(Sermon only) ”Crouching at the Door” Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley September 20, 2026

The first time the word sin or what

would eventually be translated as sin is

used in the Hebrew Bible

is not in the garden with Adam and Eve.

Has nothing to do with the apple or the

serpent. It's a generation later

in the story of two brothers.

The wordat

is an archery term.

It's got the same root as the

liturgy that will be said traditionally

10 times in the Yamapour observances

happening tomorrow throughout synagogues

around the world.

It is an archery term that means to miss

the mark.

My grandfather's recurve bows are up

here on our altar this season. And I am

reminded every time I use one of them

how often I miss the mark.

The inevitability

in being human of missing the mark. But

that first moment when it's mentioned,

the phrase is as Cain nurses his wounds

over being rejected in his offering. And

maybe rejected is even too strong, just

not as favorably welcomed as his brother

Abel.

Cain feeling the anger and bitterness is

warned by God in the story.

Sin is crouching at the door.

It desires you.

So we get this image of of crouching and

the word crouching means something

crouching like a wild animal, like a

predator.

Cain is being hunted in this moment. In

this moment when he was reaching for

something beautiful, something salvific,

right? He's asking for a blessing. He's

reaching for salvation. He's made his

offering to the holy. And now in that

very moment, he is being hunted by

something crouching at the door.

Have you ever known something crouching

at your door?

I

I've been reading Marilyn Robinson's

account of of reading Genesis. You know,

the beloved novelist. She recently wrote

a book of her her reading of the book of

Genesis. And she says the whole story is

framed by these two powerful stories of

forgiveness. Joseph who will end up

forgiving his brothers and

Cain

forgiven by God for the most heinous of

all transgressions.

She says in this story when Cain murders

Abel, we never hear anything about Abel

again.

And I think this is important because

this is not a story about what it takes

to heal as the victim of violence.

It's a story about what happens to the

perpetrator.

So

God letting go of Abel, which actually

in and of itself, the name Abel means

hollowess or empty. This was never,

Marilyn Robinson says, never a story

about Abel. It was always about Cain.

Cain after spilling Abel's blood upon

the ground is cursed by the ground. The

story tells us

cursed by the ground. As if that blood

seeping into the ground is more than

just a moment of death. It is a rupture

between Cain and his relationship with

the earth itself.

that by murdering his brother, he has

done some intense spiritual harm to his

own being

which will be

true for him for the rest of his days.

And yet in that same moment again right

at the moment of punishment of of being

cursed by his own action,

God offers a blessing.

Says no one will take vengeance upon

you.

You will still be part of this web of

creation.

You will live out your life

marked as my beloved as a child of the

universe.

You will not end your story here in the

worst moment of your life,

but have many days and years remaining

to walk upon this earth and make sense

of it all.

There's a similar moment in my very

favorite book, um, A Wizard of Earth Sea

by Ursula Leguin.

Do you remember this? It's crouching by

the door in the very beginning of the

story. And we'll we'll pick up that

story in weeks to come. But but Ged for

the uninitiated.

Ged the sorcerer, the young untrained

boy. He is so eager to feel his power

and he's looking in places he should

not.

And in the darkness, in the moment where

power is seeping in and all around him,

he notices that there is something

crouching at the door.

A shadow crouching at the door. Later

his master Ojon will say, "Have you

never considered

that wherever there is power, there is

danger?

Just as when there is light, there must

be shadow,

we are creatures both vulnerable and

powerful.

And there is something within us or

nearby, something in our relationship

with the world that is always crouching

at the door, always desiring us. In our

hunt for salvation, we are likely to

hurt those we love most.

Right? It's that same spot. It's this is

what uh Dick Schwarz who who created the

modality inter internal family systems.

I know some of you are are familiar

with. He says these places,

they're the trail heads. These places

where our own systems get activated,

where we hurt each other in our most

intimate relationships.

They are the trail heads that point us

to the places that need to be healed.

The very places of danger, of hurt, are

also the road signs to salvation.

There's an organization called uh

growing a new heart

that works with intimate partner

violence.

One of the things they do is they have a

hotline for people to call. And when

they train people to be operators of

this hotline to pick up these calls,

the first invitation is this. Think of a

moment when you did something cruel.

So, I'm going to invite you to do it

now. You're not going to have to say it.

Not going to have to tell anybody, but

just think of that moment when you did

something.

Whether you understood it at the time or

understand it now as cruel

and then they say,

"Imagine

you were going to say that. You're not

going to imagine you were going to tell

that to a a group of people around you.

Imagine you were going to get up here

and say it. Tell this whole room full of

people

about that thing you did.

They asked this.

Think about what you would need people

to know about you.

What you would want people to believe is

also true about you.

in order to be safe enough to tell it.

What would they need to know? What would

need to be present in the room so that

you could trust you would survive the

confession?

In a moment, I'm going to invite you

into a one more ritual, a closing that

is the litany of atonement. We've done

each year this this time of year. It's

written by one of my childhood

ministers, Rob Eller Isaacs, who was

bringing his Jewish heritage into his

Unitarian Universalist ministry,

adapting that

litany for our context.

He says that when it was translated into

our himynel and universalist

congregations all over

engage in this practice, they changed

his original words.

His original words that the what we

usually say is we be we we forgive

ourselves and each other. We begin again

in love. His original words were I

forgive myself and I forgive you.

We begin again in love. And he says it's

subtle but it's an important difference.

It's a willingness to personally take

responsibility

for this process of forgiveness. Now

it's important. Forgiveness is one of

those words my friend Sam who told me

about that crisis hotline. She says

forgiveness is a word that needs

therapy.

Forgiveness is not absolution.

It's not saying what happened was okay.

Someone should be dismissed.

Forgiveness is not reconciliation.

It's not saying yeah let's get back

together. I was noticing in our covenant

we say that we say making amends and and

reconciling right alongside forgiveness.

It's not those things though.

Forgiveness,

as Rob Eller Isaacs would say, is about

being willing to be a instrument of the

holy,

to partner with the holy

in the unfolding grace

of the universe becoming.

Forgiveness in this theological sense,

it's a claim about the nature of

salvation

that even after one has done the worst,

you are not outside the bounds of God's

love.

That even after you have done the worst,

there is the possibility of remaining a

whole

interrelated

morally devoted person.

Let me invite you into this litany of

atonement. And if you're so willing, I'd

invite you to to rise in body or spirit

and and even to turn into the center to

look at one another.

I'll say a line and then your line each

time after our line together. I forgive

you. I forgive myself. We begin again in

love. There might be somebody in this

room who you think of. There might be

somebody outside this building who's on

your mind or heart. Or it may be that

you are just focusing this all inward

toward a heart in need of healing.

A litany of atonement

for remaining silent when a single voice

would have made a difference.

I forgive you. I forgive myself.

We begin again in love.

For each time that our fears have made

us rigid and inaccessible,

I forgive you. I forgive myself.

We begin again in love.

For each time that we've struck out in

anger without just cause,

I forgive you.

I forgive myself.

We begin again in love.

For each time our greed has blinded us

to the needs of others,

I forgive you. I forgive myself.

We begin again in love.

For the selfishness that settls us apart

and alone.

I forgive you.

I forgive myself.

We begin again in love

for falling short of the admonition of

the spirit.

I forgive you. I forgive myself.

We begin again in love

for losing sight of our unity.

I forgive you. I forgive myself.

We begin again in love.

For these and for so many acts, both

evident and subtle, which have fueled

the illusion of separateness,

I forgive you. I forgive myself. We

begin again in love. May it be so. And

amen.