When the method is the message

Chris Jimmerson
August 10, 2014

Unitarian Universalism is a religion without creed. We do not have a prescribed set of beliefs with which we must all express agreement. So how is it that we are bound together?

Reading: Grace

When she was a young girl, they told her that Grace was only available to her, the child of original sin, through the forgiveness and whim of a benevolent God. Then she sat with her Grandfather as he was dying. She held his hand, and she and the ones she loved stayed with him through his great passage, and she felt Grace arise among them.

Later, during her college years, she volunteered for the local refugee shelter. And one day she witnessed the counselor work with young children traumatized by war.

She heard the children begin to speak their truths with one another, in that language that is only fully understood by such children, and she watched the counselor put his plans aside and let the children heal one another, and she felt Grace radiate between them.

And as over and over again through her year, she witnessed this same emergence between and among people, she came to understand Grace as something we create, and, sometimes, something we allow to happen by simply getting out of the way.

Sermon:

I was standing on an outdoor train platform in Chicago, waiting for the train that would take me to my seminary class that morning. The platform was located under a street that ran across a bridge overhead, partially blocking the morning sun. Still, one, wide ray of sun was shining though, and it was snowing very, very lightly. Tiny, fragile snowflakes were being held aloft by a brisk wind, swirling in circles in the air. They danced through the bright ray of sunlight, reflecting it in dazzling patterns, as if thousands of miniature mirrors were whirling and casting their own small rays of light in almost infinite directions – tiny spirits dancing and floating and spreading light into their world.

Needless to say, I was captivated, standing transfixed until the sound of my train approaching drew my attention. I turned toward the sound of the train. As I did, I made eye contact with an elderly, a woman who was leaning on a carved wooden cane for support.

She smiled – a joyful glint in her eyes. I smiled back. Without even exchanging a word, we both knew that we had both been mesmerized by the beautiful ballet of sunlight and snowfall. We both knew that we had somehow been profoundly moved by and connected through the experience.

Riding in the train a few moments later, I could not help thinking that the potential for transformation exists within any moment, each encounter. In that small, fragmentary sliver of time on a cold train platform in Chicago, I understood that this person whose life experiences had no doubt been different than my own, this person I had never met and would likely never see again, was, none-the-less, like me, enmeshed in all the beauty and fragility and wonder and suffering and joy that life has to offer.

I had understood that we are connected in ways we only are rarely able to truly glimpse, and these experiences of the vastness and complexity of our interconnectedness are a source of empathy and compassion and love. And this idea, this experience of the possibility for transformation present within any moment, in each encounter, for me, is a key element of our Unitarian Universalist, covenantal tradition. It is part of what drew me to our faith and sustains me as I go about living it.

It is central to a worldview known as process-relational theology, from which I draw great meaning. Process-relational thought sees all of us as part of an interconnected web or matrix that is continually unfolding. It sees within that web of relationships the creative potential for transformation bursting forth in each new moment.

For me, this idea also grounds and sustains our anti-racism, anti-oppression and multi-cultural work, our work for justice, by insisting that to realize the greatest potential for us all, we must go beyond finding common ground to do the often more difficult and challenging work of embracing difference – encountering, experiencing and respecting difference.

For a religious movement without creed, without a statement of prescribed beliefs to which we all must agree – for such a religious movement, covenantal relationship forms the core for practicing our faith. The way that we are together becomes paramount. The how we interact takes precedence. The method is the message, as our great Unitarian Universalist forbearer in religious education, Angus McLean, so famously put it. And I think this idea can continuously inform the ways in which we think about and go about doing congregational and denominational life.

If there is transformative potential in every fragment of time, busting forth in every encounter – and if we also take the work of the church to be at least in part about spiritual or maturational growth for our members, then everything we do in our churches can be seen as faith development. Faith formation, spiritual transformation, is occurring not just in worship, not just in our religious education classrooms, but also throughout the life of the church. Every community or small group gathering, every committee meeting, every conversation during the fellowship hour has the potential to transform us, as well as to provide comfort in times of need and to sustain us through life’s difficult and challenging times.

I wonder, if we take this view, how might we approach each other differently? How much more bound by our covenants of right relations, the promises we make to one another, might we feel? In what ways might we become even more connected with our fellow Unitarian Universalist churches and our larger Unitarian Universalist movement?

I wonder if we might even more passionately strive for a pluralistic, multi-cultural faith – a people in deep relationship, a people emerging out of a full and vibrant matrix of cultures and identities, bound together in promises to both hold each other accountable to our greater ideals and at the same time hold each other in compassion, love, shared vulnerability and deep respect. The method is the message.

The very way we do church life begins to burst forth with new creative possibilities. Worshipped can be transformed when there are more and more styles and perspectives to be included. Congregational meetings and gatherings spend more and more time reflecting with each other on the world we dream about and how as a religious community we can work together to bring it into being! The method is the message.

Maybe our interfaith and social justice activities become a vital part of our spiritual practices throughout the religious community as a whole. Perhaps we stop during board meetings for a reflective period or to sing a hymn together that captures a vision for creating that better world. How about some time for liturgical dancing during that finance committee meeting! OK, maybe not. I got a little carried away.

Anyway, as another example, I think that the capital campaign in which we are currently engaged here at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin is likewise deeply rooted in this idea that positive change is possible through each encounter. Our building is part of our method, and it sends a message about our values and our desire to create a welcoming table and transformative experience for all who enter this holy place.

I’m told that members of this congregation have already pledged over two point one million dollars toward the campaign, and that demonstrates that this congregation walks in the ways of generosity and stewardship and commitment to the future of this beloved religious community.

Likewise, the fact that First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin is a covenantal and mission-focused congregation greatly moves us into living out that vital religious faith I have been describing. The beautiful covenant we read together earlier describes a transformational way of being together: Welcome and serve. Nurture and protect. Sustain and build. Thus we do covenant with one another.

These are methods. They are ways of being together, and they emanate a strong message about who we are as a religious people.

The mission we have emblazoned onto our wall and into our memories and hearts compels us toward creative and transcendent possibilities.

Now, I know we just said it together a few minutes ago, but I am feeling a little low energy after all this talking I have been doing up here on my own, so I wonder if you might indulge me in reciting it together again? And, yes, a preacher is really going to encourage other people to talk during his sermon! At First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin…

We gather in community to nourish souls, transform lives and do justice.

Thanks. I feel better now. I just love that!

Gather. Nourish. Transform. Do Justice.

These may imply goals and ends; however, first and foremost they are actions. They are verbs. They describe ways of doing and being together. They are each a method, and the method matters.

It matters because it help us maintain an awareness of that capacity to transform one another. It opens up a space for creative potentialities – what I like to call “Grace that we co-create” and it does so in sometimes surprising and unexpected ways. This happened during a powerful and moving experience at the church where I served as ministerial intern.

For the holidays in the first year of my internship, we had been putting together a multigenerational Christmas Pageant. The pageant was a Unitarian Universalist version of the biblical nativity story. Our cast and crew included folks ranging in age from four or five to this beautiful woman in her eighties who ran circles around me and kept our rehearsals on track.

Putting together a pageant, complete with costumes, props, songs, a little platform that served as our imaginary stable and children dressed up as the stable animals had been quite the challenge sometimes but lots of fun too. Alongside the human characters, we had camels, cows, a donkey, some doves and at least a couple of kitty cats. An ongoing challenge was helping the youngest of the children to remember that there were imaginary stable walls around the edges of our little platform. More than once during rehearsals, a cow or camel would walk right through one of the imaginary walls, and we would have to stop, go back and remind them not to do that!

On the Friday before we were to present the pageant, the news broke about the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary.

I talked with my supervising minister. We had to decide whether to go forward with the pageant or whether it would be too light hearted given the circumstances. We decided to go forward. On Sunday morning though, we first stood together before the congregation, and she offered a prayer for the victims and their families.

There was a pervasive tone of grief among our church members that morning – a sense of shock and emotional paralysis. We started the pageant.

About halfway through it, one of the children costumed as an animal in our imaginary stable, one of our cats, I believe, got so wrapped up in the pageant song we were singing, that she stood up and started dancing. She pirouetted right through one of our imaginary stable walls, whirling and swirling in balletic circles in front of our carefully set up nativity scene. She was about the same age as the youngest children who had been killed at Sandy Hook.

The woman who had helped keep our rehearsals on track and I were sitting together, and we looked at each other, both wondering if we should get up and lead our little dancing cat back into the scene. As soon as our eyes met though, we both knew that we had to let her continue.

And she was dancing, and the music was playing and the congregation was singing. At one point the song almost faltered. The children were mesmerized by the little girl’s impromptu ballet and the adults were nearly overcome with emotion. I looked around the sanctuary, and the adult’s eyes were glistening, their tears reflecting tiny pinpoints of light in almost infinite directions. We kept on singing, and the little girl kept her ballet afloat, and our spirits were dancing through joy and sorrow and back again in small, fragmentary slivers of time. The music and the singing and the dancing were the method. That we must continue our part within the struggle and the creative co-telling of life’s ongoing pageant was the message. A young girl’s dancing had spread Grace throughout our sanctuary and transformed a congregation that morning.

A minister who I consider one of my mentors says that a key element of spiritual growth is to be always mindful of and open to this possibility of Grace. I learned that morning that she is right. And, I believe our faith and our churches can go even a step further – actively creating that potential for Grace through the ways in which we do congregational and denominational life – cultivating an ever-present awareness of our capacity to transform one another.

And speaking of grace, I am so blessed and so filled with gratitude that, with Meg’s wisdom and guidance, my ministry now involves walking with all of you, as we build beloved community, as we nourish and transform one another and our world, as we engage in the vital and life-giving work of doing justice. Together, may we reach for the transformative potential, bursting forth in each new moment.

So may we be. Amen.

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