“Atonement: A Liberal Remedy for Original Sin”
the Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne, September 16, 2007

Reading from Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean
“Lloyd LeBlanc has told me that he would have been content with imprisonment for Patrick Sonnier. He went to the execution, he says, not for revenge, but hoping for an apology. Patrick Sonnier had not disappointed him. Before sitting in the electric chair he had said, “Mr. LeBlanc, I want to ask your forgiveness for what me and Eddie done,” and Lloyd LeBlanc had nodded his head, signaling a forgiveness he had already given. He says that when he arrived with sheriff’s deputies there in the cane field to identify his son, he had knelt by his boy—“laying down there with his two little eyes sticking out like bullets”—and prayed the Our Father. And when he came to the words: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” he had not halted or equivocated, and he said, “Whoever did this, I forgive them.” But he acknowledges that it’s a struggle to overcome the feelings of bitterness and revenge that well up, especially as he remembers David’s birthday year by year and loses him all over again: David at twenty, David at twenty-five, David getting married, David standing at the back door with his little ones clustered around his knees, grownup David, a man like himself, whom he will never know. Forgiveness is never going to be easy. Each day it must be prayed for and struggled for and won.”

Sermon Atonement: A Liberal Remedy for Original Sin Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne
Rosh Hashanah, which began at sundown, last Wednesday, marks the start of the Jewish “High Holy Days.” Rosh Hashanah, which literally means “head of the year,” is Jewish New Year’s Day. Ten days after Rosh Hashanah is Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement.” Another way to refer to this period is, “Days of Awe.” During these first ten days of the Jewish church year Jews spend time soul-searching and repenting for sins. They do this to prepare the way for reconciliations with family, friends and God on Yom Kippur. Days of Awe aptly expresses the meaning and mood of this period. Atonement means to be in good standing, at one, with another person. To atone with a loved one, to return to harmony after a painful separation, is an awesome experience. Unitarian Universalists can’t observe the Days of Awe in the exact same way as Jewish people do – that would require a rabbi and more. However, religious liberals often find atonement to be a powerful spiritual practice. The ancient Jewish discipline of annually atoning for sins is not just for traditionalists.

We all need atonement because relationships come apart. Estrangement Happens.
Once upon a time, a man named James went against the advice of his wife, Angela. His brother, Ralph, was broke. Angela said you should never loan money to a family member, but James ignored her and loaned Ralph $5000. “He promised to repay within three months,” said James. When three months passed, Ralph couldn’t pay. He said he would give James the $5000 when his tax refund came in. James asked again at six months, and Ralph gave a different reason why he couldn’t pay. After a year passed James really needed the money himself. His teenage children needed school clothes, and his car needed repairs. He finally demanded the cash. Ralph asked for another month, but James said, “I’m tired of your excuses, I’m not giving you another damned day!” They argued and almost came to blows. After that, they refused to talk to each other at all.

They were afraid to go near each other. Before their rift, the brothers used to meet for lunch in one of three restaurants in their small town’s central business district. After their falling out, when James went out to lunch, he would always look before entering the restaurant to see if Ralph was there, and if he saw him, he turned around and left. He even did this a few times when he was with friends. James allowed his anger over a material thing to control him. Over time his resentment took on a life of its own, and it affected his relationships with other family members. James’s wife didn’t say “I told you so” about the loan, but she did tell him how silly she thought the feud was.To an outsider, a feud often looks irrational. Nonetheless, people exhibit a natural inclination to withdraw from relationship when the going gets rough. Estrangement is a recurring theme throughout human history. It goes back at least as far as the myth of paradise lost found in the 3rd chapter of Genesis in the Hebrew Scriptures. Beginning with verse 6 it reads:
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. 8 They heard the sound of God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden. 9 But God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."

Now some say that the original sin was disobeying a rule. Others say it was trying to be like God. The story doesn’t say what the man and woman thought they had done wrong. What the story describes is their feeling of shame. They felt there was something wrong with them, and they must hide. Trying to justify their shame, the man blamed the woman and she blamed the snake.

Eating an apple – how can that be such a big deal? It’s not really, but the consequences went far beyond the material aspects of their actions. Because of their shame, they cut themselves off from God. Their behavior didn’t do their relationship with each other any good, either. Even before God confronted them they felt shame about themselves, that they had something to hide. Shame is a feeling that something is wrong inside us, but exactly what is wrong we don’t understand. Shame is a division in our psyche. In shame we feel cut off from love. The author of Genesis describes this feeling of shame as a separation from God. With shame we feel cut off from the ground of our being, from the very pulse of life.

Jews and Christians might describe their felt experience of the ground of their being as God. For Buddhists, Sunyata is a similar concept, for Pagans, Gaia, for Humanists, the pulse of life permeates the infinite, uncreated Universe. All humans experience the pulse of life in their relationships with others, the links between themselves and the world. My theology professor, Thandeka, said, “This affective link [between people] constitutes the self’s experience of its own integrity as a coherent, congruent, and integrated aspect of the pulse of life.” In other words, it is in relationships with other people that we establish and maintain our individual personalities, and it is in relationship that we learn our importance as a component part of the interconnected web of all existence. Relationships are not only the basis for our psychological development; they also have profound implications for our spiritual well being. If the sense of connection between our selves and the essence of life is broken, we can feel profoundly alone and incapable of being right with the world.

Anything which separates us from the divinity within and around us reduces our humanity. The original sin was Adam and Eve separating themselves from the divinity of life. Shame made them feel less than human. This fits my simple definition of sin: “an action that prevents people from realizing their full humanity” whether committed through intentional behavior, brokenness or meanness. The Reverend Fred Muir said, “Sin then is anything I do that isolates, ostracizes, or separates me or others from the human community (and by extension, from the web of life) which results in robbing or denying human uniqueness and potential.” Sin! You say. That’s a word many of us have trouble with, but sin IS a relevant idea for religious liberals. Universalists long ago rejected the view that sin is a horrendous defect in human souls that requires God or Jesus to correct. However, rejecting a theology which says human nature is flawed does not mean humans do not sin.

The Jewish concept of sin is “Missing the mark.” It’s like shooting an arrow at a target and missing the bulls-eye. To see sins as mistakes is to understand them as part of normal human development. Trying and failing – this is the way that humans learn. Growth is not possible without mistakes. Thankfully, we all make mistakes. Indeed, perfection is impossible to achieve. Mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of.

Robert Fulghum tells this story. A troubled man, wringing his hands said to his rabbi, “I am a failure. More than half the time I do not succeed in doing what I must do. Please say something wise, Rabbi.” After much pondering, the rabbi told him he might find peace of mind on page 930 of The New York Times Almanac for 1970. The man went to the library and found on that page the batting averages of the best baseball players. Ty Cobb, the greatest slugger of them all, had a lifetime average of .367. So the man went back to the rabbi and said: “Ty Cobb--.367—that’s it? “Right,” said the rabbi. “Ty Cobb--.367. He got a hit only once out of three times at bat.—so what can you expect already?”

Our mistakes are not the result of a flaw in human nature. There is not something essential missing from our character. Mistakes are valuable tools for our growth. The object is to learn from mistakes. To make mistakes, yes, to sin, is to be human.

Please don’t interpret what I’ve just said to mean that sin is good. I am not giving you permission to go forth and sin boldly in the name of personal growth. Liberals have long been accused of denying the existence of sin and of ignoring its consequences. Our actions can have negative and serious consequences and we must address them.
As the feud between brothers James and Ralph went on, it had consequences for their family and friends. Their enmity affected relationships in their extended family. James would check with their mother to see if Ralph was coming to Thanksgiving or other family gathering. He wouldn’t come if Ralph was going to be there. Their anger drove a wedge between their wives, and the children couldn’t play with their cousins. The brothers’ estrangement put a strain on relationships all through the family. After awhile, people didn’t even remember the original issue anymore. Nobody was allowed to tell the story. It became a family secret. The “Bad Blood” between Ralph and James became an accepted part of the family’s understanding of itself. Their feud was a constant source of shame which kept the family from feeling whole.

It really was pitiful that they let this go on. James, Ralph, and their families needed to experience atonement, but it seemed as if they didn’t know how to reconcile. If they had practiced atonement regularly, they probably would have ended their feud. Estrangement often begins innocently enough. There may be a good reason for eating an apple or for failing to pay or forgive a loan. No matter how a separation begins, consequences can grow if the problem isn’t acknowledged. Ralph and James needed to see how they were hurting people. Atonement involves recognizing a problem we have caused and then repairing it in order to restore right relationship with ourselves and other people.
We all have relationships that could be better. The process of reconciliation begins by taking a personal inventory. The Days of Awe are a perfect time to look at what is out of spiritual alignment in your relationships with parents, partners, spouses, children and friends. Do you have problems with co-workers, colleagues, or supervisors? And look at your relationship with yourself. How healthy are your coping mechanisms for dealing with stress? Are you keeping your body healthy and expanding your mental horizons? Are you nourishing your soul through creative spiritual practices? Do not be afraid to look at yourself or to do something to heal your relationships.

In taking a moral inventory there is fear of course. You might be wrong. If you look at your behaviors you might discover that you were at fault at some point. If you were wrong, you might have to confess and repent – not easy things to do. Now, who was the culprit in the feud between Ralph and James? Ralph promised to pay and didn’t. James lost patience and created a rift in his family. They both kept the feud going. They could have taken their disagreement to court, but that wouldn’t have ended the feud. As the feud stretched on, they had done too many things to hurt each other. It was no longer really important to determine who was right or wrong in the beginning.
Ralph’s and James’s wives finally brought them together. The women valued their relationships too highly to let them be totally destroyed by the feud. They started pointing out to the men all the things that they used to enjoy together. They made Ralph and James understand that maintaining relationships, as difficult as it is to do sometimes, is more important than being right. Honestly appraising themselves and both of them admitting they had made mistakes opened the way toward atonement.

We must place love and relationship above our need to be right. In order to preserve relationships we must be determined to love people in spite of their shortcomings. And we must learn to love people because of their shortcomings – to love each other for being flawed human beings whose passion for life sometimes takes us over the top. We all need forgiveness for our mistakes.

Resolving to heal our difficult or torn relationships gives us a chance to start over. It allows us to see with a new set of glasses. Reconciliation work breaks us out of rigid beliefs and allows compromise. The experience can teach us to welcome the unexpected – like the rebirth of an old relationship. There are often unforeseen benefits in a revived relationship. A relationship that has survived a loss of trust can be stronger than it was before. Rebuilding trust allows you and your adversary to open places in your hearts where love and beauty can come in.

Addressing the consequences of our actions through repentance and forgiveness brings us in touch with the divinity within us and around us. Coming back into right relations with family, friends and community brings us home. And that is an awesome opportunity for awakening at its deepest level.

Thandeka. New Words for Life, in A Language of Reverence, ed. Dean Grodzins, Meadville Lombard Press (Chicago: 2004) 80.
Muir, Frederic John. Heretics Faith: Vocabulary for Religious Liberals, (Annapolis: 2001) 193.
Fulghum, Robert. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Villard Books (New York: 1988) 165.