Sermons

August 22, 2004

Rev. Dr. C. DiNovo

"Step 8 – Made a List of Persons We Had Harmed and Made Amends"

Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

Today I’d like to look at the three ‘W’s’, no, not the World Wide Web! The three W’s are willingness, women and wisdom. In the eighth step, ‘willingness’ is the key word because we’re not making amends yet, we’re simply being asked to be ‘willing’ to make amends. And this willingness, this wonderful two year old, risk taking attitude that approaches every life situation, every space, every day, with a ‘wow’, running in and experimenting, is what is needed. We need to have courage here. Amending’ ones life is difficult and takes courage but it also takes a child likeness, the ‘willingness’ to try something entirely new.

Last week an historic event took place here at Emmanuel Howard Park, we had a pre-marriage class where 3 out of 4 of the couples were same sex, all women. It was the first pre-marriage class where this has happened and it was a great privilege to witness. Serendipity alone was responsible because I hadn’t planned it that way. Grace alone brought it about. But I have to tell you that the one straight couple in the room really felt what it was like to be that ten percent! The poor man, the only man in the room, looked like a deer caught in the headlights!

We, at Emmanuel Howard Park however, do not believe in miracles, we rely upon them. Yesterday I married that one straight couple and the bride confided in me that until that moment her fiancé had been opposed to same sex marriage and by the end of the day he was entirely won over. "They were all such amazing women", he had told her. "Their love for each other is no different than our love for each other". And so a moment of conversion, a miraculous moment occurred here!

For such miracles to occur we need to be ‘willing’ to amend our own thoughts and our own behaviours. We are called to be at least open to such moments of grace.

The first person it seems to me that we need to be open to forgiving in this patriarchal world is the first person most of us encounter and that is our own mothers, which brings us to the ‘woman’ word. And it doesn’t matter whether our mothers were out of ‘Leave it To Beaver’ or were far, far short of loving and enabling. All of our mothers were given an almost impossible task under patriarchy, to raise children.

Jesus in this Lucan passage, shows himself for the feminist that he was. That poor, bent over woman, bent over not just with the disease of the body but the disease of the spirit under which she lived. In that era, she was considered of about the same value as the ass or the mule, which is why Jesus uses them in his example to the Pharisees. "You’d look after your animals so why not this other animal, this woman!" Jesus uses an expression, "Daughter of Abraham" which in his day was revolutionary because a woman would only have been considered a daughter of Abraham through her husband, never of her own accord. Yet here was this woman, this crippled woman, addressed as ‘Daughter of Abraham’ heir to all the promises of any man, and on her own.

Our process of being willing to make amends begins with asking for forgiveness from our own mothers. Forgiveness for being privy to a system of oppression that has removed her right to stand up tall, Forgiveness for seeing her as the enemy when she is not, was not the enemy. Did you know that in studies done among graduate students, graduate students!, women’s words were considered less important, less engaging when said by women but when a male professor voiced them, they were rated as far more intelligent, witty and sophisticated! The ratings were from both men and women. Our mothers who were not considered human persons until 1928 need to be upheld and our behaviour and attitudes toward them need to be amended.

I was at a conference once where we were asked to call out the names of those men who had influenced us the most. Famous names were voiced, names like Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, etc. Then the conference leader asked us to call out the names of women who had influenced us most. A torrent of names poured forth, none of them famous, none of them well known, they were the names of our mothers, our sisters, our grandmothers, our friends. Jesus knew that the women in our lives needed to be able to stand tall!

‘Wisdom’ is the third ‘w’ word that comes to mind when taking the eighth step of becoming willing to make amends, starting with that first person in our lives and up to the present moment. You know when I think of that long, long list of people we need to make amends with it is certainly not only those who have hurt us but also those we need forgiveness from. A handy way of coming up with these names is to think of yourself getting on an elevator and having to ride up 28 floors. Who would you be uncomfortable with making that long ride? That long list of people are the ones that you need in some way however large or small to make amends with.

And of course the most important person you need to make amends with is, any guesses? Yes, absolutely, your own self. We treat ourselves so badly. We forget that the golden rule says to love others as we would love ourselves. We need to love ourselves first! If we don’t love ourselves how can we ever love anyone else? We need to call ourselves up and leave messages on our own answering machines about how wonderful we are and how we are sorry we didn’t get that before! We need to take ourselves out to dinner! We need to buy ourselves flowers and chocolates! Because you and I are created in the image of God. We are the beloved children of a loving God. That is who you and I are!

There is a famous picture, one we’ve probably all seen, of Jesus knocking on the door, lantern in hand. The trick to the picture is that there is no handle on the outside of the door, we have to open it from within. I once asked a Sunday School class to tell me what was going on in that picture and a child responded, "Jesus is a door to door lantern salesman." What is amazing about Jesus relationship with us is that Jesus does not leave. Christ will continue to be there waiting, hammering on the door at times, throwing rocks at our windows at times, yelling, whispering, cajoling. He will not leave until we open the door. He will never leave. The simple act of opening that door is what wisdom is. It is hearing , allowing ourselves to hear, that Christ is there, for us.

And so we leave the eighth step of this incredible system of healing, not reserved for alcoholics alone but available for the world and all who are in it. We are now ‘willing’ to make amends.