Rev. Joseph Boyd I’ve been thinking of the destruction of the second temple in Judaism. As some of you know, the temple was the center of worship for generations. It started with a rebellion of a group of Jewish people who were resistant to being occupied by an empirical power which would dictate their entire way of life, their laws, and culture. During the course of the rebellion, Jerusalem was invaded by the Roman empire, and during that invasion Rome destroyed the temple, the center of Jewish life at that time. Everything depended on the existence of the temple. It was the place a Jewish person would go to communicate with God, offer sacrifice, and feel not just awe and wonder, but a sense of belonging. The entire Jewish community was dependent on the temple as the ultimate home: a home for humans and a home for God. It was the place one went to participate in the ultimate homecoming.
After the destruction of the second temple, and the loss of the rebellion, that possibility was squashed, literally destroyed. For the Jewish people who were now subjects of the Roman empire, there was an almost unimaginable pain, and for many, despair. Without a temple, where would their home be? On top of this conundrum, Josephus the historian chronicles the many thousands who died in the siege, and those left alive who were sold into slavery. To call this a catastrophe, would be an understatement.
Before this time, without a temple, it would be impossible to have a religious life. At that time, God resided in the temple, and if God didn’t have a residence, God had no place to live. It was more than a destruction of a sense of home in the pragmatic sense. It was a loss of home even in the imagination, the religious imagination of that time. It called into question everything they believed was true.
There were more rebellions that occurred after the destruction of the temple. Many had the hope that if they just could beat Rome, they could have their home back, and they could rebuild the temple, and they could have again the sense of homecoming they had come to know and depend on before the siege took place. That didn’t happen. Every rebellion lost, and it became more dreadfully clear that there was no way they could win this fight. At that moment, many Jewish people reasonably felt that this was the end: there would never be a temple, thus there would be no home, and thus there really wouldn’t be a people. Many fled Judaism, feeling that era of feeling at home was over, and they would never be able to recover.
The remarkable thing is they did. It is a story of one of the most powerful and moving adaptations in human history. Instead of focusing on the temple as the site of God’s home and thus home for all the people, they started the rabbinic movement.
Instead of focusing on the physical temple, they focused on the teachings in Torah, and they made sure to write down everything that had been passed down from past generations as a record. The role of a religious leader would be to be a teacher to the people, a rabbi, and rabbis would form smaller communities where they lived with fellow exiles, the first synagogues. They went a step further than this. Instead of presenting only one story or one version of God, they presented multiple views of God, multiple views of the same stories, argued and questioned by different religious leaders in what would be compiled and called a Midrash. So, God would be found not only in the Torah, in the recorded texts and stories from past generations. God could also be discovered in engagement with different perspectives, holy argument, the meeting of two or more people trying to get to the heart of the matter.
Not only did this adaptation allow Judaism to survive, it revitalized it. It did away with old leadership models, and it created new ones. And it solved divisions. Instead of seeing those who thought of the text differently as a heretic, they became a fellow rabbi that was worth arguing with, arguing in a loving way, not just for ego, but to discover God.
Every time I think of this story it pains me, but it gives me hope. Our context now is very different. There are few parallels, but there is an underlying truth. Today, many are wondering what it means to be home in the context of Covid-19. I think there is a larger question at play too: What does it mean to be at home during this time? What does it mean to be at ease when things feel so uneasy? This question is not limited to a particular group of people. It is a global question, a question for all peoples. Many are feeling the yearning and asking the question: Can we just get back to what we had, the way our life was?
I see now a real push in various communities to try to resemble some form of how things once were, trying to retrieve some sense of normalcy in such an abnormal situation. I see some who are acting as if we are not in this reality still: those who wish to live like it was two years ago. I hear and notice those who are taking in these circumstances that we are still in, and respecting it, but despairing. I hear fear from some who feel we will never be the same again, that life will never be as good, and wondering how they can persevere and live in this season.
But what is new about this moment is its global impact. When we ask who our neighbor is in this predicament, our answer today is much larger, and more expansive. Now my neighbor is not just the person who lives next to my house, the person I physically see walk down my street. My neighbor now is every citizen of this globe, every person yearning for a homecoming. Every person yearns for health for themselves and their loved ones. Every person on this planet is looking for some hope.
I don’t think our Unitarian ancestors could have imagined this kind of homecoming. The Sam Walter Foss piece is a throwback to another time if the gendered language didn’t give that away. The origin of homecoming Sunday in our denomination’s history is quite idyllic and particular, a throwback to a time that is not real anymore for most of us. Homecoming Sunday was when New England Unitarian ministers and their congregants would return from their summer homes, and come back into their parishes just as Fall began. Homecoming marked the end of summer ease and relaxation. Though that tradition is true for some, a great majority of even New Englanders don’t follow that cycle anymore. But there is something I do like in the old Sam Walter Foss piece, and there is something I do appreciate about the history of Homecoming.
I appreciate the definition of home. Home is not our physical house by the side of the road, home is not our physical church. These are important aspects of home, but they do not encapsulate the true breadth and depth of home. Home is found in our actions, in the ways we understand who our neighbor is, and the ways we respond based on that understanding. It can be a good thing to leave our physical home to get a wider view of who our neighbor is. During this time by staying in our home, we too get a wider view of who our neighbor is, and the impact we have.
I find this moment of history we are living through incredibly inspiring, even though it’s dreadful in many ways. What most inspires me is the way that teachings of our oldest religions are now becoming common sense. These great philosophical and spiritual truths are making themselves plain, mundane, and clear.
We hear in nearly all faith traditions we are connected to one another, we are connected to every person, we are connected to the earth, we are connected to our ancestors, our people, and that our actions today create our future circumstances. These are found in the greatest religious stories ever told, expressed in many different ways. But today, you don’t need to be a religious or spiritual person to know that. It’s so painfully and awesomely clear. The reason why this time is so frustrating for just about everybody, is we are learning in our everyday life something that has always been true, but we’ve been able to try to ignore. For generations, especially as Americans we’ve lived under the illusion that an individual’s life is supreme, the end all, be all. I do what I do, you do what you do, and America has so much space, that I can hopefully live far enough away from you, that we don’t get in each other’s way. You remember the phrase: “You do you.”
I heard that phrase all the time 5-6 years ago. You say the phrase now: and we now all see how ridiculous that is. It’s a ridiculous statement, that less than 10 years ago, people thought made sense. We are living in a period of great change, and the greatest change is a complete reorientation and understanding of what our individual life really is. As I’ve said before, it’s not our life. My life is your life. My life is my neighbor’s life. My neighbor’s life is my life. Six years ago, you’d probably think I was being esoteric with these statements, but now we all know this. It’s common sense, nothing special.
The reason this time is so frustrating and destabilizing, is because we are witnessing a great truth: we are connected not just to everyone, we are intimately connected with everyone’s actions. And our actions are not just for our individual life. Our actions are not just impacting our nuclear families, our friends, those we see face to face. Our actions are not even just about our local community.
Our actions impact the entire globe: the entire population on planet earth, our actions have an impact on the entire geography of this planet. And here is the wildest thing, that now is becoming common sense: our actions don’t just last for this moment, they live on and impact the world days, weeks, months from now. Years, generations are being impacted by my actions, your actions. Again, six years ago some of you might have thought I was tripping to talk like this. Now it is so clear. People of all ages know this now. People of all nationalities, all races, every place there is a human – is literally brought to this truth. The irony of this time is even in our disconnection, it is solidifying how connected we are. We can feel we are disconnected to someone because of how they think or believe, or how they act – and this time is making it so clear _ you are connected to everyone, even them. We can’t avoid this truth any longer. The actions of your neighbor create your life, and your actions do not just create your own flesh and blood life: they create the world, the world for all peoples, the world for all our neighbors. What an awesome truth.
For me the realization and acceptance of this truth, is the ultimate homecoming. And this truth is not codified, it is fluid. There is no end to understanding how closely we are connected to not just every single person, but every single action. We are so close, it’s painful. And that pain, that frustration, that realization that we can’t get away from anyone or anything, definitely could lead to despair if you wish to return to the way we once saw and lived in the world. But for those who are willing with the help of a community like this, to embrace our circumstances, liberation is possible. It is possible for us to adapt to this time in ways that are powerful and life changing. We have a chance to reinvigorate the soul of this nation, and the soul of this world. We have a chance to see the real meaning of homecoming. Home is not limited to the physical place where we reside. Home is not limited to my own flesh, and my own brain. Home is not even limited to this time and place, this geography, this moment we are in. Home is found in one single action: an act not just for ourselves, an act for all of humankind, an act for all animal life, an act for all species, an act on behalf of this entire earth.
