Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Rev. Chris Jimmerson
October 14, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org
We have talked about the ancient history of offering sanctuary as we have with Sulma and Alirio. In the broader context, we all need sanctuary, a respite, a sacred place to get re-centered. We will discuss what it means to be a people of sanctuary.
Call to Worship
This place is sanctuary
Kathleen McTigue
You who are broken-hearted,
who woke today with the winds of despair
whistling through your mind,
come in.
You who are brave but wounded,
limping through life and hurting with every step, come in.
You who are fearful, who live with shadows
hovering over your shoulders,
come in.
This place is sanctuary, and it is for you.
You who are filled with happiness,
whose abundance overflows,
come in.
You who walk through your world
with lightness and grace,
who awoke this morning with strength and hope,
you who have everything to give,
come in.
This place is your calling, a riverbank to channel
the sweet waters of your life, the place
where you are called by the world’s need.
Here we offer in love.
Here we receive in gratitude.
Here we make a circle from the great gifts
of breath, attention and purpose.
Come in.
Sermon
“Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow, thou art with me.
Though my heart’s been torn on fields of battle thou art with me.
Though my trust is gone and my faith not near In love’s sanctuary thou art with me.”
That’s the first verse of Austin-based, singer/songwriter Elyza Gilkyson’s song, “Sanctuary”. Gilkyson also wrote the beautiful song, “Requiem” that you just heard.
I wanted to share the song “Sanctuary” with you this morning, because even though I do not sing it anywhere near as well as she does, I think the song captures so much about the concept of sanctuary and it’s different meanings.
I saw Gilkyson in concert once, and she said basically that she has intentionally left the the “Thou” in “thou art with me” in a sense of mystery and the unknown.
Our Lifespan Faith Development programs are following a monthly, theme-based format called “Soul Matters”, so I decided to offer a worship service each month on the same theme being explored though our “Soul Matters” activities.
It did not even occur to me when the theme for for Soul Matters for October ended up being “Sanctuary”, that we would be in a state of not being able to use our church sanctuary so we can complete its expansion and renovations.
So we find ourselves creating sanctuary here, in this room, which was actually the church’s original sanctuary many years ago.
And on top of that, on November 11, we will be creating sanctuary wherever we can, because the building will be without electricity. We’ll let you know soon where and what we’ll be doing on the 11th!
And I think that is one of the themes of Gilkyson’s wonderful song and of our service today – while sanctuary sometimes refers to a physical place, we humans are capable of creating sanctuary wherever we may be and however we may need it.
Anyway, as I said, none of this occurred to me when I was adopting the Soul Matters theme of sanctuary as our topic for today.
It also never occurred to me that I would end up writing this sermon on this past Friday, which just happened to have been the 17th anniversary of my 19th birthday. Apparently there is no sanctuary from getting older.
Nor did it occur me that today, October 14, happens to be national “Clergy Appreciation Day.”
Just thought I would mention that. Anyway, our word, “sanctuary” comes from the Latin root “sanctus” which means “holy” – a place set aside for holy worship. Today, it also means a place or situation of refuge, protection, such as a bird or nature sanctuary. For we humans, it can also mean a place or circumstance where we find renewal of the mind, body and spirit – a restoration of wholeness and integration, which is related to the meaning of the Germanic root of the word “Holy”.
So, when we think about what “Sanctuary” means, what it means to be a people of sanctuary, as our faith development programs are examining this month, there is a rich tapestry of understanding to explore.
One meaning of sanctuary that we have been actively engaged in here at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin is the ancient tradition of temples and churches providing sanctuary, refuge to folks being wrongly persecuted by the government. This tradition goes all the way back to the time of the Hebrew scriptures and has recurred again and again through the centuries and throughout the world.
In the U.S., churches provided sanctuary along the Underground Railroad for slaves fleeing the South to seek freedom. Later, churches sometimes provided shelter for women’s and civil rights leaders.
In the 1970s, religious groups provided sanctuary to soldiers on leave from the Vietnam war who refused to return to the war for ethical reasons.
In the 1980s and 90s, churches provided sanctuary for refugees from civil war and political turmoil in several Central American countries, when our government was refusing to provide asylum to these persons even though our government and corporations were at least partially responsible for the situations causing them to have to flee their home countries.
Now, of course, we find ourselves with similar or even worse circumstances, and this church has stepped into that ancient tradition and offered sanctuary to two persons whose very lives would be at threat were they deported to their home countries.
We have also provided advice based upon these experiences to over 20 other churches that have become sanctuary or sanctuary supporting congregations, growing the sanctuary movement.
I am pleased to report that Alirio, who has been in sanctuary with us for more than a year now, along with Hilda, who has been in Sanctuary at our partner church, st. Andrew’s Presbyterian, will be filing applications for stays of removal, which would prevent their deportation, at the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement office in San Antonio later this coming week. They’ll be accompanied by their attorneys and a small group of supporters and will have the benefit of much congressional support that has been built on their behalf.
Let’s all hold them in love’s sanctuary this coming week.
Another meaning of sanctuary is a physical place that we hold sacred – a place where we feel safer, where we connect with something larger than ourselves, a place where we can renew ourselves after the challenges of life and our world.
As we discussed, that can be a church sanctuary such as we have created here, but can also be any place or circumstance within which we find refuge and renewal – somewhere in nature, in the arms of a caring loved one, gardening in our back yard, listening to music that moves us, in the words of a favorite poem, etc.
Some folks also make it a practice to create sacred spaces and daily rituals within their homes and families to make their home a place of sanctuary.
What are the places and practices within which you find refuge and renewal? Do you have enough of them? How often do you spend time within them?
Forming a sense of belonging and relationship is another way that we also can create sanctuary for ourselves and others.
When I was twelve years old, my Grandparents gave me the gift of sanctuary. My parents were in the midst of a difficult divorce, and my mom was having to work a lot, so her parents took care of us before and after school each day.
At my Grandparents house, I always knew I was loved. I always felt safe. I always knew I would be cared for.
I was struggling over the divorce and my not so great relationship with my father. I was also having problems with some of my schoolmates, because they were sensing that I was somehow different, though I do not think they or I yet knew that it was because I was a young gay kid growing up in a small, ultraconservative, South East Texas town.
My grandparents loved to travel and would sometimes go out of town for a month or more. Right before they were about to go on one of their trips for the first time since the divorce, my grandfather took me aside and gave me a key to their house. He told me that I was welcome to go there any time I needed to do so, even while they were out of town.
Their providing me with that sanctuary, that place of escape and safety, made such a huge difference for me as I moved through that difficult time. It was about having access to that physical place of refuge, yes, but even more so it was their gesture of love and understanding that created sanctuary for me.
Finally, I think we create sanctuary when we take care of each other at an even larger level – when we tend to one anothers’ wounds communally.
I think of the way in which at this church we have worked to make ourselves a welcoming space for LGBTQI persons, who so often have been hurt by religion in the past.
Likewise, we are trying to tear down white supremacy both within these church walls and beyond them, though we still have much work before us to do regarding this.
I think of how we take care of each other when we get sick, comfort one another when we encounter life’s inevitable losses, mark life passages with one another.
I think of how we help each other confront our own fears, challenges and “growing edges”, as they said when I was in seminary.
And I think of how, on an even larger level, we create sanctuary for each other when natural disasters strike, such as the hurricane we have just witnessed or the raging fires we have seen recently in some of the Western states. People coming together to create the chance for recovery and renewal for other people struck by such disasters.
This is human love and compassion in action. This is us creating love’s sanctuary.
Here is more from Eliza Gilkynson’s song:
Through desolation’s fire and fear’s dark thunder, thou art with me.
Through the sea of desires that drag me under, thou art with me.
Though I’ve been traded in like a souvenir, in love’s sanctuary thou art with me.
Now, I have been talking about our human ability to create sanctuary, but I would be remiss if I did not also talk about our human tendency to create the need for sanctuary in the first place because of the evils we do to one another.
As we have been discussing, we have to create spaces and circumstances of sanctuary to help ourselves through life’s inventible challenges and hurts and losses, as well as to celebrate its joys. We create sanctuary in response to the ravages that sometimes come from our natural world.
Far too often though, we also find ourselves having to create sanctuary for the victims of the harmful behavior perpetrated by human beings.
For far too many women and not just a few men, the past weeks have felt like being traded in like some cheap souvenir, as Gilkynson puts it in her song, as people in positions of power (primarily white, wealthy men) dismissed and belittled stories of sexual harassment and assault.
And so people have had to build “me too” and “times up” movements to try to provide some relief from the abuse.
We have to create shelters like SafePlace here in Austin for victims of domestic violence.
Alirio has to take sanctuary with us because he would likely be killed if our government were to deport him to his home country, even though our country helped create the horrible situation in EI Salvador in the first place.
We have to build shelters and legal services and a whole gamut of support structures for immigrants being treated so deplorably by our government. We have to cry out against children being held in tent city internment camps like the one here in Tornillo, Texas, after being forcibly separated from their parents.
Scientists are forced to try to find ways to provide sanctuary, indeed to save from extinction, species after species whose very continued existence is at threat because of what humans are doing to their environment.
And I could go on and on and on. People have to create, Back Lives Matter and other groups to try to create some relief from the gross injustices of our criminal justice system against African Americans and other people of color.
We have to create housing assistance and other support for the basic needs of families because their employers are not paying them enough to survive.
Refugee services for victims of war and genocide. Medical services for people with inadequate or no health insurance. Services that provide sanctuary for elderly folks so often discarded and abused in our society.
Well, again, I could go on and on. You know the list. You know the many ways people are having to create relief, renewal, some form of sanctuary for the victims of so many forms of abuse and societal neglect.
It can feel pretty discouraging sometimes, can’t it? It can be tempting to fall into despair.
But that is exactly what an ideology that is on the rise throughout our world encourages – despair. It is an ideology of scarcity. An ideology that sees life as a zero sum game, wherein there must be winners and losers. A cynical ideology that wants to keep us in doubt and off balance. An ideology that sees authoritarianism as the only way to maintain order.
But, my beloveds, we can take another world view. We can choose faith over despair. We can have an ideology, indeed, a theology, ‘Of abundance. A theology that says we are all in this together. A theology that envisions a world wherein we all thrive together. A theology based on compassion and love and that create’s love’s sanctuary, knowing that the “thou” in love’s sanctuary with us is each other.
A theology that says that together we have this mystical ability to bring divine possibilities into being, into full realization, which in turn then offers back to us ever more creative and live-giving choices.
That’s a theology that will build a larger and larger sanctuary of beloved community in our world.
I am so thankful that we have this place, not just the beautiful new physical space we will soon occupy, but more importantly, this religious community – a community where we can come to be in sanctuary together to regain our bearings, renew our faith, nourish our often wounded souls so that we can go back out into our world and keep creating love’s sanctuary in that world.
Through the doubter’s gloom and the cynic’s sneer, thou art with me.
In the crowded rooms of a mind unclear, thou art with me.
Though I’ll walk for a while through a stream of tears.
In love’s sanctuary thou art with me.
In love’s sanctuary thou art with me.
In love’s sanctuary thou art with me.
Amen
Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.
Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.
