Faith Sermon

Faith: Kahlil Gibran said that 'Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof'. Mark Twain said that it's 'Believing something that you know ain't so'. And popular singer George Michael said that it's something that "You've gotta have," but I've read the rest of the lyrics to that song, and I'm reasonably sure that he was talking about something else....

So…faith. The first time that I ever walked into a Unitarian Universalist church, I was twelve years old. My mother and my future stepfather were shopping for a minister for their upcoming wedding. I was dragged out of bed at what I considered to be a most unreasonable hour for a Sunday morning and dragged off to church, where I was packed off with the rest of the kids to something that they called “Religious Education”. Right. I could smell Sunday School from a mile away. So, with my head bowed and feet dragging on the ground, I made my way along with some other kids to a small cabin on the church grounds. It was confusing. No pictures of a lily-white Jesus smiling kindly at lambs, no intimidating pictures of graven Ten Commandments, none of the trappings that I associated with Sunday School. Instead, a rather nice woman led us in a discussion about a young girl named Anne Frank, and gave each of us copies of her published diary. Over the next day or two, I devoured the entire work.

For those of you not familiar with the story of Anne Frank, I’ll give you a brief overview: Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929, the daughter of a successful merchant, and member of the local Jewish community.

In 1934, Anne Frank’s family moved to The Netherlands to escape persecution at the hands of the Nazi regime. Tragically, they were trapped in Amsterdam when German forces invaded the country in 1940, and were forced to go into hiding after Anne’s mother received a notice to report for transportation to a concentration camp. With the help of four employees of her father’s who ran the risk of being put to death for their actions, Anne and her family hid in an annex behind and above one of her father’s businesses. The year was 1942.

For the next two years, until August of 1944, Anne Frank, her family, and several other Jews of the family’s acquaintance lived in the annex in nearly unbearable conditions. Thrown together by the barbaric policies of the occupational government, Anne’s family and the others lived, slept, and ate in close quarters. They sat in unbearable silence during the day, when workers were downstairs, then went about their business at night while trying to draw as little attention as possible. And all the while, every person in that annex (including Anne) was fully aware that their friends, families, their entire community was being rounded up in the streets below and sent off to the slaughter. These refugees within their own country were grating on each other, despising their conditions, and yet they knew full well that the only alternative was a death by torture. Each one was aware that at any given moment, the door to their hiding place could come crashing in, and that they would all be forced into trains that would take them off to almost certain death. In her formative and most vulnerable years, Anne Frank found herself in circumstances that would test any of us, young or old, beyond all reason.

And, see, that’s where faith comes in. Because with full respect to Mark Twain, I do not see faith as belief in something that is abhorrent to my reason. Instead, I see faith as a choice in which reason plays a part. Faith requires the ability to see the negatives in one’s life with sobriety and seriousness of purpose. It requires you to be perfectly honest with yourself about every fear you have, every pressure you find yourself under, everything that you see as wrong in yourself, or your life, or the world in general.

Some of you know that I’ve been homeless at various points in my life. The last time that I ended up on the streets was only a couple of years back. Various emotional and financial circumstances led to a collapse of my life. I soon found myself at a shelter in North Hollywood. After a short stay there, my girlfriend Chana and I escaped from the bedbugs and poor nutrition, and took off to take our chances on the streets of Venice Beach…or, as we put it, we ran away to join the circus.

It was in this darkest time, in the midst of the clowns, hustlers, acrobats, musicians, merchants and hustlers of Venice that I found my faith. I found it in the people who would watch my vendor space without thought of compensation. I found it in Buddy, a man who resembled Moses in both appearance and temperament, as he saw his own homelessness as an opportunity to assist others in the same circumstances, and felt called by God to tote a cart of donated food behind his bicycle as he went up and down the Boardwalk handing out food. I saw it in the alcoholics and drug addicts who, when Chana’s car was towed, insisted that we stay at their campsite, where we would find safety in numbers.

Now, don’t get me wrong: These people were not angels, and I’m not going to romanticize them. The people who watched my stand one day would try to steal it out from under me the next if I didn’t show up early enough. Buddy would corner you to speak darkly of his religious insights for up to an hour, and become so obscure and convoluted that your polite grin would freeze, and it would be all that you could do to bob your head in agreement at what sounded like the right places. The drunks and addicts who offered us a place to sleep would also keep us up all night with arguments, fistfights, and whatever other ruckus they felt driven to by whatever chemicals they’d medicated themselves with on that day. However, while I was well aware of these issues, I couldn’t concentrate on them. Instead, I focused every day on how grateful I was to have met these people, folks in circumstances arguably worse than my own who had reached out their hands in love and assistance, not judging, but instead acting with compassion in our time of need. They made it easier for me to have faith in humanity. They made it easier for me to remember a single line said by Oscar Wilde after he had stumbled drunkenly out of a tavern in the depths of night, and fell off of the curb into the street. When one of his friends looked at him scornfully and pointed out that he was lying in the gutter, Wilde smiled wistfully and said “All of us are in the gutter…but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Faith is the ability to see the stars when you find yourself in the gutter. Faith is the conscious and reasonable choice that we make to understand that there is beauty and compassion and love in life, and to choose to see it in others. To believe that love is

stronger than hate, that compassion trumps indifference, and that the only original sin is to think that we’re worthy of damnation in the first place

In August of 1944, Anne Frank, her family, and those who hid with them were betrayed to the Gestapo, found, and shipped to Auschwitz, where she was shaved, tattooed with a number, and sent to hard labor with the female members of her family. All of them but her father died in the Shoah. Anne herself passed away from typhus in March of 1945, mere weeks before her camp was liberated by Allied forces.

Knowing the possibility, even the probability of this happening, having some idea of the horrific fate in store for herself and her loved ones if they were to be discovered, Anne Frank still found it somewhere within her to write the following while hiding in the annes:

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good at heart.”

Anne had seen many of the horrors that human beings were capable of inflicting on each other. She knew that she ran the risk of being subjected to many more. And yet due to the kindness of friends who ran the risk of death at the hands of the Nazis in order to help her and her family, due to her faith in her religious beliefs, and due to her refusal to see the world as an inherently evil place, she wrote those words that shame all of us who would think otherwise.

That, my friends is faith.

That’s the faith that sees the stars from the gutter. That’s the faith that can move a mountain, even if it’s one handful of dirt at a time. That’s the faith that knows one important truth in life: That when you stand on the side of love, love also stands with you. And while love may be battered and bruised, even slain throughout the centuries, no power on Earth can defeat it for good. That’s what King understood. That’s what Gandhi knew. That’s the story of Jesus abridged for your convenience. That’s the faith, and the line, that have driven generations to seek justice for survivors of the Shoah, to stand up against the genocides performed by madmen and say “Never again!”

As I wrap up, I’ll leave you with one more quote from Anne Frank, one displayed prominently on the website of our own denomination:

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

That is her faith in humanity. That is my faith in all of you, and in myself. Let’s do our best to justify it.