First Parish Unitarian Universalist The Sky's the Limit
when your Hut has No Roof
Sermon given by Megan Lynes, Ministerial Intern
First Parish Unitarian Universalist- Canton, MA
October 16, 2005
Over the last week a number of First Parish folks had their hands in the project of creating our beautiful Sukkah which is standing to my right. You have to understand that standing is the key word here! We finally had to give up on the nails and go with floral tape. Needless to say, don’t lean too hard on our “lean-to.”
Luckily for us, a sukkah is meant to be hastily put together and rough looking. “Sukkah” is the Hebrew word for “booth,” or “shelter.” The structure represents the kind of huts that Moses and the Israelites lived in as they wandered the desert for 40 years before they reached the Promised Land. These huts were made of branches and were easy to assemble, take apart, and carry as the Israelites traveled. The festival of Sukkot, also known as the "Feast of Booths" is named for these sukkah huts. Sukkot is considered to be the most joyous Jewish holiday of the year, and follows five days after the most somber day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
For this joyous holiday Sukkahs are constructed as temporary shelters and the roof is covered with foliage which is spaced to let the light in. Inside the hut hang fruits and vegetables, including apples, grapes, corn, and pomegranates. Families eat their meals in the huts under the evening sky. Though many Jews in the U.S limit their activities in the sukkah to eating, some people sleep in the sukkah as well.
Sukkot serves both as a reminder of the forty biblical years of wandering, and also as a joyous harvest celebration. For many families, this return to simple living is the most fulfilling time of the year. In my opinion, the message of Sukkot is important for all of us, not only Jews, to remember. The real treasures in our lives do not come from material possessions, but from the wealth of being fully alive.
Now I must say that I’m quite proud of our lovely sukkah. We’ve definitely got the harvest feel to our hut. We’ve got some grapevines and some corn decorations. We’ve got harvest fruits and vegetables. But there are a couple of problems with our little booth. Rabbis have been very specific with the rules and regulations about how and where to build a sukkah. They thought long and hard about the number of walls, their height and the width, and the openness of the roof. For instance the Sukkah must have at least two and a half sides. The walls may be made of any material but must not be flapping in the wind. A permanent wall, such as that of a house, may be used for one of the walls. In fact, the rabbis debated whether an elephant could be used as a wall, but that is another story.
Mostly, what’s not quite right about our sukkah, is that a sukkah is meant to be built outdoors where one can gaze up through the leafy roof at the stars. Our sukkah is not following the rules, but nonetheless, it’s been created with all the best intentions. The sukkah is here so that we might use it to explore the subject of simplicity and abundance in our lives.
Most of the messages we receive from the media and society overall tell us that living a good life means having a full calendar, a full closet of clothes, or a full bank account. In comparison, the messages of many religions tell us that living a good life means getting rid of material wealth completely. I recall the parable of the rich man who was asking Jesus how he could get into heaven. The man told Jesus that he’d prayed every day, visited the temple, and given alms to the poor. Jesus could see however that although the man had done good deeds, he was still extremely rich and unwilling to give up his wealth. In his usual way of speaking through parables, Jesus answered that it’s harder for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle. I had to laugh the other day however, when I saw a sermon title which read, “Honey, I shrunk the camel.”
So here we are getting bombarded from all sides. Living simply is the right way to interact with the universe! Verses: buy this new antibacterial scrub brush with a retractable fuzzy handle that will fold up and put itself away when you clap!
Most of us do our best every day to live good lives, simple lives, full lives. We reduce, reuse and recycle. We fill the Parish Hall with clothes galore to benefit Katrina victims. We do care about making the world right, we just have so much going on, that it can be hard to find time for the things that matter the most. We’d like to live with less and not be caught up in the material world, but this can seem impossible to do in our culture. It’s not realistic to get rid of the car when there are three kids trying to get to school across town. So how do we reconcile the goal of living simply with the very real challenges of modern life?
I think we need a new framework. First off, simplifying our lives is great. The more we de-clutter or share our monetary wealth the better. If you can give, give. It’s good for the heart. It’s good for others. But there’s another issue involved here. We’ve heard about living simply, but perhaps what we need is a goal of living fully. For ourselves, for others, for the world.
Living fully is not about possessions. It’s not about having them. And it’s not about not having them. Living fully is bigger than that. In a way, it doesn’t matter if we have a lot or a little. It matters that we live our lives in a way that allows us to notice and share with others what is most precious to us. We all have treasures in our lives, but the most important ones are not material treasures.
The family I’m closest to, outside of my real family, makes their sukkah big enough for all of them to sleep in together. Each night for a week they place their sleeping bags side by side, snuggle up, and then stay up late singing and chatting and counting stars. Once when I stayed over we all shared our favorite lullabies. For me, it was “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” In the dark sky above us I could almost picture the chariot itself. As a child I used to wonder how the chariot would ever find me to carry me home, but that evening for the first time I felt a sense of relief and joy warming within. Squinting, I could almost see the golden reigns. Surely if a chariot were to come, it would find me there singing beneath a sukkah with my friends, our voices mingling softly with the breeze. My envisioned chariot was of course by no means a material gift, so what was the treasure I’d been given? It wasn’t a sudden belief in heaven exactly, but more of a sense of expectancy. What else is out there in the universe to know and feel and understand? My treasure was hope itself.
I remember also how vulnerable I felt that night in the sukkah without a roof over my head. What if it rained? What if a raccoon decided to mess with me? Wouldn’t it be easier just to go inside? But then again, sleeping outdoors was just the kind of experience I’ve now come to crave. Maybe some of you go camping and have this sentiment yourselves. Isn’t it magical to build a home away from home? Leaving the safety of familiar comfort and the constant buzz of the material world allows us to focus on what, or who, is actually present.
That night camping out beneath the sukkah was cold, but my young friend and I played games with our breath, puffing out little shapes with steam clouds. When we sang our voices sounded crisper, the notes folding into the open arms of the universe. Or perhaps we just noticed the sound more fully because that’s all there was to hear. No hum from the refrigerator, no background T.V noise, or chatter from the people in the next room. We were all there together, just four human beings sitting close, under the canopy of vines and stars, singing, “how good it is to sit as brothers and sisters together,” …Hiney Mah Tovu Manayim, Shevet ahim gamyahad… True friendship and love. What treasure a treasure indeed.
The biblical book commonly associated with Sukkot is Ecclesiastes, a work of wisdom that begins with a teacher declaring “I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after the wind." When I read this I found it not to be a very hopeful message. I decided to look into the meaning behind some of the words. To my surprise the Hebrew word “ havel,” usually taken to mean "vanity," can also be read as "insubstantiality," or "breath." So read in a new way, this biblical text would now say, “everything is like breath. It gives you life, but you can't hold on to it. You can't breathe indefinitely. We need to surrender to the fact that all efforts at permanence are hopeless.” No structure we can build will protect us from the unforeseen possibilities of life. No object we possess today will be carried with us when we die.”
So what to make of this text? What I chose to hear was that in the midst of all that impermanence is the incredible gift of life itself. You are not simply dust in the wind. Each one of you is the only one of you who has ever lived. There has never been another you, and there will never be another you. The spark of human life and human spirit that makes you - you will never be repeated. You, yourself, are a treasure!
I recall watching on T.V a father and son who were a skiing pair in the handicapped Olympics. The son was not only missing a leg from birth, but was also blinded mid-career in a skiing accident. The accident would probably have put off the average person, but the young man so loved racing that he got his dad to train with him. When it came time for the slalom, they skied together, with the father about five feet ahead of his son shouting out precise instructions about when to turn or jump. Although the son couldn’t see his father, his movements were like a shadow, so exact that they moved almost as one. I watched, mesmerized, as they made it to the bottom of the slope in record time. Pulling in to a stop in perfect tandem, they stood together at the finish line with their arms around one another, breathless and beaming. “How does it feel to have won?” the newscaster asked addressing the young man. “I can’t believe we did it!” he exclaimed, “I just feel so alive!” I wonder what makes you feel most alive.
The scripture of Ecclesiastes offers further guidance: “a two-strand cord is stronger than a single one, and a three-strand cord is even stronger." Seen in that light, the father and son pair was a perfectly woven cord. I’ve often heard it said that we are stronger in the broken places. The young man’s broken places may have been his source of motivation, courage or strength. But capable and determined as he might be, the son could not have won that race on his own. “We did it!” He said. Not “I did it.” Who do you lean on in your life for support? Who leans on you? As human beings we are meant to weave our lives together in mutuality and respect. One of the greatest treasures ever bestowed upon human kind is the ability we each have to give of ourselves to others.
Sukkot is a holiday that reminds us of what is essential to the human spirit. For those who celebrate by spending time in a sukkah, the little hut becomes a place to reflect and remember and to sit quietly in awe. The sukkah is a place to spend quality time with loved ones, and to gaze at the infinity of the night sky. But just as material possessions are not what we need for true wealth, so too is a physical sukkah not necessary for gathering the treasures in our lives. Imagine yourself for a minute with your own version of the perfect sukkah. Push aside anything but the bare essentials in your mind. How does your sukkah look? Perhaps it is a wooden structure outdoors, or maybe it’s a child’s fort made of chairs and sheets in the living room. Now invite in all your treasures. Hope, friendship, love, and “ havel, ”the breath of life. Remember also that you yourself are a miraculous treasure.
And now that all these true gifts are stored carefully within the recesses of your soul, choose which ones to give away first. You will never run out. After all, the sky’s the limit when your hut has no roof.
Amen and Blessed Be.