Speak Truth in Love: Dismantling Bullying as a Spiritual Practice – Guest Speaker Rev. Dayna Edwards

Hi all, I am the Rev. Dayna Edwards and my pronouns are she and her. I serve as the Minister of Faith Formation for Cedar Lane UU Congregation. I am especially excited to be here today, because Silver Spring was the first UU congregation that I became a member of almost 24 years ago, or so. I remember one of the first services I went to was a woman preacher (!) Rev. Liz Lerner Maclay preaching about the DaVinci Code and that maybe God was a woman? Well I immediately knew Unitarian Universalism was my faith. Now, to have come full circle and be preaching here myself feels very special. So thank you for having me today.

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, a great prophet named Samuel. told the story of the reign of Saul in the Hebrew Scripture. Saul was king of the Israelites before David. When Saul was ruler, there had been a covenant of peace between the Israelites and the Gibeonites. But Saul broke the covenant and massacred the Gibeonites. Because of this, and other poor choices, Saul fell out of favor with the God of the Hebrew Scriptures and David rose to power. 

A famine fell over the land for three years. David asked God what to do and God said, welp your predecessor broke a covenant with the Gibeonites and you know I really am a fan of covenants so if you want to stop the famine, I suggest you take some time to visit with the Gibeonites and figure out what you need to do to make amends. 

So David went to the Gibeonites, and said, what can we do to amend for the sins of Saul. The Gibeonites, were like, silver and gold are not going to cut it in this case. We don’t really have a problem with anyone else in Israel, and Saul is dead. So to make up for massacring our people, we demand the lives of seven of Saul’s sons. 

I love reading the Hebrew Scriptures because it reminds me that the problems we face today are not new. Men have been fighting for power, engaging in warfare, making decisions that impact the lives of innocent people for millennia. State sanctioned violence, scapegoating, and human cruelty are as ancient as humanity. I am not saying this with resignation, I am saying this with hope, because our ancestors have left us road maps to resistance in many of our sacred texts and the Hebrew Scriptures are full of strategies to resist empire.

As we enter week two of the onslaught of hateful executive orders, and bizarre cabinet nomination hearings, it is easy to feel discouraged, to feel resigned, to feel hopeless and powerless. It is tempting to want to check out and throw your hands up as the new regime sows hate, chaos and confusion in the air in their attempts to exert power and control. 

Researcher and speaker, Brene Brown says, “feeling discouraged and resigned is about effort rather than outcome. With discouragement, we’re losing the motivation and confidence to continue with our efforts. With resignation, we’ve lost the motivation to keep trying.”

When we’re feeling discouraged and/or resigned, we’re more likely to “obey in advance” as Timothy Snyder points out in his book On Tyranny. “At the very beginning,” he says, “anticipatory obedience means adapting instinctively without reflecting, to a new situation.” So here we are, in many ways, at the beginning. So what do we do? 

Let’s see what happens to Saul’s seven sons who are sentenced to death by the state for doing nothing but existing as who they are. David rounds up two of Saul’s sons born to Rizpah, and five of Saul’s grandsons born to his daughter Merab and gives them to the Gibeonites to be executed. I can’t even imagine the devastation, and the rage, the powerlessness that Rizpah and Merab must be feeling watching their sons be marched off to certain death. How easy it would be to be resigned, to lose all motivation, to give up and stop trying to resist. As the story of Rizpah’s sons illustrates, the state, empire, those in power, are  going to act in ways that deny our humanity and sometimes we can’t stop their policies from causing harm. 

What’s fascinating to me in this story is that RIzpah doesn’t beg David to spare the life of her children. She doesn’t bargain or “volunteer to be tribute” the way Katniss does in the Hunger Games. Nor does she throw up her hands and try to go on about her daily life as if nothing has happened. 

As described in 2 Samuel chapter 21: verses 10-11, “Rizpah bat-Aiah took a sack cloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the barley harvest until rain fell from the sky on the bodies, she did not allow the birds of heaven to touch them during the day or the wild animals at night.” 

[pause]

Courage, says poet David Whyte, “is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.” [repeat] As we engage in the spiritual practice of courage, he goes on to say, “On the inside we come to know who and what and how we love and what we can do to deepen that love; only from the outside, and only by looking back, does it look like courage.” 

To have the courage to fight back against a bully, whether it is a bully in the government or a bully in your personal life, requires that you do not retreat to the seductive solace of resignation, instead it requires that you get very clear about who and what you love. 

Rizpah stood up to the bully in the only ways she could. She didn’t have to say a word. She communicated her outrage at this senseless violence through her presence. She protected her dignity and the dignity of her kin and in doing so she illustrated to those in her community how disgusting and absurd these brutal acts of violence were.

When I was summoning the strength to rise up against a bully in my personal life, I engaged in a spiritual practice of focusing on my actual physical core strength as a way to also build my courage and my moral core strength. I had no plans to engage in a physical fight, but I knew I needed to *feel* strong in order to act strong. In taking care of my physical body, I started to realize that the best way to resist this bully in my life was to love myself, love my children, and love my community. It was like kryptonite for my bully when I was confident, successful, and caring for those I loved. 

Barbara Holmes in her book Crisis Contemplation points to several ways Rizpah resists empire – resists her bully:

“She bears silent witness, identifies her strengths, and protects what’s left. Rizpah, she says, appears to be alone, but she also knows that an entire society, her village of belonging, is watching.” Rizpah protected the bodies of her sons from birds and beasts for six months, an entire growing season. What incredible courage she must have had.

The adversity she faced of having to survive state sanctioned violence against her loved ones, required her to get really clear, really quick about who and what she loved and valued. I sometimes imagine Rizpah in month three or four of her vigil, when I am sure exhaustion set in and perhaps hopelessness crept into the corners of her mind. Was anyone even listening? She might have wondered. Did David even know she was there protecting the bodies of her sons? Would all her efforts to resist even matter in the long run? But she endured. In her endurance I imagine she must have leaned on her community, leaned on her faith in the inherent worth and dignity of sons and maybe of all people. 

When engaging in the spiritual practice of dismantling bullies, we can’t do it alone. Imagine if one clown had tried alone to show the absurdity of the white supremacists in the story we heard earlier. The outcome would have been quite different I think. When Rizpah was holding vigil at the site of her children’s death, people must have brought her food and water, perhaps other mothers kept her company in the day or brought her a shawl to warm her at night. When I was dismantling the bully in my life, I needed financial support and my community showed up immensely to ensure I could hold my bully accountable. In the times we live in right now, those in power are hoping we’ll isolate ourselves and start to embrace a scarcity mindset. We can engage in spiritual resistance by seeking connection, feeling the support of our communities of belonging, and by finding ways to embody abundance. 

After Rizpah’s six months of courage and endurance and community care, David is shamed into having a proper burial for Saul’s sons as well as Saul whose remains had been kept by the Philistines when he was killed in battle. The story in 2 Samuel ends by saying, “After that, God was moved by prayers for the land.” So the famine did not end just by the act of sacrificing innocent people. It did not end until David respected the dignity and humanity of those in his community of belonging. I know most of you here don’t believe in a God who punishes and withholds food, so let’s look at it with a slightly different lens. 

The story of Rizpah can be seen as a road map of resistance against empire and cruelty. A roadmap that is sorely needed in our current moment. Rizpah engages deeply in the spiritual practice of dismantling bullying. The results of her efforts don’t come over a day or a month but over an entire growing season. Rizpah couldn’t save her children, but she could shine a light on the unnecessary cruelty inflicted upon her beloved by the government. We can do the same today when faced with the unnecessary cruelty of our government. We can’t do everything, but we can do something. When you feel outrage, when resignation starts to feel right, and you’re considering “obeying in advance,” ask yourself, “What would Rizpah do?”

I think she would identify her strengths, bear witness publicly, endure, and embody courageous love. And I know each of you are capable of doing the same.

May it be so.