Sermon "Half the Sky" Preached at Throop UU Church, May 18, 2014
(Thank you to Debra Penberthy, whose compelling song, "Half the Sky," inspired the reading and research for this sermon.)
This morning’s responsive reading lifted up a bold, audacious, beautiful vision of a Beloved Community.
One in which women and men are strong.
In which men and women will be gentle.
Where we will all be free
and the entirety of Earth’s creatures will be cherished.
That is a beautiful vision.
You all actively work toward it, in so many ways,
In your personal and public lives.
Yet ... we know we are a long way from there.
Any one of us can describe situations we have encountered ...
where someone’s inherent worth and dignity isn’t honored.
Where a person’s basic human rights are denied.
Where bad decisions are made that harm Creation and keep Beloved Community at bay.
Most recently, we’ve seen this unfold in the story of the more than 200 missing girls in Nigeria.
These young women - ages 15-18 - held the hopes of their communities. The hope for a better educated population that could help the area rise out of poverty.
These were girls who had dreams of becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers.
They - and their families - knew getting an education was dangerous. Subversive. The schools in their area had already closed once in March, for fear of terror attacks. This particular school had reopened so the girls could take their final exams.
But before they could complete the term, an Islamist militant group stormed the dormitories at night, setting fire and shooting guns. They herded the scared girls into trucks, buses, and vans, and drove away with them.
Instead of celebrating the end of a school year, feeling pride for work well done and planning for bright futures, the girls are reportedly being sold as wives to the militants, for $12.00 each. 1
Every day, we are confronted with the disquieting reminder that somewhere - Creation is hurting.
In the form of a person, an animal, or earth itself.
When we see it, as we struggle to make sense of the emotions that flood us ...
feelings of sadness, righteous indignation, overwhelm, frustration ...
And in the midst of those emotions, we might also ask ourselves: why that person, and not me.
We might wonder, where is grace hiding in this situation?
Grace - that peaceful, ineffable feeling of being at one with the Universe.
A universal love greater than we are, connecting all beings.
The sense that something, somewhere, swoops in at times and keeps the terrible things from knocking us over.
The experience of grace was hinted at in the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye
- that even through completing the mundane tasks that sustain and nourish us we know grace. Things like:
Planting seeds.
Folding t-shirts.
Addressing letters.
Through those actions, we re-connect with the astonishing reality that these two hands - and their familiarity with the essence of daily living -
are the means through which we worship the world and hold up the sky.
It is in this close, intimate interaction with all of life ...
that we begin to understand Spirit - Love - Grace.
A couple of weeks ago in worship, we talked about creating a Grace Margin.
We reminded ourselves that sometimes, in order to receive grace,
we need to open ourselves up to it.
And that after we have received that goodness,
Let go of our separateness,
We find ourselves in a place to give back.
We become the ones to offer up grace.
And we start to do that by learning.
Listening.
Showing up where we are needed.
Sometimes it takes just one set of hands,
maybe the two right in front of you,
worshiping the world,
to get things started.
This is exemplified in the Starfish Story.
A young man walks along the ocean
and sees a beach on which thousands and thousands
of starfish have washed ashore.
Further along he sees an old man,
walking slowly and stooping often,
picking up one starfish after another
and tossing each one gently into the ocean.
He asks the old man, “Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”
“Because the sun is up and the tide is going out
and if I don’t throw them further in they will die.”
“But, don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach
and starfish all along it!
You can’t possibly save them all,
you can’t even save one-tenth of them.
In fact, even if you work all day,
your efforts won’t make any difference at all.”
The old man listened calmly
and then bent down to pick up another starfish
and threw it into the sea.
“It made a difference to that one.”
The story of the kidnapping of the school girls in Nigeria is shocking.
Fills us with anger.
Makes us wonder about the future of humanity.
If there is grace to be found in this event - right now - it is that it puts women’s struggle for survival front and center.
That struggle for survival is literal.
Just for the right to live.
Without fear of abuse, torture, rape, death.
Inflicted just for being women.
We Unitarian Universalists enjoy a proud history of activism for women’s rights in the United States. We’ve been on the front lines for almost 200 years on every issue pertaining to women’s rights:
both in the United States and around the world.
The beaches of justice are full of starfish,
waiting for our hands to help them back into the water.
But did you know that worldwide - 107 million women are missing? 2
107 million women are missing.
They just aren’t there.
In normal circumstances, women live longer than men.
So in much of the world there are more females than men.
This is true in rich countries and poor countries.
But this doesn’t hold true in places where girls have a deeply unequal status.
Where they are seen as less than.
As commodities to be sold or traded.
There, they vanish. 3
Just a few statistics. I could lift up more - but we’d be here for a long time while I recited them.
“39,000 baby girls die annually in China because parents don’t give them the same medical care and attention that boys receive.”
“In India, a “bride burning” - to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry - takes place approximately once every two hours.”
“In Pakistan, 5000 women and girls have been doused in kerosene and set alight by family members or in-laws, or perhaps worse, seared with acid - for perceived disobedience in the last nine years.”
“3 million women and girls (and a small number of boys) worldwide are currently enslaved in the sex trade.” 4
“The linked problems of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality — claim one woman every 90 seconds.” 5
It was no accident that the militants stole the girls from a school. It wasn’t just that there was a large number of females there. But the fact that they were getting educated was a significant reason they were taken. The militants are trying to stop education from expanding, and are using extreme fear tactics in order to force the government to shut down schools.
It is well documented that as women become more educated, several other things begin to happen:
In order to fight global terrorism, a better use of our tax dollars should be used toward more books, less bombs.
As people who are committed to equity and equality,
for the flourishing of all Creation ...
We have an important role to play here.
I try to be careful in my asks from the pulpit.
But today I have a very specific one.
Join the movement to “emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as an economic catalyst.”
That sounds huge. But there are some simple steps to take that will put your hands to work actively creating grace in the world.
And this changes lives. One example is a woman named Saima. When you see a picture of her today, she is a strong, confident woman with a huge smile and a sense of purpose that jumps out at you.
But she wasn’t always like that.
At one point in her life, she cried every night. She was incredibly poor. Her husband was unemployed. He was frustrated and angry, and he beat Saima every afternoon. They lived in a broken down house. Never enough food to go around. They racked up debt. When Saima gave birth to her second daughter, her mother-in-law encouraged her husband to take a second wife. In the hopes of bringing a son to the family.
With that prospect - Saima could see her life shattering. She would have lower status in the family. There would be even less food to go around. More people needing money.
Desperate, she turned to a woman’s group for help. It was a micro-finance organization. These groups give out small loans to women for them to start their own businesses.
Saima was able to take out a $65.00 loan. With that money she bought beads and cloth, which she turned into beautiful embroidery and sold in the nearby markets. She used the profit to buy more beads and more cloth - and before long she had a thriving business.
Today she has employees that work for her. She has a six-room home. No threat of a second wife. Her husband respects her. Most importantly - she respects herself and feels a sense of call and purpose in the world. Now, Saima loans out money to help others get started. She plans to send all her daughters to high school and eventually college. 6
There are millions more women out there, like Saima, who if they are just given one small break, can transform their lives.
We can start that transformation today.
Step by step.
Person by person.
One small change at a time.
We create a Beloved Community.
One in which women and men are strong.
In which men and women will be gentle.
Where we will all be free
and the entirety of Earth’s creatures will be cherished.
May it be so.
1. Accessed on May 18, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/opinion/sunday/kristof-bring-back-our-girls.html?_r=0. 2. Kristof and WuDunn, Women Hold Up Half the Sky, pp xiv-xv.
3. Ibid, p. xv.
4. accessed on May 16, 2014. http://www.halftheskymovement.org/issues/sex-trafficking
5. accessed on May 18, 2014. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/half-the-sky/
6. Half the Sky. pp 185-187
This morning’s responsive reading lifted up a bold, audacious, beautiful vision of a Beloved Community.
One in which women and men are strong.
In which men and women will be gentle.
Where we will all be free
and the entirety of Earth’s creatures will be cherished.
That is a beautiful vision.
You all actively work toward it, in so many ways,
In your personal and public lives.
Yet ... we know we are a long way from there.
Any one of us can describe situations we have encountered ...
where someone’s inherent worth and dignity isn’t honored.
Where a person’s basic human rights are denied.
Where bad decisions are made that harm Creation and keep Beloved Community at bay.
Most recently, we’ve seen this unfold in the story of the more than 200 missing girls in Nigeria.
These young women - ages 15-18 - held the hopes of their communities. The hope for a better educated population that could help the area rise out of poverty.
These were girls who had dreams of becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers.
They - and their families - knew getting an education was dangerous. Subversive. The schools in their area had already closed once in March, for fear of terror attacks. This particular school had reopened so the girls could take their final exams.
But before they could complete the term, an Islamist militant group stormed the dormitories at night, setting fire and shooting guns. They herded the scared girls into trucks, buses, and vans, and drove away with them.
Instead of celebrating the end of a school year, feeling pride for work well done and planning for bright futures, the girls are reportedly being sold as wives to the militants, for $12.00 each. 1
Every day, we are confronted with the disquieting reminder that somewhere - Creation is hurting.
In the form of a person, an animal, or earth itself.
When we see it, as we struggle to make sense of the emotions that flood us ...
feelings of sadness, righteous indignation, overwhelm, frustration ...
And in the midst of those emotions, we might also ask ourselves: why that person, and not me.
We might wonder, where is grace hiding in this situation?
Grace - that peaceful, ineffable feeling of being at one with the Universe.
A universal love greater than we are, connecting all beings.
The sense that something, somewhere, swoops in at times and keeps the terrible things from knocking us over.
The experience of grace was hinted at in the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye
- that even through completing the mundane tasks that sustain and nourish us we know grace. Things like:
Planting seeds.
Folding t-shirts.
Addressing letters.
Through those actions, we re-connect with the astonishing reality that these two hands - and their familiarity with the essence of daily living -
are the means through which we worship the world and hold up the sky.
It is in this close, intimate interaction with all of life ...
that we begin to understand Spirit - Love - Grace.
A couple of weeks ago in worship, we talked about creating a Grace Margin.
We reminded ourselves that sometimes, in order to receive grace,
we need to open ourselves up to it.
And that after we have received that goodness,
Let go of our separateness,
We find ourselves in a place to give back.
We become the ones to offer up grace.
And we start to do that by learning.
Listening.
Showing up where we are needed.
Sometimes it takes just one set of hands,
maybe the two right in front of you,
worshiping the world,
to get things started.
This is exemplified in the Starfish Story.
A young man walks along the ocean
and sees a beach on which thousands and thousands
of starfish have washed ashore.
Further along he sees an old man,
walking slowly and stooping often,
picking up one starfish after another
and tossing each one gently into the ocean.
He asks the old man, “Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”
“Because the sun is up and the tide is going out
and if I don’t throw them further in they will die.”
“But, don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach
and starfish all along it!
You can’t possibly save them all,
you can’t even save one-tenth of them.
In fact, even if you work all day,
your efforts won’t make any difference at all.”
The old man listened calmly
and then bent down to pick up another starfish
and threw it into the sea.
“It made a difference to that one.”
The story of the kidnapping of the school girls in Nigeria is shocking.
Fills us with anger.
Makes us wonder about the future of humanity.
If there is grace to be found in this event - right now - it is that it puts women’s struggle for survival front and center.
That struggle for survival is literal.
Just for the right to live.
Without fear of abuse, torture, rape, death.
Inflicted just for being women.
We Unitarian Universalists enjoy a proud history of activism for women’s rights in the United States. We’ve been on the front lines for almost 200 years on every issue pertaining to women’s rights:
- suffrage
- abolition
- birth control
- comprehensive sexuality education
- abortion
- maternal care
- living wage
both in the United States and around the world.
The beaches of justice are full of starfish,
waiting for our hands to help them back into the water.
But did you know that worldwide - 107 million women are missing? 2
107 million women are missing.
They just aren’t there.
In normal circumstances, women live longer than men.
So in much of the world there are more females than men.
This is true in rich countries and poor countries.
But this doesn’t hold true in places where girls have a deeply unequal status.
Where they are seen as less than.
As commodities to be sold or traded.
There, they vanish. 3
Just a few statistics. I could lift up more - but we’d be here for a long time while I recited them.
“39,000 baby girls die annually in China because parents don’t give them the same medical care and attention that boys receive.”
“In India, a “bride burning” - to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry - takes place approximately once every two hours.”
“In Pakistan, 5000 women and girls have been doused in kerosene and set alight by family members or in-laws, or perhaps worse, seared with acid - for perceived disobedience in the last nine years.”
“3 million women and girls (and a small number of boys) worldwide are currently enslaved in the sex trade.” 4
“The linked problems of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality — claim one woman every 90 seconds.” 5
It was no accident that the militants stole the girls from a school. It wasn’t just that there was a large number of females there. But the fact that they were getting educated was a significant reason they were taken. The militants are trying to stop education from expanding, and are using extreme fear tactics in order to force the government to shut down schools.
It is well documented that as women become more educated, several other things begin to happen:
- women delay marriage
- a woman’s income increases
- decreases rates of human trafficking
- decreases rape
- decreases infant mortality rate
- increases health and nutrition in the community
- increases the chance of education for the next generation
- stems the tide of extremist, militant groups
In order to fight global terrorism, a better use of our tax dollars should be used toward more books, less bombs.
As people who are committed to equity and equality,
for the flourishing of all Creation ...
We have an important role to play here.
I try to be careful in my asks from the pulpit.
But today I have a very specific one.
Join the movement to “emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as an economic catalyst.”
That sounds huge. But there are some simple steps to take that will put your hands to work actively creating grace in the world.
And this changes lives. One example is a woman named Saima. When you see a picture of her today, she is a strong, confident woman with a huge smile and a sense of purpose that jumps out at you.
But she wasn’t always like that.
At one point in her life, she cried every night. She was incredibly poor. Her husband was unemployed. He was frustrated and angry, and he beat Saima every afternoon. They lived in a broken down house. Never enough food to go around. They racked up debt. When Saima gave birth to her second daughter, her mother-in-law encouraged her husband to take a second wife. In the hopes of bringing a son to the family.
With that prospect - Saima could see her life shattering. She would have lower status in the family. There would be even less food to go around. More people needing money.
Desperate, she turned to a woman’s group for help. It was a micro-finance organization. These groups give out small loans to women for them to start their own businesses.
Saima was able to take out a $65.00 loan. With that money she bought beads and cloth, which she turned into beautiful embroidery and sold in the nearby markets. She used the profit to buy more beads and more cloth - and before long she had a thriving business.
Today she has employees that work for her. She has a six-room home. No threat of a second wife. Her husband respects her. Most importantly - she respects herself and feels a sense of call and purpose in the world. Now, Saima loans out money to help others get started. She plans to send all her daughters to high school and eventually college. 6
There are millions more women out there, like Saima, who if they are just given one small break, can transform their lives.
We can start that transformation today.
- Support the International Violence Against Women Act. This would permanently integrate gender-based violence prevention and response into all U.S. government programming overseas operates. You can show your support today by signing the petition at the back of the Sanctuary. We will send it to Amnesty International.
- Enroll in a microfinance program, like Global Giving or Kiva. You get linked directly to a person in need overseas, and you can give to projects in education, health, disaster relief, or entrepreneurs, like Saima.
- Become engaged with our Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, who advocates and lends hands on support to women around the world.
Step by step.
Person by person.
One small change at a time.
We create a Beloved Community.
One in which women and men are strong.
In which men and women will be gentle.
Where we will all be free
and the entirety of Earth’s creatures will be cherished.
May it be so.
1. Accessed on May 18, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/opinion/sunday/kristof-bring-back-our-girls.html?_r=0. 2. Kristof and WuDunn, Women Hold Up Half the Sky, pp xiv-xv.
3. Ibid, p. xv.
4. accessed on May 16, 2014. http://www.halftheskymovement.org/issues/sex-trafficking
5. accessed on May 18, 2014. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/half-the-sky/
6. Half the Sky. pp 185-187