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Davidson Loehr

August 25, 2002

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OPENING:

We gather here because certain questions call us together. We seek a deeper and more enduring meaning for our lives. We ask what we owe to our friends, to our loved ones, to our children, and to our future, that the world might be a little better because we were here. We ask how to recognize good, how to confront evil, and how to become the kind of people we were meant to be. These questions, and more like them, arise within us and command us to pursue them. And so we gather here, in this church, and our business together is blessed by the yearnings that bring us together. That is why we say

CENTERING:

In the center of our service, from the center of our lives, let us bring it down to a whisper and make room for silence. We come here with our private thoughts, our personal joys, sorrows, hopes and fears. We come knowing that we have done things we ought not to have done, and have failed to do things we should have done. Take these quiet moments to light a candle of memory or hope to give visible form to your special feelings, or to sit quietly and just be here, now.

PRAYER:

When people pray, they direct their thoughts in so many different directions. Some send them to God, some to the better angels of our own nature, some just concentrate, knowing that focusing our thoughts may strengthen our life force.

Wherever you send the words, however you would personally express this need, let us pray.

Help us to focus our life force. Don’t let us become so scattered, so diffused by the many demands of life, that we lose the sense of who we are, and lose contact with our important relationships.

Help us to be more present with those we love. Help us be more fully present to those ideals and causes that call our names. And help us to be more present to ourselves, so that we may be more fully aware of who we are and who we are called to become.

So much attention and energy are required by the transient things of life, let us not lose sight of its more enduring and precious aspects. Let us not forget how important it is that we try to connect ourselves with the most life-giving parts of ourselves and our world.

Help us to be more fully present to ourselves and to those people and callings that need our love and attention. Help us to be more fully present: here, now, and always.

Amen.

SERMON: YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN

The sermon title came from one of my many favorite Buddhist stories. It’s a modern story, about a Buddhist who was trying to be present, as Buddhism teaches you should be, but was having trouble understanding just why you’re supposed to be present. He knew the teaching he needed might come from any place if only he was open to it, so he was trying to be open, whatever that meant. While he was in this open and aware mood, he heard what had to be the noise of several hundred people in a large rental hall he was passing, so he went in. It was a big Bingo game going on. And there, right there on the front wall of the Bingo hall, was the lesson he had been seeking. It was a huge sign that said, in large block letters, “YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN.” When the student is ready, the teacher appears; it can happen anywhere.

The story also says we must choose to be present, or it isn’t likely to happen at all. And it helps to look in places where we’re most likely to find some wisdom and healthy connections. After all, it isn’t likely to happen at Bingo games very often. We have to be in the right place.

I’ll stick with Buddhism a little longer, because it has something to say about this too. You may know that Buddhism teaches an eightfold path toward Enlightenment, the eight right ways to think, act, and so on. But many people don’t know that they also say that before you can even hope to begin these you must find the first “right” thing, which they call Right Association.

You have to hang out with the right kind of people: people who honor the aspects of life that are really sacred. People who provide a safe and constructive environment for talking about ultimate questions rather than the more superficial things we usually talk about. This is true for teen-agers, just as it is true for people of every other age.

So usually, Buddhists seeking wisdom wouldn’t look for Bingo games. They would look for the right kind of community; they’d look for Right Associations.

That’s what a church is. Perhaps more than any other institution in our society, a good church is a place to find the Right Association with others who honor valuable questions and necessary actions.

I spoke last week of Georgia, the sister of a colleague of mine. Georgia attends a conservative Baptist church in a tiny town north of Fort Worth. Her church pays to send their high school youth to Indian reservations in Montana and Idaho every summer to help clean, paint and repair houses. And the church pays to send the kids to Mexico, and helps them find assignments in countries all over the world where they can be of service to others, because they are taught that they can transform the world through service. That’s Right Association.

My younger brother, who had attended Unitarian churches for over a decade, left them to join fundamentalist churches while he was raising his children, because he found conservative churches that were more concerned about morality, ethics, families, and service to the world than the Unitarian churches were, and he wanted to find the Right Association for himself and his family. His daughter who completed Airborne training this June spent the rest of her summer at the church camp she’s attended since she was 12, as a cabin leader. Each week, the campers were given a different theme to talk about, write and act skits on, and tell stories about. The week my brother visited them, the theme was “Love is all we need,” and his daughter had written a one-act play that her cabin was putting on for the camp. When we talked about it, he said “Where, can you tell me, are the Unitarians doing anything for their kids that even approaches this two-month church camp?” We do little things, short-term things, but I don’t know of anything like that camp. We just aren’t present in that way or in that area.

I know many Unitarians like to believe that only stupid people would attend conservative churches, but it just isn’t so. It isn’t even close. My brother didn’t get any dumber when he joined a fundamentalist church – and he didn’t lose his Ph.D. It will be healthy for us to realize that one big reason that conservative churches are so much bigger is because they do so much more, they are present in the lives of their members and their communities in so many more ways than we are.

There are plenty of examples of good large churches in Austin that we could learn from. Tarrytown United Methodist Church is one. Yes, that’s the church of both the governor and the President. They are in a very upscale part of town, and have 2,000 members. They also spend more than 25% of their annual budget on social and civic projects outside the walls of their church. 25%! We have to be proud to have such churches in our community. We also want to aspire to become one of them, because our community needs us to be present in that way. It would serve life in Austin, and in the lives of our members and their children.

So being present isn’t just for individuals. It’s also for institutions, including churches. And trying to be a place for Right Associations is the most important mission we have here. The mission statement that guides me and our board here is simply “To make a positive difference in the lives of our members, our children, and our larger community.” That’s the mission of being a place of Right Associations. I don’t think there is another institution in our society that’s more worth investing money, time and energy in than a good church, if we’re trying to support places that honor the ultimate questions and compassionate values of life. Think about it this week.

Last week I talked about Georgia putting $100 a week in the collection plate at her church, which may represent 15% of her earnings. My brother, as a college professor, gave ten percent of his gross salary to his church. I am convinced that these people I know, and most of the people I don’t know, do it because they want to support places of Right Association, they want to be present there in every way they can. And they will tell you that they have already “won” there, many times. Investing money in a good church may be the most rewarding investment there is.

Now about this time, you have to know that a message like this sounds naively, almost insanely out of place in our society today. Every television ad tells us to buy things for ourselves, buy things for our spouses or children, buy bigger, newer, trickier and more expensive things. The message of virtually all our media advertising is salvation through accumulation. The one with the most toys wins. Saved By Stuff. And when our houses are full of the Stuff, we can – as George Carlin famously reminded us – go buy some Tupperware containers to hold the Stuff. We can even buy big plastic boxes that fill every square inch under our beds with Stuff. People can ask us “What is all that Stuff?” and we can answer “I don’t know, but I must have enough of it to be Saved!”

Our newspapers are still carrying stories of the corporations whose huge frauds robbed their workers and others of billions of dollars, because those in charge got greedy, thought they could get away with it, and thought that stealing money from others was the sort of thing that decent people do.

No, they didn’t put it that way, but it’s what they had to believe. You can’t imagine one of them saying “I know only greedy, scummy people do this, but I’m pretty proud!” Nor do they represent all, or even a majority, of corporate officials, most of whom have far more character and decency. But it isn’t hard to know where they could learn these greedy attitudes. The message of our society is about looking out for Number One. When Ivan Boesky told a class of Harvard students that greed was good, he was chanting the mantra of the religion of a perverted form of capitalism that has defined much of our world for the past twenty or more years.

Salvation by accumulation. Being saved by the things we own, saved by owning enough of the right things. It doesn’t really work: you’re more apt to find wisdom at a Bingo game. And these greedy excesses, for the record, don’t come from the liberal excesses of the 1960s. They come from the advertising and media excesses of the 1980s, 90s, and the early years of this twenty-first century. That’s the source of the messages of greed and self-absorption that are demeaning our lives and our society.

Against that background, it sounds odd to suggest that the most rewarding investment you can make may be in your church. But I’m convinced that it’s true.

I think of a saying attributed to Jesus: “What does it profit a man,” he asked, “if he gain the whole world but lose his soul?”

Now you have to understand that this “soul” thing is not a supernatural thing. It’s a way of talking about the core of us, what’s most important about and to us. The word for “soul” (Psyche) was developed by the Greeks over 2500 years ago as they looked for what was the most important facet of a human being. Was it intelligence, the breath of life, power, what? None of these things, they decided, but instead that deep collection of those ideals and values that are most life-giving, most compassionate, that most lead to a life worth living, and one that is a blessing to others as well. That’s our soul. That’s the “soul” Jesus was talking about too, though of course many lesser religious thinkers have made many lesser things of it.

What does it profit a person if they gain the whole world – if they accumulate all the things their house and garage can hold – if by doing so they lose their soul?

To nourish our souls, we must invest in them and in those relationships and institutions that serve them. And where are you more likely to find the kind of Right Associations that can fill your spiritual hungers and nourish your soul: on Wall Street, or in a good church?

I’m reminded of another Christian teaching that’s on point here, though it’s probably so esoteric most of you have never heard of it, and the rest of you may wonder why you’d want to bother with it. It’s the Christian concept of “Incarnational Theology.” All those syllables mean that true faith means living it: incarnating, embodying, the religious teachings you think are most sacred. For many theologians, that was what was so distinctive about Jesus: that he lived his beliefs. He was fully present, as good Buddhists are also fully present, and he “won” or embodied a kind of authenticity and wholeness that is still inspiring all these centuries later.

You must be present to win. I think of this every time I conduct another memorial service. Every time people get up to share stories and fond memories of the person who has died, they show that they know exactly what matters in life, that they know the difference between gaining the world and gaining your soul.

This may be hard to believe, it may even sound un-American, but I have never heard a eulogy listing all the accumulations the dead person had owned. Never. I’ve never heard anyone suggest that owning things was what made this person matter, or bragging about the dollar value of their Stuff. Never. What makes people matter – you can hear this at almost every memorial service – is that they were present. They were there when others needed them. They reached out, they cared, they were honest and authentic. I’ve also never heard a eulogy praising someone for being absent.

This is also a lesson you can learn from parents looking back on the years they raised their children. I’ve never heard one say they wished they’d spent less time with their kids. They’re more apt to wish they’d been more present more often. Most of us can remember the hit song Harry Chapin made of this twenty years ago, a song called “Cat’s in the cradle.” It’s the story of a father raising his son but never having time to spend with his son because of his job and other demands. Then at the end, the son has grown up with children of his own, but doesn’t have time to spend with his father, and the father reflects sadly that his son had turned out just like him. That’s a lament over not being present, over not having had the right associations, over not having invested in the things that pay dividends to our souls.

Religious lessons sometimes seem that they must come from monasteries, or at least from the lives of saints. But it isn’t so. They happen mostly in ordinary, everyday ways, not dramatic at all, just authentic. As many of you know, in a former life I used to be a professional photographer. I was a combat photographer in Vietnam 35 years ago, and owned a studio in Ann Arbor for several years. In 1976 I sold all my equipment and stopped taking pictures for almost 25 years because I discovered that I had never liked photography. You may ask how on earth someone can do something for nine years and never know they don’t like it. Well, it happens! And the laughter shows me I’m not the only one to whom it has happened.

For a quarter century I didn’t take pictures and never missed it. It didn’t feed my soul. Two and a half years ago, during a trip to Mexico, I suddenly discovered that I was “seeing” pictures again, for the first time in 25 years. I was astonished, took the pictures I saw with my little point-and-shoot camera, and found that they were good pictures, and looked like I thought they would. And I liked seeing and taking the pictures.

Returning to photography as a fairly serious hobby was one of the biggest surprises of my life. But I returned to it because now, for some reasons I don’t understand, it feeds my soul. It’s a gift to be able to see good pictures without much effort, and for the first time it’s a gift that feeds me. Now I’ve invested thousands of dollars in good photographic equipment because the hobby feeds me. That’s the key, I’m convinced: we must go where spiritual nourishment is, and must support the activities that feed us.

You must be present to win, and there can be terrible penalties for failing to do so. I’m absolutely convinced of that.

I have a story about this from Rachel Naomi Remen, the San Francisco physician whose writings I’ve used before here.

She attended the retirement dinner for a medical school faculty member while she was in medical school. He was internationally known for his contributions to medical science. She’s a good writer, so I’ll leave the story in her words:

“Later in the evening a group of medical students went to speak to him and offer him our congratulations and admiration. He was gracious. One of our number asked him if he had any words for us now at the beginning of our careers, anything he thought we should know. He hesitated. But then he told us that despite his professional success and recognition he felt he knew nothing more about life now than he had at the beginning. That he was no wiser. His face became withdrawn, even sad. “It has slipped through my fingers,” he said.

“None of us understood what he meant. Talking about it afterwards, I attributed it to modesty. Some of the others wondered if he had at last become senile. Now, almost thirty-five years later, my heart goes out to him.” (Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, pp.205-206)

You can’t say this great doctor was never “present” in life. He was present to his students, and influenced hundreds or thousands of their lives. He was a blessing to them, and a tribute to the medical profession, and that counts for something. In some ways, he was very present indeed, and won great admiration and honor.

But by his own admission, there was another realm of life where he had not been present, and had not won. “It has slipped through my fingers,” he said.

You know this plot is a very old story. It’s the story of Rip van Winkle. You remember the children’s story of the man who fell asleep for twenty years and had nothing to show for the time but a beard. Of course like all good stories, it is about life, not a bearded man. It’s a story of people who are there but not all there, who are there but not really present, and who have nothing to show for their time.

There were all kinds of things going on around Rip van Winkle during those twenty years that he didn’t see, for which he wasn’t present. Maybe he never got to see that sign in the Bingo hall that could have told him the secret he needed to learn about life.

Maybe he never joined a church, or found any other way to join the Right Associations he needed to nourish and save his soul. If there is a lesson for us in this – and the Buddhists would insist there must be – that lesson may be to say if you’re going to come to a good church, for goodness’ sake be here! Don’t go to sleep here! This is a place to awaken your spirit, nourish your soul and enlarge your life. Invest your money, your time, your energy and be here!

There is a lot to win here – for us, for our families and for our greater community. In at least this respect, church is like life, which is like Bingo: If we really are present, we really can win.

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Davidson Loehr

August 18, 2002

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

INVOCATION:

“Today is a day the Lord has made,” says an old religious writer, “let us therefore rejoice and be glad in it.”

We hardly know how to talk that way any more. Today, we don’t think of a day as being made by a deity. We have more commonsense, mechanical explanations for the recurring phenomenon of a mere day.

But to express the awe, the sheer wonder that we are here, that we are here at all, the old poetry speaks with an eloquence deeper and more profound than mere facts. And so behold, today is a day the Lord has made. Let us therefore be glad and rejoice in it!”

It is so good to be together again!

For it is a sacred time, this

And a sacred place, this:

a place for questions more profound than answers,

vulnerability more powerful than strength,

and a peace that can pass all understanding.

It is a sacred time, this: let us begin it together in song.

PRAYER:

We pray to the angels of our better nature and the still small voice that can speak to us when we feel safe enough to listen.

Help us to love people and causes outside of ourselves, that we may be enlarged to include them.

Help us remember that we are never as alone or as powerless as we think.

Help us remember that we can, if we will, invest ourselves in relationships, institutions and causes that transcend and expand us.

Help us guard our hearts against those relationships and activities that diminish us and weaken our life force.

And help us give our hearts to those relationships that might, with our help, expand our souls.

We know that every day both life and death are set before us. Let us have the faith and courage to choose those involvements that can lead us toward life, toward life more abundant.

And help us find the will to serve those life-giving involvements with our heart, our mind and our spirit.

We ask that we may see more clearly in these matters, and that we have the will to hold to those relationships that demand, and cherish, the very best in us. Just that, just those.

Amen.

Sermon: Faith Without Works is Dead

I hardly ever do sermons on old theological arguments – especially on topics as arcane as whether we are saved by faith alone, or whether we’re to be judged by our works as well as by our words. But I’ve been thinking about this from a new place, and hoped it would be worth your time here today.

It really is an old argument, in both Eastern and Western religion. Eastern religions are pretty clear that your deeds determine your karma, and the kind of reincarnation you’re likely to have. They usually don’t give a lot of credit for just thinking good thoughts.

Judaism has always taught that the two great commandments are to love God with heart, mind and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Those teachings didn’t originate with Jesus. He learned them as a Jew. Even on their day of atonement, which they celebrate on September 15th this year, it is made clear that in order to make atonement with God, you must first make peace with those friends and neighbors you have wronged.

And Catholicism has also taught that it takes both faith and good works – plus a little grace – to be saved, and that the grace is most likely to come to those who have done good works.

All of these teachings came from times when the vast majority of people were illiterate, and almost all teaching was done through stories passed down from generation to generation.

But after the printing press was invented and people began reading, things changed. Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation nearly 500 years ago by teaching that we are saved by faith alone. We need to read the book, to know what we believe, and we are saved by faith alone without the necessity of doing the good works to earn it, he taught.

I’ve always thought Luther was wrong there. But since I’m one of those people who likes to read and think, I’ve also always hoped he might be right. It’s easy for me to slip into believing in salvation by bibliography. Like if I can just get all the footnotes in the right places, I’ll be ok.

Luckily, when I get that far gone, I usually wake up, or whomever I’m talking to will roll their eyes or just doze off. Then I snap out of it and remember, again, that life is both bigger and better than books – even my books.

But I’m not alone here. Everywhere, I think, in all times and places, those who love to think about things have always been in danger of falling off of the world. It’s the special curse of intellectuals.

One of our oldest stories is about an early Greek philosopher who was walking around one day, head in the clouds, staring at the sky, when he fell into a well. For centuries afterwards, the Greeks told this story about those who think too much.

It’s the same story we still tell about absent-minded professors, who forget where they left their hat or parked the car, or who drive to school without their shoes on.

We think over here, the world’s over there, and we lose touch with it as we get seduced by our thoughts. You know what I’m talking about!

It’s the story of thinking rather than doing, faith rather than works. It comes out again and again in some of the jokes about intellectuals.

A friend who taught undergraduate philosophy courses told me that every year, her students’ very favorite story was the one she told about another great intellectual, the French philosopher Rene Descartes, whose most famous line was “I think, therefore I am.”

One night, Descartes went to a fine restaurant, and each time the waiter suggested another course, Descartes ordered it until he was so full he could hardly move. When the waiter returned to ask if he would like to order dessert, Descartes said “I think not” – and he vanished.

Sometimes I think that’s the abiding fear of people who think too much. We’re afraid that if we stop thinking we’ll disappear.

As though thinking were enough. As though faith is enough, as though it isn’t really necessary to spend time in the world after all. We tend to follow Martin Luther’s goofy idea in this, whether we’ve ever been inside a Lutheran church or not.

This also shows in some of the best jokes about Unitarians.

I’m remembering a famous scene from the television series “Welcome Back, Kotter” from about twenty years ago. Someone had been hurt, or was lying unconscious. One person shouted “Get him a priest!” Another said “He’s a Unitarian.” “Oh,” said the first, “then find him a math teacher!”

And the great joke about what you get when you cross a Unitarian with a Jehovah’s Witness: Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.

In a perverse sort of way, I think we often like these stories, because they imply that we’re smarter than the average armadillo, and we like thinking that religion is about being smarter rather than being more whole and authentic.

But there’s another side to these jokes, another side to the idea that just faith, just thinking, is enough to make a religion or a life out of, and it isn’t always funny.

This week, for instance, I got a call on my office voicemail from a local nonprofit agency that does a lot of good works in the Austin community. It’s an organization I haven’t worked with, and was a call from a person I’ve never talked to or met. I won’t reveal their identity until I’ve had a chance to meet them, we’re still playing phone tag. But this person was almost laughing throughout the message. They had read that i was going to preach that faith without works is dead, and was amazed that I’d even try it. Then they laughed and dared me to come down for a tour of what it actually looks like to do good works.

I may not think the characterization was fair or even true, but it is a common perception of religious liberals.

And a month ago I had a much more sobering comeuppance, played in the same key.

I was preaching in Fort Worth, and went a couple days early to have some time with my colleague Diana and her sister Georgia’s family. We were guests at Georgia’s home in Ponder, Texas. Ponder is a small town (about 450) north of Fort Worth, known for a great Texas restaurant (The Ranchman’s), and the bank “Bonnie and Clyde” robbed in the movie of thirty years ago. They also have a great bumper sticker that just says “Ponder, Texas – Just Think About It!” Georgia owns the bank, it’s where I sleep when I visit.

We were all sitting rocking on Georgia’s front porch, and Diana and I were heavy into talking about work: how to talk to Unitarian churches about giving money to the church, since both the churches we’re serving are starting their annual pledge drive.

Georgia belongs to a quite fundamentalist Baptist church, I think it’s in the holiness movement (though I’m not sure just what that means). Diana and I were going under great steam when we realized we had left Georgia completely out of the conversation, and were ignoring her on her own front porch.

Diana said something about not meaning to be rude, but thought Georgia probably wasn’t very interested in this topic.

Georgia allowed as how she had been listening in, but was very confused. “I just can’t imagine having to plan tactics to talk to people about supporting the church,” she said. “Each week when I go to church, I put a $100 bill in the collection plate. If I don’t have money that week then I don’t, but usually I do. I figure if we don’t support it, who will?”

I suddenly felt very silly.

Georgia’s little church has sent their youth to Montana for a summer to help Blackfoot Indians clean and repair the homes on their reservations. They’ve done this for years, the church pays for it. They’ve paid to send youth into Mexico for two or three weeks at a time to do the same for needy people there. And one of Georgia’s daughters has had two trips to Thailand, where she spent two months teaching English to Thai adults, and she’s going back next summer. Thailand is 95% Theravada Buddhist, about 4% Muslim, less than 1% Christian. When I asked her daughter if she thought there was much chance of converting the Thais to Christianity, she seemed shocked and said no, they’re pretty happy being Buddhists. “Why are you doing it?” I asked. “In our church,” she said, “we were taught to serve.” I wasn’t sure I had anything from “my” church to offer her.

To me, it was astounding that a little Baptist church could do such far-ranging good works. I don’t know what percentage of her pay Georgia is giving to her church, but it must be over 15%. And she isn’t doing it because she’s scared of hell. Georgia isn’t scared of anything. She’s doing it because she can’t imagine ever doing otherwise. She’s doing it because she really believes that faith without works is dead.

The visit with Georgia was disturbing. It made me understand, more fully than I had before, that religion, like life, isn’t mostly about thinking. It’s mostly about doing.

A lot of little Unitarian churches are content to define themselves as friendly little places where you can find a few like-minded people and have interesting discussions. It isn’t enough.

And while people support churches like Georgia’s with 5, 10 or 15% of their income, Unitarian churches are lucky if people invest even 2% of their income in them.

Some studies say the average annual income of people who attend Unitarian churches is about $50,000. Two percent of that would be $1,000 a year, which is just a little above our average pledge here. First Baptist Church downtown has about a hundred more members than we do, and a budget that is three times the size of ours. If you haven’t been there, I urge you to visit it. I think it is stunning to begin to realize what a church like this could do in Austin and in Texas if we invested as much of ourselves and our income here as some other churches are doing.

It’s not that liberals are stingy. That’s simply not true. But we weren’t taught how to become parts of a vibrant institution, how to make that institution strong enough to help influence the thinking about important religious and moral issues in the larger community. Or sending our youth to other states and countries to lend a helping hand to neighbors they have never met.

We’re moving in this direction, and we’re actually moving there pretty fast. In the past year, we have accepted the gift of 142 acres of land and buildings west of Kerrville, which we are working to develop into a spiritual retreat center to serve our district and eventually the whole country. We designed and built an all-ages playground that lacks only the covered stage to be finished, and that is already serving our members of all ages in new ways. We started an innovative contemporary service to be more attractive to younger people, and are averaging about 70-80 now, most of whom are new to the church.

The list could go on, and it will go on. In fact, the members of the church who are working at all the church activities now have so much excitement and so many plans for the newer and better services we can offer that they want to increase our budget by about 40% next year. That’s part of a dramatic kind of conversion experience, I think. A conversion from a typical Unitarian church that mostly thinks and does internal programs to one that wants to balance faith with works, to make a positive difference in the lives of our members, our children and our larger community.

Why is this so hard for liberals when it seems so easy for Georgia’s church and other conservative churches?

I think it’s because there’s an assumption in a religion just of faith or thinking that we haven’t examined, an assumption which is false.

Liberal religion often acts like it’s only for adults, like people are already finished by the time they arrive, like their character is already formed, and all they need to do is discuss interesting ideas. Salvation by faith, salvation by thinking, we think therefore we are.

But that’s not true. We’re not finished. We come to church partly to get finished, to learn and experience more of the activities and involvements that can make us more complete people.

A healthy church is the best place we have to develop a whole range of sensitivities and skills that make us more complete people. And while faith – thinking – plays an important part, it doesn’t play the biggest part. The biggest part of becoming whole comes from doing, from works.

Our small groups are ways to be part of a small safe group where you can learn to know and be known by others at more significant levels than just talking about work or money. I recommend them to you.

Those with creative or leadership skills can help this institution become far more important and influential in our lives and the lives of the larger community. That’s a great opportunity.

And everyone has the chance to learn here how it can enlarge you to define yourself as part of something bigger, how it feels to know you are helping to serve causes worth serving with your time, money and energy.

Faith without works, thinking without doing and being, are dead because they can’t give us the depth and breadth of life we need.

This is where it can happen. And it’s worth all the time, money and spirit you invest in it.

The form of today’s sermon was unusual because its real message came in the prayer I read earlier, and the sermon was designed to flesh out and lead back to it.

Now see if this morning’s prayer makes a different kind of sense to you:

We pray to the angels of our better nature and the still small voice that can speak to us when we feel safe enough to listen.

Help us to love people and causes outside of ourselves, that we may be enlarged to include them.

Help us remember that we are never as alone or as powerless as we think.

Help us remember that we can, if we will, invest ourselves in relationships, institutions and causes that transcend and expand us.

Help us guard our hearts against those relationships and activities that diminish us and weaken our life force.

And help us give our hearts to those relationships that might, with our help, expand our souls.

We know that every day both life and death are set before us. Let us have the faith and courage to choose those involvements that can lead us toward life, toward life more abundant.

And help us find the will to serve those life-giving involvements with our heart, our mind and our spirit.

We ask that we may see more clearly in these matters, and that we have the will to hold to those relationships that demand, and cherish, the very best in us. Just that, just those.

Amen.