and day to day existence of faith communities look surprisingly similar from the outside.  But when the sermon says something that speaks directly to your heart as if it was written just for you, The song Jerry sings is from own private playlist of life’s most important moments soundtrack and you can’t believe Jerry has read your mind again, when your children return from outside and downstairs smiling and laughing, when someone invites you to their home for dinner, when your committee receives that thank you letter from the community partner you helped with a donation, when you stand outside in the bitter cold advocating for justice and all of a sudden it’s not just the ordinary I went to church today, it’s special. It’s immediate. It’s heartwarming. It’s something that helps you get through and reminds you why you bother to belong to a faith community in the first place.  That’s when you notice it.  Just like everything else in life. When it’s special, we notice. When it grabs our attention, we notice. When it snaps us out of rambling shame out of the past and anxious worry about tomorrow,  and captures us in a moment. That’s when we realize that the invitation was there all along.   You come too. Join us.  This party is for you.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s short poem epitomizes this.  Every common bush afire with God.  But only we who notice take off our shoes.  Taking off our shoes because it’s holy ground.  I have Methodist minister friend in Texas who always preaches her sermons barefoot. I once asked her why. Is it because the church is holy ground.  And she said, “sort of. But more like everywhere is holy ground and so is everyone. So, I take off my shoes.”

The covenantal relationship we are called to at church asks us to pretty much go barefoot.  This is love at the center of everything. 

Even though we proclaim love at the center of everything, we sometimes don’t place it there. We get sidetracked by our own selfishness, our culturally ingrained expectation that we put ourselves at the center instead of love.

The opposite of Love and covenant is consumerism.  The opposite of authentic relationship is transactional relationship.  And unfortunately, all too often, church, synagogue, temple, assembly, faith communities of any kind become merely transactional. 

I went to a conference about thematic preaching many years ago, back before monthly themes had caught on in Unitarian Universalism. And the church that hosted the event had a monthly sermon series going on about the topic of Grace.  I also noticed something in all their advertisements and promotions that surprised me – not one image, poster, or announcement promoted anything other than the month  - it was May – and the theme of Grace. No Sundays were mentioned by date. No preachers were named. No specific topic was described anywhere.  “We’re talking about Grace this month.”    I wonder if we could do that?  If we could say, we’re talking about invitation this month and leave it at that.  We’re so used to a marketing mentality that it seems almost alien to not have a sermon title and description.  But we’re not about titles and descriptions. We’re about relationship. 

We often think about our involvement in church transactionally.  I don’t like this or that. I want a church with youth programs or social justice activism.  I want fewer hymns and more jazz,  We get put off sometimes if something is going on that we personally don’t like or isn’t our favorite or not intended for us.

I heard the retired pastor emeritus of Riverside church in NYC once say that no one should like everything that’s going on in their church.  In a vibrant multi-generational, multicultural church you should only like about 75-80% of what happens at your church.  Because if you like almost everything, If you like 99% of stuff that goes on at your church, you can be fairly certain that only people exactly like you are at your church and will want to be at your church.  In our polarized age, that might sound tempting at first, but it’s not beloved community.  It’s not diverse. It’s not welcoming.

Covenant invites us into deep relationships.  We live in a world of shallow relationships. A world where we call people friends who we acknowledge on social media.  Covenant calls us to make friends.  Not everyone in a congregation will be your friend. But I certainly hope you have and make a lot of friends here. Not just people you like that you see on Sundays, but people you invite more deeply into your life.

Covenant invites us to serve.  Both in the congregation and in the world.  The Baha'i community has a fascinating way of selecting leaders.  Every member of the community is a potential leader. All their communities and each level of their religion is governed by teams, not individuals.  And from the local level to the international level they have a basic way of electing leaders.  There is no campaigning. There is no nominating committee.  There is no debating or even discussing potential leaders.   What happens is that when it’s time to select members of the leadership team, every member of the community writes down names on a piece of paper. If 5 leaders are needed, it’s five names. If 9 are needed, it's nine names.  And then the people, the five most, the nine most, whatever it is, the people who are named the most times on all the ballots serve.  Exceptions can be made for things like illness, or other severe disruption or trauma, but if able, people serve. That’s part of the deal of joining the community. What people don’t know they learn.  And the Baha'i take this very seriously, they only name people they think are ethical, capable, kind, good examples of living lives of Baha'i values and so on. What if our covenant relationship calls us all to be leaders? At some point in our time here. In some way?  What if our covenant relationship calls all of us to share in the work of the community.

We have wonderful greeters who say hello to you on Sunday as you walk in, but we are all invited to greet new people and make them feel welcome? We have amazing volunteers who work with Sierra Marie to create programs and community for children youth and families, but we are all invited to make this place welcoming and supportive of children, childhood, parents and parenthood. We have a great staff and board that is thinking about how to grow and publicize our congregation, but we are all invited to into this work as well.  In fact, as person invited into our covenant relationship the most vital and important thing you can do for the long term health and vitality of our congregation is to invite others into it? In every study and survey that anyone ever does on the topic, when people are asked why they chose a particular church or why they visited a particular synagogue or mosque, the overwhelming number one answer, in some studies up to 85-90% respond Because someone invited me to join them?

If you’re every wondering about why there aren’t more people here or more children or more families or more people of color or more queer people – ask yourself, when it the last time I invited them?  As you have been invited, go and invite others!

I’m hoping that our theme has invited you to deepen your participation.  That deepening might be through attention, taking more notice and more detailed notice of our community life. It might be taking on a role of more responsibility in the community or volunteering more. It might be deepening your study of Unitarian Universalism.    It might be inviting someone you know to join you here. And as I ask you to invite others, I once again invite you.

I await your RSVP.