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CHUTES AND LADDERS
Someone left on my desk a copy of what purports to be an ancient game of India called “Leela”. It is a meditative learning tool that in the West was turned into the children’s game “Chutes and Ladders”. How often do we turn serious things into mere games?
READING
Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterwards all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him. (From Ex 34)
What did you see, Moses, that set your skin to glowing?
What happened to you in that place?
And when Jesus appeared to his disciples on the road to Emmaus, why did they not recognize him?
What happens when we face some truth or face ourselves or see God face to face?
When have been the moments in my life that I have stood awestruck, or have cried tears of joy, or have giggled with uncontrolled happy silliness at the sheer joy of life?
What do I seek today on my pilgrim path: what music or song; what lifting of weight; what sense of deep connection will bring me to that place of shining skin?
May I shine within as well, my heart, my soul, my mind. And may I carry that so strongly that I help others to shine as well.
SERMON
Good Morning!
A brief aside before I begin my sermon: On the way here this morning I heard the news that Saddam Hussein had been condemned to death. I will only say this morning that capital punishment is not about the person who is executed; capital punishment is not about the person being executed. It is all about the people who order and carry out the execution. It is about their hearts and souls. It is about their choice to kill.
Chutes and Ladders is a children’s game in the west. Scholars of games and their history say that various versions of this game were developed by religious leaders in India in order to teach children that life was a constant effort to rise from lower forms of life to higher ones and that certain behaviors helped or hindered this process. There were squares marked with virtues from which ladders rose varying lengths to higher levels. There also were squares marked with various evils (lust, etc) where one was swallowed by a snake and deposited at a lower level of existence. One would move up or down the hierarchy of existence depending upon whether one chose to act according to virtue or to yield to lust.
Moksha-patamu, the version that arrived in England in the late 1890’s, was soon marketed under the name Snakes and Ladders, with the specifically Hindu moral and religious references removed. That is, they engaged in an act of “religious correctness”. Later the snakes, probably for reasons of propriety, tended to be replaced by chutes, which one did not emerge from the rear end of. So the original teaching tool became a mere play thing.
Many children’s games are believed to be cultural remnants of very serious activities. So, Blind Man’s Buff in which a blind-folded person attempts to capture another player is believed to be a leftover from an old process for selecting the victim of a sacrifice.
Guy Fawkes Day, which is celebrated on this date in England, is another example of deadly serious event turned into children’s play – the effigies burned in Guy Fawkes bonfires represent real people; Fawkes today but both Fawkes and the Pope in the past. Fawkes died a horrible death, the death of his time. If you saw the movie Braveheart you have a sense of how he died. There was first a hanging; hanging was then a process that took 20 minutes; they hung one until near death and then took one down for more fun and games: removal of the innards, and then killing. But the truly gruesome fact is that even this horrifying death was treated as a game, as an entertainment for the masses.
Other games played by both children and adults also derive from more serious events. Chess is the perfect example: praised as the greatest of intellectual games, it is a miniature battle between two armies.
One element—only one of many—in this tendency to turn even the most important of things into a game is that it allows us to fulfill our desire to control things that often feel beyond control. If it can be constrained and tamed, then it loses some of its power to bring fear. So Halloween mocks death and the unknown. A more pedestrian example would be viewing exams in school as puzzles or games, not as tests; people who can do that can achieve better grades on their exams because they are not full of anxiety while taking them.
But there is also a potential for losing something in this process. Things that are deeply profound and serious can be trivialized if we turn them into child’s play or into fun and games. So Veteran’s Day, a day honoring those who fought for their country, becomes for so many of us just part of another long weekend, and the reason for acknowledging the day is lost.
Democracy, the democratic process, is a human right in its own right and is also an expression of a doctrine of individual human value and worth. And our election process is demeaned and belittles democracy when politicians treat it as a game and attempt to manipulate the electorate with sound bites rather than attempt to express and debate important issues and ideas. It is demeaned when politicians use negative personal attack campaign ads and it is demeaned when we allow our votes to be swayed by those ads. Democracy is honored when we citizens carefully think through the important issues and then vote for those candidates who come closest to our own values and beliefs.
We demean democracy when we forget that people died so we might vote. We demean them and their sacrifice when we take voting lightly or think of it as a burden.
And we trivialize the very real death of human beings when we ignore the reality and impact of it in discussing war or capital punishment.
Years ago when I was in elementary school we stood and recited the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. At some point in time knew it well enough that I would recite it while my mind wandered onto other things. That is, though I recited the words, they lost their meaning. They became background noise as I thought about lunch or the test I was taking later that day or the cute girl who was sitting over to my right.
Our words and our practices can become that, mere background while we do or think other things.
In our personal relationships we can fall into similar patters. We can find ourselves carrying out the actions of relationship, but doing so only on the surface, while ignoring whatever it is that gives depth and meaning to our relationship.
In our spiritual lives the same kind of thing can happen, the same trivializing or devaluing of that which is important. Some Christians have long complained that the Christmas season has become overly commercialized and that in the festivities of the modern world the original meaning of the day--the birth of a Messiah, the salvation of humankind, and the forgiveness of sins--is lost.
Whether you or I believe in the Christian story or believe instead that the holiday season is about friends and family and about joy and peace in the world, either of those views can be lost in the bustle of the shopping and cooking rush. This is not a process unique to Christianity; it happens in many of the world’s traditions where the original meaning of a rite or ritual disappears under the pressure of celebration or “busy-ness”. We risk losing much when that happens.
Our personal spirituality can be the same. It is easy to slide along the surface of spirituality. We can so easily ignore the deepening that religion can be. Do I treat my religion and my pilgrim path as I might a child’s game, or do I take it as seriously as I should? Seriously not in the sense of avoiding humor and joy, for humor can be a path to deepening and being gravely intense can be a means of avoiding depth.
Religion in some way should be activity. It should cause us to act or to be acted upon.
What does it mean to believe as I do? What does that belief require of me in terms of personal spiritual practice or general behavior?
In my spiritual practice, should I pray, meditate, reflect or center myself daily?
In my general actions should I engage in more acts of social service or social justice? Should I think more carefully about how I treat other people—family, friends, coworkers, and strangers on the street?
If I choose to deepen my spirituality, where do I begin? Do I start within my own heart; do I write a personal statement of belief; do I choose the Unitarian Universalist statement of principles from the hymnal?
What of any Christian creed, or the Humanist manifesto?
How much time or effort am I willing to put into this search?
What an interesting question: How much time am I willing to put into the search for that which is of ultimate or deepest or highest truth? Is it possible that this should not be allocated any extra time I might have, but instead should come first?
We are here this morning because each of us believes or hopes that a sense of belonging to a community either encourages or is itself a pathway to stronger spirituality.
As a member, however temporarily, of this community, what do I do to build the bonds that bring myself and others closer to whatever for each individual is our indefinable sense of the sacred?
And what does that word, “sacred” mean to me?
We can trivialize words, and we can do so in different ways. We can trivialize them by not taking care in how we choose them and how we use them. We can also trivialize them by getting stuck on them, by reacting to the words someone uses rather than the meaning they are attempting to express.
I fall into that trap with words like “Church”, “God” and “prayer”. I allow them to keep me from deep truth, the truth they point to and are mere labels for.
So, when I think of the sacred, what is it that I try to approach? What is the Temple that I journey towards on my own pilgrimage? What is the Holy of Holies that, when I enter into it, will transform me in ways that I both fear and desire?
What must I do to prepare myself to enter into that holy space? Must I wash my body; wash my soul; open my heart; open my mind?
Have I come here today willing to be open; willing to see; willing to change?
As we here gather together this morning, I hope we keep in mind the sacred meaning of this gathering. What happens here on Sunday morning—or what ought to happen--is a series of individual moments and a series of collective moments of spiritual deepening, of soul deepening. This is what we are “about”; it is what we gather for. It is less likely to occur if we go through the motions but allow ourselves to be distracted by business, or allow our minds to wander to lunch, or to things that do not foster spiritual growth and depth of meaning.
I do not mean to prescribe what provides that fostering. Different things reach different people.
What makes this important is not only what we do, but our approach to what we do, our mental attitude and thoughts and hearts as we do it.
As I join today in community, do I do so with open heart, open mind, open soul?
Am I open to reason and to emotion?
Am I open to the certainty of truth and to the uncertainty of truth, and to the ambiguity of life?
If I enter this place feeling less than acceptable to myself; if I come with the burden of guilt or the fear of death; if I come with the debilities of anger at religion or cynicism about life and human nature or rage and disappointment with divinity, am I willing to be changed, to be transformed by new truth or restated truth?
Will I let myself enter the Temple?
Will I let myself see God face to face?
What might make my skin shine today?
Will I let that happen?
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