Sacred promises

by Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 17, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

As a religion without creed, one of the cornerstones of UU spirituality arises from the covenantal nature of how we gather our religious communities. The covenant, a set of promises we make with one another about how we will be together, comes out of an ancient tradition.

Sermon

Our preeminent Unitarian Universalist theologian of the 20th century, James Luther Adams said the following, “Human beings, individually and collectively, become human by making commitment, by making promises. The human being as such is the promise making, promise keeping, promise-renewing creature.

Another way to put that is that we are covenant-making creatures. A covenant is an ancient concept that described most simply contains a set of promises concerning how we will be together. For Unitarian Universalists, this ancient concept becomes particularly vital. Because we do not have a creed, a prescribed set of beliefs to which we must all adhere, our ecclesiology, the way in which we structure ourselves as a religious people, is rooted in the covenantal. Our theological perspectives are necessarily grounded in relationship.

I have great admiration for James Luther Adams and his work, but I think he left one important thing out.

As human beings, we are also promise breaking creatures. We are imperfect and we fail each other sometimes.

That does not make our covenants less important. It makes them more so. Our covenants, like this church’s covenant that we read together earlier, provide us with the ways in which we may get back into right relationship with one another when we have failed – they provide the standard we can call ourselves back to.

The concept of covenant goes back to even before the times described in the Hebrew Scriptures and was likely borrowed from ancient civilizations that predated that of the Israelites or even their ancestors. We humans have been making and breaking promises for a very, very long time.

And we have through the ages also been making covenants with our Gods, and they with us.

Early in the Hebrew Scriptures, in Genesis 9, God makes a covenant with Noah to never again flood the earth, killing everything on it, save that which was on the ark with Noah.

“Whoops. I may have overreacted a bit there. You know me. Temper. Temper. Here’s a lovely rainbow so that every time you see one, it will remind you that I promise never to flood the entire earth ever again. We good?”

Next comes God’s covenant with Abraham, which seems to have two versions, one in Genesis 15 and one in Genesis 17. God promises Abraham a grant of land upon which God will raise up a new nation from Abraham’s descendants.

Never mind that there are folks already living on said land – God will take care of everything, and all Abraham has to do is wander aimlessly on faith for an unspecified distance and time.

Never mind that Abraham’s wife is barren.

Never mind that Abraham does not know where exactly this land is or when exactly the new nation will get raised up. Oh, and also circumcise himself and all of his male descendants and them their descendants and so on and so on in perpetuity.

And also all of the male slaves in any of his family’s households.

Bummer.

And then, of course, there is the whole thing where God allows Abraham’s elderly wife, Sarah to bear a son, Isaac, only to later demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, which Abraham prepares to do until God sends an angel to say pretty much, “Dude, we didn’t think you would actually do it. Here’s a ram, sacrifice that instead. It’ll do.”

Continuing the fun in the book of Exodus, God next made a covenant with the entire ancient Israelite people, Abraham’s decedents. This is the famous story of Moses going up to the top ofMt. Sinai, where God gives him the ten commandments and binds the Israelites to obey them, as well as the other laws laid out in the Torah – the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

Often called the Mosaic Covenant, it was similar to the treaties, contracts or oaths that sovereign rulers of the time made with their subjects, and it stipulated the really good things God would do for the chosen people if they were obedient to the oath and the really dreadful, horrible things God would do to them if they violated it.

Which they did and which God did. Temper. Temper.

Finally, in Samuel 2, God makes a covenant with David that he and his lineage will be the kings, the royal line of Israel. Unlike the Mosaic covenant, God made this covenant unconditional. Even if David and his descendants misbehaved, while God might punish them in other ways, he would never take their royalty away from them.

And once again, misbehave they did, and punish them severely God did.

David even had a very special “friend” named Jonathan, who upon meeting David, and I am quoting scripture here, “made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David … “

Later, when the two “friends” learned that they must be separated from each other to save David’s life, the scriptures say, “They kissed each other and wept with each other.”

And after Jonathan was killed in battle, David wrote a song in which he says of Jonathan, “Greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”

Apparently, some of those so called abominations God supposedly spelled out in Leviticus have been getting ignored for a very, very long time, and by some of God’s favorites.

I’m just sayin’.

Finally, I’d like to talk a bit about one more of the times the concept of covenant comes up in the Hebrew Scriptures. You may have heard the story of Job, a good and righteous man who fears God and shuns evil. Job is living the good life – he’s healthy, has a successful business, a wonderful wife and family.

One day God is bragging on his faithful servant Job, when one of his angels says, “Well, you know, maybe Job is only so righteous and pious because you have blessed him with so much cool stuff. Take it all away and let’s see how pious he is then.”

And so they kill Job’s children and destroy his business, and property. When that’s not enough, they also inflict his entire body with terrible, painful sores.

Long story short, Job clings to his righteousness and, after some arguing back and forth with some rather unhelpful friends, he basically brings a serious breach of covenant lawsuit against God. He sues God for God having failed to uphold his end of the contract even though Job has remained righteous even after all these terrible things God has allowed the angel to do to him.

So, God answers Job’s lawsuit out of a whirlwind, saying, “Who is this who darkens counsel, speaking without knowledge.”

Sounds a little testy and defensive already if you ask me.

Anyway, God continues, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Speak if you have understanding. Do you know who fixed its dimensions … Have you ever commanded the day to break, Assigned the dawn its place, … Have you penetrated to the sources of the sea, Or walked in the recesses of the deep?”

In other words, basically saying, “I don’t have to adhere to any stinkin’ covenant, because, well, I’m God.”

To which Job pretty much replies, “Well, you do kind of have a point there,” which pleases God, so God restores Job to his old life but even better than before.

Now, I’ve been having a bit of fun with these ancient covenant stories by providing one possible interpretation of each of them that is far too literal. They have to be read as poetry or allegory, not as being literally true. For instance, a more poetic reading of the story of Job would get at the idea that the world does not operate on a system of retributive justice, wherein if we only live decent, ethical lives then we will somehow be rewarded with lives that are carefree and without tragedy.

It is much more complicated than that.

And, even though this ancient concept of covenant is an important one for us, I think these stories, especially the story of Job get at another potential warning about covenants. It can be problematic when the parties to a covenant have a highly unequal balance of power. Can the less powerful party truly consent? How does a human hold a God accountable to a covenant?

I think of our current struggles with our criminal justice system which promises “to protect and to serve” – a covenant by which in return we cede to that system many powers and resources. Now that we’re seeing that system disproportionately arresting, convicting, imprisoning and even taking the lives of people who are not white, we are witnessing a great struggle to hold the justice system accountable to its promises, its side of the covenant.

But the system has been militarized and monetized and has over time been granted almost God-like powers by law makers and court rulings, so we face a mighty struggle indeed to bring about such accountability.

But engage in this struggle we must because to be fully human we must become promise-fulfilling creatures.

Another potential problem with a belief that a God made a covenant with a select group of people is that it can foster a sense of what scholars have called “chosenness” within that people. And scholars have found that this sense of chosenness can become woven into the very symbols and language of a culture, so that, even as the culture may become more secular, that sense of chosenness can still remain deeply imbedded within it.

Some scholars have claimed that this was at least a part of the Zionist movement of the late 19th and early 20th century that was otherwise often progressive and secular.

Other scholars have pointed to the lineage of Jesus that is detailed in the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, establishing Jesus as being in the linage of both David and Abraham, as providing Christians with a similar sense of chosenness. It creates a kind of ultimate fulfillment of the covenants from the Hebrew Scriptures – or a new covenant with Jesus as the ultimate savior and King, and Christians the chosen people. Such scholars attribute Western Europe’s and the U.S.’s historical tendencies toward imperialism at least partially to this sense of chosenness.

And I think we have to be careful not to fall prey to a similar way of thinking and being if we were to focus only on our internal church covenant that we read together earlier – if we were to forget that our principles that we also read together earlier are expressed in the form of a covenant with our fellow Unitarian Universalist congregations – a covenant to affirm and promote those principles together out in our wider world. And even our mission is in its own way a promise we make to each other to work together in shared purpose both within these walls and beyond them.

If we were to forget these things, our covenant, the promises that we make can become too narrow and internally focused, we could be in danger of becoming a social club of the self-chosen.

I am pleased to be able to say that currently I do not see that happening here at this church.

And I am thrilled that there is a movement afoot within our wider Unitarian Universalist denomination to live out a greater sense of covenant among and beyond Unitarian Universalists more widely.

We can trace the way that we organize our churches and the covenantal heritage of what would become Unitarian Universalism in the U.S. all the way back to the Cambridge Platform of 1648. The Cambridge Platform was an agreement among our Puritan ancestors that among other things said that independent churches should be organized among members who covenant to walk together in the ways of love. Each of these churches, like we still do today, would choose its own officials, call its own minister, govern itself and own its own property. And since it is a stewardship testimonial days, I should also mention that all this means we get to provide the contributions to pay our own bills also.

But, the Cambridge platform did not stop there. It also called for churches to work together for each other’s welfare and to promote the greater good.

What if we take that part of our heritage truly to heart?

What if we promised to walk together in the ways of love not just within our church, but also with our other local Unitarian Universalist churches?

What if we covenanted to walk together in the ways of love with our fellow Unitarian Universalists in our Southern region?

What if we did so even at the national and worldwide level?

And what if we expand this idea about promising to walk together in the ways of love beyond Unitarian Universalism, finding interfaith partnerships and secular friends that would join us in an ever-growing covenant of mutual love and support?

What more might become possible? How much more power might we all have to bring about beneficial change in our communities, our country and our world?

These are the questions that are being asked within Unitarian Universalism as a whole. These are the efforts in which our denomination will be engaging as we move into the future. I hope our church will be an active part of the discussions and the effort. I know I plan to do so, and I promise to keep you informed as I learn more. And, yes, you can take that as a covenant.

We humans are promise making, promise keeping, promise breaking and promise-renewing creatures, and if we expand this idea of covenant-making to a much broader level, further and further beyond our own tribe and maybe even to this entire planet on which live and depend, as well as all of the creatures upon it, almost anything becomes possible.

Suddenly, God’s rainbows become abundant.

As we move in that direction, I look forward to continuing to walk with you in the ways of love.

Benediction

As we go forth into our world now, we hold in our hearts our covenant.

We carry with us the sacred promises we have made among ourselves and with our larger world.

We walk together in the ways of love not just today but through all of our days.

Until next we gather again, be blessed.

May the congregation say, “Amen” and, blessed be.”

Go in peace.

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 16 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.

 

Making sense of the senseless

by Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 10, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

When senseless violence happens like what we’ve seen so much in the news recently, when the unexpected and unwelcome occur in our personal lives, how do we continue our search for meaning and beauty? What do we do with our grief and anger?

Meditation

After the blinding rains came and washed away the foundations;

After the howling winds blew through windows, shattering glass and tearing apart wooden blinds and curtain fabric;

Once the bombs had knocked down even the walls made of such precise and rugged stone, and fires had ravaged wooden rafters.

I stumbled amidst the rubble of what was left, crying out at all that had been lost, unable to make repairs and build anew, searching for some new materials that might withstand such devastations.

And then I saw you, and also you, and the all of the ones following each of you, each carrying with you your own fragments of what had been.

Some of you bringing new elements to strengthen our possibilities – replace what had been lost.

And together, we built new structures of meaning.

We created soaring towers of beauty; deep wells of understanding; walls held aloft by an infrastructure of love.

And there we dwelt for a while, fortified once more, having chosen our new place and our new way of being.

Prayer

Spirit of love and life, breathe into us this day an understanding that, even amidst the violence and bloodshed we have been witnessing, love has not lost, beauty is still to be found in our world, meaning is still ours to create.

Soothe our breaking hearts.

Remind us that hope is not a feeling. It is to be found in the actions we take – the ways of being, which we offer, to one another and our world.

Raise up our compassion and carry it to those who are suffering because of the senseless violence and bloodshed that we have witnessed in the past months, weeks and days.

Soften our hearts that we might direct our outrage toward transforming ourselves and our communities for the better.

May we bring more peace, more understanding more love into our world.

We manifest this prayer in the name of all that is holy.

Sermon

Six years ago, my spouse Wayne and I attended the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (or GA) together for the first time. While at that GA, I purchased a small chalice. I wanted to have a chalice to light during my own spiritual practices, a symbol to connect my individual practices with my Unitarian Universalist religious community.

I could not have known that my little chalice would soon take on a different and much greater meaning in my life.

For weeks before we had left for GA, Wayne had shared with me that he had been experiencing a sense of foreboding, a seemingly irrational fear that something deeply disturbing was about to unfold.

On the Wednesday after we got back from GA, I came home to find Wayne nearly in tears.

That morning, Wayne had turned on his cell phone to find the phone number of his good friend, Teresa, showing on the screen. It was a seeming accident, as neither Wayne nor Teresa had called the other recently.

Wayne and Teresa had been in medical school together and had remained great friends every since. I had grown to know and love Teresa also, along with her two beautiful daughters, Tara and Jenna, whom we had first met when they were small children. In the warmth of Teresa’s love, Jenna and Tara had grown into beautiful young women. They were both physically beautiful, but more importantly, they were loving, dynamic, smart, funny and talented. They exuded a wonderful capacity to fill those around them with joy and laughter.

Thinking it was too early to call Teresa, Wayne nonetheless punched the number that had shown up on his cell phone. The voice that answered was one of agony – of the deepest sorrow and sense of lost purpose human beings can endure.

Jenna had fallen and hit her head. She had died less than 24 hours later. She was 22 years old.

In less than a moment, in a random flash devoid of any apparent meaning, a beautiful part of our world, our interconnected web of existence was taken from our lives, from the lives of her family, from the lives of so many who loved her.

As Wayne told me this, I stood frozen in disbelief and horror. It was as if the random, meaningless cruelty of it was ripping at everything I had come to believe, tearing into shreds my ability to feel any sacred beauty at all in the world. I was filled with sorrow for Teresa and Tara. I was devastated by the pain I could see in Wayne’s face and how the way he carries his body had changed – the grief that filled his voice.

I did not know what to do with this. I could not process it, could not understand it, could not fight back against the urge to rage against the arbitrary injustice of it.

I had to sit down. I had to stare blankly at walls. I had to be with Wayne, so we would take care of each other.

Later, after Wayne had gone to sleep, perhaps the only real refuge in such situations, I got out the little chalice I had bought at G.A. and lit it for Jenna.

I sat alone in our living room, staring at the flame and thinking of her. The flame cast beautiful reflections of its light and enchanting dancing shadows on the stone wall behind it.

And as I sat and watched the dancing light from the little chalice, I began to sense in its beauty, the loveliness that Jenna had injected into the world – a beauty that might still be there in some way, if only through our memories of her.

It helped to think about things this way, but the thoughts were incomplete and not enough. At some point, I still had to extinguish the flame and go to bed, still filled with sorrow.

Another day came and went with both Wayne and I sleepwalking through it. That evening we spoke more of Jenna and what had happened, struggling to make sense of it and find some way to grasp at meaning when all meaning seemed to have been shattered and destroyed, if it had ever existed at all.

And then, on Friday morning, I got an email message from my good friend, Nell Newton. For me, one of the great mysteries in life is how sometimes we come to the aide of those we love without even knowing we are doing it. Certainly, Nell had no way of knowing how much her message would help or even what was happening in our lives. She was out of town and sent the message for a different reason.

Still, there it was, sitting in my inbox, a ray of light and a renewal of hope from a friend in a far away place, just when it was needed most.

The email contained a link to a video of Senator Al Franken from when he had spoken on the last day of GA, which we had missed because we had to leave early to catch our flight home.

In part of his speech, Senator Franken spoke lovingly of his father. He spoke of his father’s belief that we must not only be just, but DO justice – of how his father thought that nature and the earth and everything are so beautiful that there must be something behind it all, and we might as well call that something, God.

The Senator spoke proudly of his two children. He told the story of his young son who had received an award for being such a good, nice kid. When asked why he was so good, the son answered, “I think it has something to do with Grandpa”.

With deep emotion in his voice, Senator Franken continued, “To me, that’s where God is… I think God is my dad’s in me and he’s in my son… “

As I watched him and listened to him say those words on the video that Nell had sent, my own thoughts about Jenna from that night staring at the light from my chalice began to crystallize and become complete.

I had been reading A House for Hope, a wonderful book by John A. Buehrens and Rebecca Ann Parker. I looked back at something Reverend Dr. Parker writes in the book:

She writes, “The divine is not a despotic monarch, ruling through coercion and threat, sanctifying violence. This is not an unchanging, eternal reality from which the imperfect can be condemned. This is not merely a metaphor, but an actual presence, alive and afoot in the cosmos, an upholding and sheltering presence that receives and feels everything that happens with compassion and justice, offering the world back to itself, in every moment, with a fresh impulse to manifest the values of beauty, peace, vitality and liberation… everlastingly emergent, alive, responsive, creative, at one with the chaotic, messy universe we live in.”

My heart expanded and my thoughts grew much calmer. Whether metaphor or actual presence, I thought, if there is God in the sacred beauty of our shared existence, ever changing with our experience of that unfathomably interconnected web, then God weeps with us, I thought.

And that image was somehow comforting.

God weeps.
For Jenna.
For Teresa and Tara.
For all who knew and loved this amazing young woman.
For the injury to the divine that her unexpected, untimely and all too heartbreaking death had caused.

And yet, I thought, if there is God in the sacred beauty of our shared existence, then there is the joy and light and love and laughter that was Jenna, also in our web of interconnectedness.

There is the beauty of Jenna, always, in the beauty of shared existence.

I don’t know if this is merely metaphor or actual presence as Dr. Parker says it is, and it does not take the sorrow away completely even now, but it does help me remember to be grateful for life and our powerful interconnectedness, even those lives cut way too short, even at times when life seems senseless.

Now, every time I light my little chalice, I remember Jenna; I am reminded to try in my less than perfect way to carry forth her capacity to fill those around us with laughter and joy.

And, in that way, still, there is Jenna in the experiences of her that those of us who loved her cannot help but carry forward into our continued shared existence.

There is great, divine joy, in the beauty of being always interconnected with Jenna.

I wrote most of what I just shared with you 6 years ago, just after Jenna’s death but until now had only shared it with a few people, and my own theology has changed some since then. I got Teresa’s permission to update it to present tense and share it with you, because I can’t think of a stronger example in my own life of when I struggled with our topic today – trying to make sense of what seems senseless.

When something like that happens, when horrific events like these we have witnessed in our country and our world lately occur, it can cause us to question our worldview; reconsider the way in which we find meaning and beauty; lose faith even in how we perceive that which is ultimate and provides structure and a sense of cohesiveness in our lives. Whether or not it involves a concept for the divine, we can end up being forced to revise and reconstruct what could accurately be called our own, personal theology.

And life can throw so much at us that can seem so senseless:

The sudden earthquake, storm or tsunami that rips through a populated area and takes so many lives.

Terror attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Istanbul, Dhaka, Bagdad just to name a few.

A sudden, life-threatening diagnosis when we are not even known to have been at risk.

Police continuing to shoot and kill African Americans under highly questionable circumstances – twice in just the last week. Five police officers in Dallas killed in apparent retaliation.

A very disturbed young man who enters a nightclub in Orlando with an automatic weapon and takes out his own self-hatred on 49 innocent people.

These are just a few examples. There are so many more.

And some of these really are senseless, in that they are at least partially random. They are just weather patterns or life’s chance events. The creative unfolding of our universe can include events that both give us a perception of beauty and meaning and events that threaten to destroy that perception.

Others of these involve senseless loss, but, in reality, they are the products of our own human systems that perpetuate violence, loss and destruction. Laws, institutions and foreign policies that combined with an economic system of intense inequality an unfettered capitalism run amuck that are threatening life on our planet and continuing to create the conditions that lead to extreme poverty, civil unrest and strife, oppression, war, hatred, religious extremism and acts of terrorism.

These may seem senseless, but they are, in fact, not the products of random chance. They are human creations.

So, in either case though, how do we make sense of the senseless? Is it even possible sometimes, or do we at times have to look the other way for a while?

I don’t pretend have all of the answers. I do think though, that one of the things we have to do, especially in the face of great losses such as those we have been witnessing, is to allow ourselves to feel the emotions – to dwell in a worldview torn and shattered for a while. We have to process the grief and the heart sickness and the confusion.

And we have to accept the anger that often comes with it so that we can channel that anger in healthy directions that avoid more destruction, as we saw with the killing of police in Dallas this past week. Directions that can, instead, be our motivation to create change, whether in our private lives or in the public sphere.

Perhaps, for instance we will channel that anger toward demanding sensible gun laws that will keep automatic weapons out of the hands of average citizens so that our country might one day no longer be the gun massacre capital of the world.

When events like the latest gun massacre or that unexpected diagnosis strike, life can feel like the rug has been pulled out from under us at such times. We realize that we are fragile creatures, and the events of our lives are unknown and uncertain and often outside of our control. Our agency then is to be found in how we respond to them.

And I think that, like I had to do, after the senseless accident that took Jenna’s brilliant life, sometimes, sometimes we have to reconstruct our worldview out of the rubble that is left of what we had believed before.

And we do that both as an individual quest, examining and reexamining our own inner spirituality and we also need a community – a community to lament with us, to celebrate the memory of that which we have lost together and to hold us when we are in danger of falling into unyielding despair. Communally, we provide each other with the building blocks for creating a new, more nuanced and mature understanding of our world that none of us can find alone amidst that rubble that was left from how we had made meaning and found beauty in the past.

That’s exactly the process those of us who loved Jenna found that we needed.

That’s exactly how so many people are responding to the senselessness in Orlando, Baton Rouge, Dallas and elsewhere. Muslim and LGBTQ communities that have reached out to one another and found themselves coming together in shared purposes even greater than each had known before environmental groups declaring solidarity with Black Lives Matter. I find reason for hope in this.

For thousands of years, humankind has imagined gods and goddesses that brought all that exists, including us, into being. I am beginning to think that it works in the exact opposite way.

Maybe, when we reach out with love toward one another, across our differences, and, even in the face of the tragic and inexplicable, together, we find new, more creative and life giving ways of constructing meaning and finding beauty in our world, maybe we co-create the divine – bring blessings into our world that so badly needs them right now.

Amen.

Benediction

Now, as we go out into that wide, beautiful world we are working to save, know that together, we can make a difference, Together, we create the courage to act, the power to make life-giving change, the nourishment that sustains our spirits.

Together, we discover the sacred that already exists within the web of all existence, of which we are part.

May the congregation say Amen and Blessed Be. Go in peace.

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 16 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.

Who’s Calling, Please?

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons, Susan Yarbrough, Video available

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Susan Yarbrough
July 3, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

“Who’s Calling, Please?” These are the words I always use when I don’t recognize the caller ID number or the name of the person on the other end of the line. This Sunday, let’s think together about what we have been called to do as individuals and as a congregation, who or what is calling us, and the fact – yes, the fact – that we are all called and are all ministers.

Text of this sermon is not available. Click the play button to listen.

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 16 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.

 

It ain’t broke…but we can still fix it

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Nell Newton, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Nell Newton
June 26, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

So much around us seems fragmented and unsustainable, like the world around us seems broken. But is it? We will look at theology and possible responses to the idea that our world is a broken mess.

Reading:
The Truth About Stories; A Native Narrative pages 21-22
by Thomas King

Reading:
Adrienne Rich

My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
So much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those
Who, age after age,
Perversely, with no extraordinary
Power, reconstitute the world.

Sermon

One of my favorite bumper stickers asks “Where are we going? And why are we in this hand basket?!” To some it would seem like everything is falling apart and changing for the worse at every turn. The alarmists in our midst assure us that we are facing End Times.

The revolution will NOT be televised, but Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo.

Even for us Universalists, this hand basket seems to be heading someplace hot. But what everything is not falling apart? What if this is just business as usual and it’s up to us to reframe our response?

In some religious circles, people have expressed a desire to “heal our broken world”. This sentiment is usually couched as part of a mission statement – along the lines of what the Salvation Army has as its mission: “The Salvation Army – a growing, loving community of people dynamically living God’s mission in a broken world.”

This language is pretty popular among justice-seeking Christians. You can find it in colleges, mission trip groups, and from folks who are working to improve the lives of the poor. It generally can be summed up as “Together we share a quest for justice, peace, reconciliation and healing in a broken world.”

(Honestly, they lifted the term from the Judaic concept of “tikkun olam” which translates as “world repair” but they took some liberties in the translation and theology.)

So there are people who see our world as broken. These are good and loving people, and they want to make things better. But something about it just sticks in my craw…

What is it? Why does that language make me itchy? That’s what’s happening… I’m getting itchy.

I really don’t have a problem with people who are motivated by their understanding of the holy to go out and do some good work. I deeply respect people of any faith tradition who are called to address injustice.

So why the itch over this language? Our Broken World…

What’s wrong with recognizing that things are messed up and we can become a blessing to our world by walking humbly and doing justice?

It’s the “broken” that sets me on edge. Casting our world as “broken” irks me.

I find myself growling – that’s how I know something is serious – growling: “It ain’t broke! It was built this way!”

Built this way – in our natural world and our human society.

Rockslides and typhoons are part of the entire system of Nature. They cause disruption of human activities – even death and illness – but they are how this whole system works. It’s not broken. It’s complex but not broken.

But scientists are pretty much in agreement that global climate change is directly caused by human activity. Wouldn’t that show that we’ve broken our world? Yes and no. Yes, our activities have changed the system. But it’s not broken, just different. Not very comfortable for us and many other species, but still a full system. No missing pieces, nothing removed, just all of the interlinked parts responding to the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels. The natural world is not broken… it’s working quite well. And with or without us it will continue following its deep, old laws.

So, if anything, it’s not that we need to fix anything but we do need to get things back into balance if we, and all of the bears and bees and beavers are going to survive.

So what about our human society? What do I mean by “It’s not broken – it’s built that way?”

Well, our brains are hardwired for xenophobia. As a species we are inherently mistrustful of people outside of our immediate clan. We’re built that way.

But when it becomes institutionalized and rationalized, it moves from being a residual part of our lizard brain, to becoming racism that prevents us all from accessing the richness of life. Both the oppressor and the oppressed are limited by institutionalized racism. And our laws and financial practices have been built to hold groups of othered people away from resources like education, work, or medical care.

Why did so many people of color wind up in foreclosure during the Great Recession? Because of a complex system of practices, all legal, that kept them hemmed into certain neighborhoods and then made a lot of money off of them through predatory lending. It wasn’t that anyone said “How can we engineer a system to perfectly oppress people we are uncomfortable with?” But that’s pretty much what happened.

It’s what happens when we don’t examine prejudice or the way our brains work. Nothing was broken. The system worked quite well. In fact some systems work better when they are unexamined.

And that’s how evil moves about in this world, buried so deep into our normal that we don’t notice it until a person close to us cries out.

Many of the worst parts of our human society are not really broken, just unexamined prejudice. Any fixing to be done is the hard work of unpacking and naming and trying to do it better it over and over until there’s less unexamined stuff around to trip us up.

Okay… deep breath…

So that’s what I mean when I say “It ain’t broken.”

Now, here’s another reason why the phrase “broken world” just irks me: It implies that there is a more perfect, more preferred state that has been broken. It presumes that there is a norm that is better than a variation. Which is okay as long as you fit the norm….

And, here’s the real reason I get itchy: it is based upon an underlying theology that is problematic.

That theology – the one where our world is “broken”. It comes from an interpretation of the Judeo-Christian creation story. You know this one:

In the beginning there was perfection…
(Except that actually, if you read Genesis you find two beginnings…)
In The Beginning There Was Perfection in a Garden.
And eventually two humans, who were somehow too human, not perfect, despite having been made in God’s image…
(Do you sense a set up here?)
The two humans transgressed a rule…
(Really, this was a set up – eat anything and everything except THAT.)
And perfection was broken.
Because humans were not perfectly obedient.
Because they were too human.
Despite having made their god in their own image…

This break, this rupture, this banishment and punishment… this is the underpinning of what many Christians interpret as Our Broken World. Inherent human sinfulness broke God’s perfect world. And it continues to break this world.

This suggests that they have some assumptions about what Perfection would look like. They are trying to fix something they perceive is broken, and restore it to what they would consider whole or mended.

So, the problem with presuming that our world is broken is that it is based upon a theology that casts us as inherently bad children who broke something, and now we’re trying to fix it, but, of course, we can’t because there is an omnipotent god who is really in charge but seems to be waiting for us to live up or down to his expectations.

Can you see why I get itchy here?

So… here’s where a different kind of theology might change our response.

What if, instead of a single omnipotent, omniscient, judging sky god, what if there was a theology that accepted that perfection includes things that are outside the norms, things that appear imperfect? We’ve all seen leaves that simply grew asymmetrically or trees that have been misshapen by terrain or weather and yet they still grow and photosynthesize and bring beauty.

We’ve all seen imperfection and loved it more dearly because of its uniqueness. Think of a beloved – is it their perfection, their adherence to a norm that you love? Or is it their crooked smile – the way the left eye crinkles more than the right eye when they grin and laugh?

So, what if our understanding of perfection included some things that appear broken, or imperfect? And what if our understanding of the divine included our having to help create and recreate this perfect imperfection? Rather than always failing at restoring Eden, what if we are actually tasked with joining in as a part of Nature to create with wild diversity? Our job becomes less about fixing and more about participating!

Whew!

Okay, now I’m going to recognize that brokenness is real. There really is brokenness in our world. More specifically, covenants can be broken, and people can be broken.

You’ve known people who were broken. Most families have someone who isn’t quite okay. Maybe it was trauma or odd neurological wiring, or both, but there’s someone in the family who wound up broken. And that old judging sky god doesn’t seem interested in helping.

How we respond to broken people is how I’ll measure our gods.

Here’s an example – Cousin Guido. In one branch of my extended family one of our broken ones was Cousin Guido. He wasn’t really my cousin. He was my step grandfather’s second cousin but in an Italian American family, for better or worse, everyone is family.

When I was a little kid I really couldn’t tell how old Guido was. He seemed like a young man right up until the moment he became an old man. That was because when he was a young man, he was sent over to fight in World War II. He was a poor Italian American kid who was probably a little neurologically vulnerable but had no one to speak up for him or assign him to non-combat work. So, like too many poor young men, he was issued a pair of boots and a gun and sent to fight. And, when the bombs started exploding and guns firing all around him, his mind snapped. It was all over. It was what used to be called “shell shocked.” He got stuck in the middle of that terror and stayed there for the rest of his life.

Guido’s father finally found him in a hospital. Back then there was no real treatment for that kind of trauma, so his father simply brought him home and resigned to care for his son. In fact, Guido’s father married a young woman with the understanding that she would care for his son after he died. And she did. And the rest of the family cared for him too. My step grandparents always included Guido in the big family dinners and took him places. They’d include him exactly as he was – not leaving him in a back room, not waiting for him to get better, not expecting him to change – just including him and loving him as the rocking, moaning, terrified person that he was.

Have you ever seen that kind of love? The love that keeps loving someone even in their brokenness?

What makes it astonishing is because it means finding the holy in the spaces God seems to have deserted.

If we’re going to live and love brokenness, it’s going to take a different kind of theology that asks us to just live into what is, not in guilt or as punishment, but in a steady renewal, over and over again of what family and love and connection can look like.

It took the rest of Guido’s life, and he did have tranquility and kindness in his later years. He knew he belonged. It became the work of a family to hold his brokenness, his fragility. It showed us, the younger members of the family, that we didn’t have to be perfect to be loved; we simply had to be present.

This is the work of creative people who take what is imperfect and add to it with their love. Not to fix it, but to simply keep creating alongside their god.

And such is a god that I will measure us by.

Rev. Nell Newton was ordained by the San Marcos Unitarian Universalist Fellowship this past June. A lifelong Unitarian Universalist, she lives in Central Austin with her husband, assorted teenagers, too many cats, a mess of chickens, and one sweet dog.

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 16 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.

Tender Mercies

by Posted in Audio available, Marisol Caballero, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Marisol Caballero
June 19, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The word rahmah appears more times in the Qur’an than any other to describe God’s attributes. In English it is often translated as “mercy,” but that doesn’t begin to describe what it means to a Muslim.

Call to Worship

Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Reading:

“My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears”
by Mohja Kahf

My grandmother puts her feet in the sink of the bathroom at Sears
to wash them in the ritual washing for prayer,
wudu,
because she has to pray in the store or miss
the mandatory prayer time for Muslims

She does it with great poise, balancing
herself with one plump matronly arm
against the automated hot-air hand dryer,
after having removed her support knee-highs
and laid them aside, folded in thirds,
and given me her purse and her packages to hold
so she can accomplish this august ritual
and get back to the ritual of shopping for housewares

Respectable Sears matrons shake their heads and frown
as they notice what my grandmother is doing,
an affront to American porcelain,
a contamination of American Standards
by something foreign and unhygienic
requiring civic action and possible use of disinfectant spray
They fluster about and flutter their hands and I can see
a clash of civilizations brewing in the Sears bathroom

My grandmother, though she speaks no English,
catches their meaning and her look in the mirror says,
I have washed my feet over Iznik tile in Istanbul
with water from the world’s ancient irrigation systems
I have washed my feet in the bathhouses of Damascus
over painted bowls imported from China
among the best families of Aleppo

And if you Americans knew anything
about civilization and cleanliness,
you’d make wider washbins, anyway
My grandmother knows one culture – the right one,
as do these matrons of the Middle West. For them,
my grandmother might as well have been squatting
in the mud over a rusty tin in vaguely tropical squalor,
Mexican or Middle Eastern, it doesn’t matter which,
when she lifts her well-groomed foot and puts it over the edge.
“You can’t do that” one of the women protests,
turning to me, “Tell her she can’t do that.”
“We wash our feet five times a day”
my grandmother declares hotly in Arabic.
“My feet are cleaner than their sink.
Worried about their sink, are they?
I should worry about my feet!”
My grandmother nudges me, “Go on, tell them.”

Standing between the door and the mirror, I can see
at multiple angles, my grandmother and the other shoppers,
all of them decent and goodhearted women, diligent
in cleanliness, grooming, and decorum
Even now my grandmother, not to be rushed,
is delicately drying her pumps with tissues from her purse
For my grandmother always wears well-turned pumps that match her purse,
I think in case someone from one of the best families of Aleppo
should run into her-here, in front of the Kenmore display
I smile at the midwestern women
as if my grandmother has just said something lovely about them
and shrug at my grandmother as if they
had just apologized through me

No one is fooled, but I
hold the door open for everyone
and we all emerge on the sales floor
and lose ourselves in the great common ground
of housewares on markdown.

Sermon: Tender Mercies

It has been a tremendously sad week for so many of you who have been deeply affected by the massacre in Orlando last week. We are becoming ever-numb to news of gun violence, as CNN reports that “136 mass shootings in the first 164 days of this year.” But, the scale of this attack, with its final death toll still uncertain as several victims remain in critical condition, along with the fact that it took place in the assumed safe-haven of a gay club during Pride month, have rattled many of us to the core. In an interfaith vigil, I shared that to me, knowing how sacred Latino nights at gay clubs can be, what a sanctuary they are to the gay Latino community, it felt as if blood had been spilled on holy ground.

During June Pride month, LGBTQ folks tend to go out dancing more than they typically do. Even the homebodies are dragged out of their slippers and into a pair of skinny jeans. We are celebrating our community’s courage and resiliency. We are affirming the worth of ourselves and of each other. We dance knowing that there are still LGBTQ elders alive today that could never have imagined being so bold. We dance because so many who fell victim to the AIDS epidemic are no longer here to dance, themselves. We dance in their memory. We dance because we are surrounded by others who also have to choose daily whether to come out to anyone and everyone who presumptively inquires about relations with the opposite sex.

We dance because, in that club, we don’t have to watch our backs like we do in the streets. We dance to celebrate, and especially during the month of June, the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the modicum of progress some of us have made in being fully accepted by our family of origins. There is a peace, a freedom, a camaraderie in a gay club that, especially during Pride month, gives way to level of joy that can legitimately bring about a religious experience. I don’t mean this in a drunken, euphoric sense, but think about how or when you have felt connected or united with God, or Humanity, or the Universe, or whatever you call it. Where were you? What were you doing? Maybe you held your newborn child for the first time … Maybe you sat in quiet solitude on a mountain peak and breathed in the sweet air. .. Maybe you won a sports tournament, or ran a marathon, or experienced divinity while making love … All of these experiences can bring us close to what I often call the Divine Mystery by reminding us that we are part of a whole and that we can do things and feel love in ways we never imagined. This is what can be experienced in the safe haven of a gay club. Even more so, for Latino LGBTQ folks, the remnants of brutal colonialism – traditional gender roles and hyper-masculinity reinforced by conservative Christianities create a need for spaces where LGBTQ Latinos can reconcile these two identities. The guys can speak Spanglish in the women’s bathroom while applying eyeliner and the girls can be anywhere on the gender expression spectrum and be no less Latina for it, and the gender queer Latinos can feel free to bring new gender-neutral words into Spanish’s very gendered grammar, such as elle instead of el or ella, and Latinx, instead of Latina/o.

The Pulse nightclub was no less sacred than this sanctuary, or any synagogue, mosque, cathedral, or temple. So, when violence happens in a sacred space, when people are most at ease and have a sense of safety, it is surely a heinous act.

Also like many of you, I’m sure, cringed when we saw that the gunman was a young Muslim man. Before we had information that might point to him being something of a self-loathing homophobe with a hyper-masculine, verbally abusive father, all we heard was his name, his interest in ISIS, and that he was Muslim. We knew all too well what would follow. It’s why we have the banner up in Howson Hall that reads, “We stand with our Muslim neighbors.” And, sure enough, it took nanoseconds for the internet and cable news networks to be filled with Islamophobic rhetoric and frightening threats to Muslim communities. I was so proud by the turnout for our second annual Ramadan fast-breaking Iftar this past Wednesday! It was such a show of solidarity!

This year, June is more than Pride month because this year Pride happens to coincide with the holy month of Ramadan on the Muslim calendar. Many people in the US know very little about Islam. I will admit to knowing more about Buddhism and Judaism than I do about Islam. When I went before the Ministerial Fellowship Committee of the UU Association to be deemed ready and fit for ministry, I was asked the question, “What are you most drawn to about Christianity, Judaism, and Islam?” I had a small panic and then answered, “Christianity – the radicalism of Jesus and his bravery to stand up against a powerful empire, Judaism – centuries of tradition and the emphasis on ritual and on family, and Islam – the huge focus of universal the Love of God.” I thought I’d remembered a concept in Islam like this, but couldn’t be paid to recall anything more than I said.

Last month, one of my Muslim friends posted an article about the Muslim concept of Rahmah. It turns out, Rahmah was the idea that I had in mind when I took an educated guess at the interview question, but universal love of God seems to be an inadequate interpretation of the word. In fact, Rahmah is often interpreted as “mercy,” in English, though this, too, does not fully capture what it means. Rahmah is one of the most central teachings of the Messenger, Muhammad. He said, “I am not not sent here to curse, but I was sent as a Rahmah.” Not only is the word and words derived from the root the most prevalent word family in the Arabic Qur’an, but it is also the most commonly used term to describe the attributes of God, Allah. There are famously 99 different “names,” or attributes of Allah. Some include, Al-Basir, The All Seeing; Al-Ghafoor, The All Forgiving; and Al-Hakeem, The Wise. But the first two, Ar-Rahman, The All Beneficent, The Most Merciful in Essence, The Compassionate, The Most Gracious; and Ar-Rahim, The Most Merciful, The Most Merciful in Actions, are in the first sentence of every single chapter of the Qur’an except for one and that is the chapter devoted to Rahmah.

Bismillah’I-Rahman’I-Rahim. Is that first line. It is often spoken in conversation between devout Mulsims. It means, “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.” These are very similar attributes, but Ar-Rahman means, “The One who is defined by complete and universal Rahmah,” and Ar-Rahmin means, “The One who continuously shows much Rahmah.” But, to understand this difference, we need to gain a better understanding of what Rahmah is if it isn’t fully explained by being translated as mercy. Like many English-speakers, when I hear that someone is being “merciful,” I usually assume that they are in a position of power and they have the authority to punish but have decided to be lenient. This doesn’t seem like a godly attribute. Aaron Persky, the judge in the recent controversial rape case could be called merciful by this definition, since he delivered a ridiculously mild sentence to an admitted rapist. Also, oftentimes leniency is not granted out of compassion. There are often ulterior motives, such as maintaining the ‘Old Boy’s Club’ as in this case, or for political strategy.

Guner Arslan, the speaker and one of the main organizers of last Wednesday’s Iftar, spoke to me a bit about Rahmah. “Does Rahmah mean that God is ever-forgiving of our sins?” “No” he said. “Rahmah speaks to the fact that God regards us with mercy and He has mercy for everyone and everything in creation. He has more mercy than is possible for anyone else to possess; Supreme Mercy.” I was still confused. I was stuck in my understanding of the meaning of the word ‘mercy.’ When I asked him if that is what he meant by mercy, he said enthusiastically, “No! Not at all.” “Well, then what does mercy mean?” “That’s hard to talk about” he said with a chuckle, “It’s like trying to explain to you what Love is.” He went on, “mercy is what a mother feels for a child. The child has never done anything to earn that love, but they are just freely given it, even before they are born. When the child is hurt, the mother aches, as well. Well, fathers, too, but Rahmah is often regarded as a mother regards her child.” “So, is Rahmah “Love?” “No. It’s this type of mercy. It contains love in it, but there are many types of love. Muslims must regard every person with this same feeling of mercy to try to please God.”

In the article, “Rahmah- Not Just ‘Mercy” Adnan Majid explains:
Of course, this connection of rahmah and motherly love is linguisticolly unsurprising, for rahmah is related to the Arabic word rahm, which means “uterus,” “womb,” and figuratively “family ties.” This close linguistic connection is so eloquently expressed in Allah’s statement as transmitted in a hadith qudsi, “I am al-Rahman and created the rahm (uterus) – And I named it after Me.” Therefore, if we are to grasp the rahmah that is core to God’s very nature, we must look to what this feminine organ symbolizes – the nurturing emotions we find in mothers and the bonds that tie families together. However, mothers are not the only ones characterized by rahmah; the Prophet himself embodied the quality when he would hug his grandchildren, kissing them.

In the patriarchal Bedouin culture of his day, this was considered an effeminate characteristic. “I have ten children and have never kissed any of them!” retorted a proud, disapproving Bedouin. But the Messenger, knowing the beauty of parental love in Allah’s eyes, warned the man, “He who shows no rahmah will be shown no rahmah (in the hereafter}.” And in another instance, he reiterated, “He who has no rahmah for children is not one of us. “

I am trying, still, to fully understand this view of mercy, but upon reading that Ar-Rahman is the attribute of Allah that means God’s grace, blessings, love, and yes, this new-to-me definition of mercy encompass everything and everyone in the universe. While I don’t personally believe in a deity that is a who? What? When? Or where?, I can begin to see strands of my theology in Ar-Rahman. Ar-Rahmin is a measurable, observable act of compassion by God. If a Muslim is in a terrible accident and walks away unscathed, they may then pray a prayer of thanks, invoking the attribute Ar-Rahim. On the other hand, according to the attribute, Ar-Rahmah, just like a parent has to pour stinging hydrogen peroxide or alcohol on a scraped knee, so does God sometimes place us in situations whose favorable outcome we cannot see for the awful current state of affairs. This, of course, falls in line with the Muslim belief in predestination.

Learning about this while listening to the constant stream of news coverage of Orlando was actually comforting to me in a surprising way. No, I don’t think that the Divine placed those happy, dancing people in the path of those bullets to make way for a predestined favorable outcome, but I do like to think that, in reevaluating what mercy means and how we can all strive for it, I felt personal agency in a crippling grief that could have very well given way to feeling utterly helpless. If we can both mourn the dead and maintain an unconditional love for humanity, as a whole, disturbed mass-murderers don’t come out on top. There is, of course activism to take part in, policy change to effect, but for the emotional helplessness, that remedy is needed. We will never make sense of such a massacre, but there are ways of moving forward that both honor and mourn the dead and experience a personal spiritual transformation in our mourning, through striving to know and love Rahmah, that feeling we can nurture that allows us to allow our hearts to ache alongside others in pain. We need not loose ourselves to that pain, but to feel it, even fleetingly, is a Rahmah, a nurturing, compassionate love.

During this Holy month for both our LGBTQ family and our Muslim family, and especially for LGBTQ Latinos and for LGBTQ Muslims, may you love Rahmah and may Rahmah be bestowed upon you. May it be so.

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 16 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.

 

Revolutionary Love

by Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Guest Speakers, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Phil Richardson, Nicole Meitzen, Julie Gillis
June 12, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Rev. Chris Jimmerson and leaders from the Austin Area UU White Allies for Racial Equity will examine how, in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Call to Worship
by Steve Ripper

Che Guevara once said, “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.”

It begins and ends with love. If there is one lesson, one key to being all you can be – and I don’t mean being a soldier, I mean being a warrior – it’s learning to love. But just what does that word, love, mean? It has become so fraught and loaded with double meanings and empty promises that many are justifiably cynical at the mere mention of love. I’m not talking sentimental love, I’m not talking hallmark love, I’m not talking ‘luv.’ I’m talking about a fierce love, a revolutionary love, a true love, a love beyond illusion, a love that is not afraid to freak you out with the truth, even when it hurts like hell. This Big Love is agape love, it’s a universal love, and it is, I believe infused in all of creation.

Meditation Reading
by Steve Ripper

When I asked Archibishop Desmond Tutu one of my favourite questions, “what is the meaning of life”, he replied, “The God in whose image we are created, is a God of love. We are the result of a divine loving. Ultimately we’re meant for love… we’re meant as those who will communicate love and make this world more hospitable to love.”

You don’t need to believe in God to feel the power of this truth – somewhere deep inside us all, is a bonfire of love, that we are here to embody, to unleash, to liberate from captivity.

Take a moment and send your awareness down to your heart, and see if you can feel a little taste of this vast love which is hidden there, like a shining diamond – your diamond heart. Can you feel it burning within?

Homily 1
by Phil Richardson

We were challenged by Dr. King to find a Revolutionary Love that could defeat the hate of racism. The inter-racial love that Michael and I share is an example of such a love.

I don’t know why I fell in love with Michael 36 years ago. I knew that I was attracted to men of color but the deck was stacked against us. … According to 1970’s social norms and our respective parents … Our age difference was too great ( ageism), we were both men (homophobia) and especially we were of mixed races (racism.) … My mother pleaded: Couldn’t you please pick someone less ‘obviously controversial?’ Thankfully we stayed together overcoming pressure from culture, family and friends … our Love prevailed.

In our 36 years together we’ve lived together, raised children together, shared intimate hopes and dreams together, practiced medicine together, vacationed together and grieved together as we lost friends to AIDS. Michael is my ally, friend, companion and now legal husband after four very public wedding-like commitment ceremonies.

Is Michael Really Black?
The short answer is yes. His skin color is a rich tan. That said, I see Michael more as a friend, lover, husband and confidant who happens to have darker skin. Our Revolutionary Love transformed black Michael into Michael who happens to be black. … Close proximity, frequent interaction, mutual trust and respect, (elements of our Revolutionary Love), caused me to see Michael’s character rather than his skin color … that was Dr. King’s dream. This Revolutionary Love transformed us both to see each other as our true selves, rather than what we looked like.

A telling anecdote occurred several years after Michael and I got together. We were at a large social gathering when Michael whispered to me “We’re the only black people at this party.” It took a minute for Michael’s Freudian slip to sink in … We had become to each other, members of the same human race.

The take away in this example is that our initial recognition of our racial difference caused our relationship to begin. As love drew us closer, we each became less aware of our skin colors, seeing more each other’s true essence. This pathway of first acknowledging, then accepting racial and cultural difference followed by long lasting mutual admiration, compassion, and trust defeated the very meaning of racism.

Road Blocks
Two major roadblocks to defeating racism are White Privilege and an unequal Race Based Justice system. Understanding these roadblocks has been the focus of our White Allies studies.

We’ve discovered that most white people, myself included, are totally unaware how we exercise White Privilege … unless it’s pointed out. In our Allies group we regularly share White Privilege scenarios we’ve observed in ourselves and others.

Race based inequality under the law has been publicized by the Black Lives Matter movement. … “Stop and Frisk,” “The War on Drugs” and supposedly “non-existent” racial profiling all claim to be race neutral but with implementation are racist.

Loving Away Racism

– I believe that the pathway to a tranquil diverse society must first start with a full awareness and acceptance of race and cultural differences. With purposeful proximity, genuine friendship, admiration, and trust we can defeat racism.

– We need to learn to recognize and condemn White Privilege wherever we find it.

– We need to be prepared to change ourselves whenever we discover our own exercise of White Privilege.

– We must insist upon truly equal enforcement and justice under the Law.

– We all need to accept, respect and follow leaders who happen to be POC. As Victor Hugo wrote … “To Love another person is to see the face of God.”

Homily 2
by Nicole Meitzen

Through my experiences in the racial justice movement in Central Texas, I have seen that revolutionary love is a verb, the act of choosing everyday to meet the world, each other, and our activism with an open heart and a consciousness of whether the impact of our actions is upholding white supremacist systems or dismantling them. Activist, scholar and author Angela Davis said “walls turned sideways are bridges.” The conscious choices inherent in revolutionary love are what turn the walls between us into bridges so we can embrace our shared humanity.

Revolutionary love is the choice to show up for racial justice everyday even when it feels scary, hard, and overwhelming. It is a love that grows through our presence and connection… putting our bodies on the line for our black brothers and sisters and declaring with them that Black Lives Matter. Racial justice activist Reverend Hannah Adair Bonner wrote “what’s a solidarity that doesn’t break? When you’re tired, when you’re scared, when you’re heart hurts: you’re still there.”

Revolutionary love is recognizing that David Joseph, Gyasi Hughes, and Sandra Bland are not “their” children but our children. It is choosing to stand with the families of these young people and demanding justice… demanding a society where young black people will be safe, respected, and loved not just at home but when they are in the midst of one of their most vulnerable moments, when they are walking the halls of their school, and when they are driving down the road. A society where black people will see their inherent worth, dignity, beauty, and power reflected back at them by the people and institutions they encounter in daily life.

Revolutionary love is the choice of white folks to explore white supremacy, its impacts, and our part in perpetuating it whether we claim to be anti-racist or not. It is taking the time and effort to read articles, blogs, books, and to engage in tough conversations without expecting peoples of color to take on the burden of educating us. It is challenging racist comments, actions, and systems and pushing through the discomfort of doing so. It is realizing our impact matters more than or “good” intentions and apologizing, making amends, and doing better next time when we are confronted for racist remarks and/or behavior. It is also remembering to offer ourselves and others a bit of grace because unlearning a lifetime of socialization in a white supremacist culture is a daily challenge. We will make mistakes along the way and these are the points where we learn and grow and develop the ability to engage with each other and the world in a way that supports racial justice rather than oppression.

Revolutionary love is the choice to raise a race conscious, rather than colorblind, family. It is white families realizing that while discussing race and racism is challenging, black families have no choice but to talk with their children in order to prepare them to safely navigate a world designed to treat them as less because of the color of their skin. It is white families teaching their kids that racism is systemic and that people have different life experiences and face striking inequities because our society is shaped by the violence inherent in white supremacy and racism. It is demonstrating with our actions and words that black lives matter and reminding our children that their actions and words can either support their black friends or endanger them physically, emotionally, and/or mentally. It is teaching our children that racism and slavery are not gone and that there is a vast history excluded from textbooks… especially in Texas. It is taking the time to teach our children this history to put the injustices they and their peers will encounter in true context. It is living our lives and engaging with our families in a way that our youth know their voices matter and that they are capable of challenging racist systems and creating a more just and loving world… and that they deserve nothing less.

Racism dehumanizes us all and the choice to love is what will reconnect and heal us.

As social activist bell hooks said, “When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other.”

Homily 3
by Julie Gillis

Looking back over my life, my activism has always had to do with the body. I’ve been a staunch supporter of reproductive justice, of LGBT intersecting rights, of worker’s rights, and of ability rights, anti-racism work. It is often frustrating work, and it can feel hopeless at times, especially in a state like Texas. Love, and its revolutionary power are vital to that work and for those who do that work.

I believe it’s revolutionary to love the body. The body gets complicated in our culture. From Original Sin to Pauline Theology to Dualism (and even other religious paths aiming to free to soul from its earthly form, the physical body gets a bad rap). I can admit to feeling fear when I share some of the storytelling work I do (it’s about the body and sexuality and pleasure) because our culture is so shaming, about what bodies should and shouldn’t do. But I do it anyway. I often feel fear when I confront my own racism, because I know it is a poison in my body, and in our larger cultural body. I wonder how to heal any of it while suffering from it and being, even inadvertently, a cause of it.

We may not always think of it that way, but racism is completely tied up in the body – people, centuries ago, decided that black and brown bodies should serve white bodies. The body itself was supposed to be a mirror of god, or we created god as a mirror of the dominant body at the time. In our culture it was a Christian, white, able bodied, straight, cis gendered men.

Thus we had bodies that were superior and other bodies to serve them. We had bodies with uteruses serving bodies without. Poor bodies made to work for rich bodies. Bodies to be sold. Or impregnated and given away. Or locked up in facilities for not being perfect. Laws were passed delineating who gets to pee where, who gets to decide when or if to stay pregnant. Who gets to ride a bus, who gets to drink out of a water fountain.

And if those disuniting decisions were being made by individuals, what happened next was that those isms solidified into institutions like the church body, which then reinforced personal beliefs in a toxic mobius strip effect. It’s also revolutionary love to confront the body politic.

I do this work because of the body. I have one. You have one. We all have one and they are precious. If our body as a church isn’t in alignment with the bodies of its people, we are going to have a hard time sustaining our mission statement of gathering together in community to nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice.

To stay in communion and complete that mission requires the revolutionary love that only our bodies can bring. Can you imagine what it would be to live in a world that LOVED each body? That loved the body of earth? Really LOVED it, like a parent loves a child or a lover loves the beloved? We wouldn’t hurt each other. We wouldn’t destroy our water, our air. We wouldn’t sell each other, or use each other like products based on gender, or melanin, or age.

We’d take delight in our differences. Take joy in shades of skin, textures of hair, wrinkles, sizes of bodies. Celebrate romantic unions of various genders happily and with grace. Honor choices. Share food and resources and lift each other up. We’d look back and be ashamed and heartbroken over what’s such disunity. We must wake up to that revolutionary love and real communion.

Our larger human body is only as healthy as our individual ones. The more we can heal and support the individual, the more impact on the institution, leading back to cultural bodies that truly support individual ones. That’s what nurtures me, this vision of love reversing that mobius strip into a healing cycle that support human beings and back again. It starts with love and with us.

Homily 4
by Rev. Chris Jimmerson

Text of the homily will be posted as it becomes available.

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 16 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.

Talking to the trees

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
June 5, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

What can we learn about community from pecan trees? From the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash?

Text of this sermon is not available. Click the play button to listen.

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 16 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.

 

Flower Communion

by Posted in Audio available, Marisol Caballero, Sermons

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Rev. Marisol Caballero
May 29, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We bring flowers to church for this UU tradition of resilience, renewal, and celebration of our individual gifts that create the bouquet of this church community. An all-ages intergenerational worship service.

Call to Worship
By Thomas Rhodes

We come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.
Some of us grow in bunches.
Some of us grow alone.
Some of us are cupped inward,
And some of us spread ourselves out wide.
Some of us are old and dried and tougher than we appear.
Some of us are still in bud.
Some of us grow low to the ground,
And some of us stretch toward the sun.
Some of us feel like weeds, sometimes.
Some of us carry seeds, sometimes.
Some of us are prickly, sometimes.
Some of us smell.
And all of us are beautiful.
What a bouquet of people we are!

Reading:

Today we listened to the story of “Ferdinand, the Bull”, about a bull who loved flowers. It was written by Munro Leaf. Here’s some interesting history about the book. According to wikipedia, “The book was released nine months before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, and was seen by many supporters of Francisco Franco as a pacifist book. It was banned in many countries, including in Spain. In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler ordered the book burned, while Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, granted it privileged status as the only non-communist children’s book allowed in Poland. India’s leader Mahatma Gandhi called it his favorite book.”

It’s only fitting that this book is being read today, the day before Memorial Day, when we remember, honor, and mourn all those members of our human family that war has taken from us. We know that the best way to honor the fallen soldier is to help heal the spiritually and bodily wounded and to work for a peace. This is our 6th Principle and our duty as fellow humans whose hearts still beat. So, today, hug a veteran. But instead of saying the all-too-common, “Thank you for your service,” let’s try something different. Let’s say, “I won’t forget you or your friends. I’ll do everything I can to bring peace to our world,” and, “Here’s a flower for you.”

Introduction to Flower Communion

The Unitarian Universalist Flower Communion service which we are about to celebrate was originated in 1923 by Rev. Dr. Norbert Capek founder of the modern Unitarian movement in Czechoslovakia. On the last Sunday before the summer recess of the Unitarian church in Prague, all the children and adults participated in this colorful ritual, which gives concrete expression to the humanity-affirming principles of our liberal faith. When the Nazis took control of Prague in 1940, they found Capek’s gospel of the inherent worth and beauty of every human person to be -as Nazi court records show — “… too dangerous to the Reich (for him) to be allowed to live.” Capek was sent to Dachau, where he was killed the next year by Nazis. This gentle man suffered a cruel death, but his message of human hope and decency lives on through his Flower Communion, which is widely celebrated today. It is a noble and meaning-filled ritual we are about to recreate. This service includes the original prayers of Capek to help us remember the principles and dreams for which he died.

Consecration of Flowers
by Norbert Capek

Infinite Spirit of Life, we ask thy blessing on these, thy messengers of fellowship and love. May they remind us, amid diversities of knowledge and of gifts, to be one in desire and affection, and devotion to thy holy will. May they also remind us of the value of comradeship, of doing and sharing alike. May we cherish friendship as one of thy most precious gifts. May we not let awareness of another’s talents discourage us, or sully our relationship, but may we realize that, whatever we can do, great or small, the efforts of all of us are needed to do thy work in this world.

Flower Communion

Flowers were a very important part of the story of Ferdinand. Flowers, in the story were a symbol of love and peace. Unitarian Universalist also use flowers as a symbol of love and peace in this special ceremony called Flower Communion.

It is time now for us to share in the Flower Communion. I ask that as you each in turn approach the communion vase you do so quietly –reverently — with a sense of how important it is for each of us to address our world and one another with gentleness, justice, and love. I ask that you select a flower different from the one you brought that particularly appeals to you. As you take your chosen flower noting its particular shape and beauty please remember to handle it carefully. It is a gift that someone else has brought to you. It represents that person’s unique humanity, and therefore deserves your kindest touch. Let us share quietly in this Unitarian Universalist ritual of oneness and love.

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 16 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.

 

What’s the difference: Venting vs Lamentation

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 22, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

“What’s the Difference?” This week we’ll look at the difference between venting vs. lamenting.

Today is the last of our “What’s the Difference?” sermons for this church year. We’re talking about the difference between lamentation and venting. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a book of Lamentations. The book consists of five separate poems. In the first (chapter 1), the city sits as a desolate weeping widow overcome with miseries. In Chapter 2 wonders whether the destruction of the city by the Babylonians is because of the sins of the nation. Chapter 3 has in it hope that the chastisement will be for the good of the people. The next chapters go back to wondering about the sins of the people, being sad and distressed that God seemed to have deserted them, questioning whether the punishment was too great for the sin, and hope for the recovery of the people. This exile of the people happened in 586 BCE. Many Jews stayed in Babylon, but others longed for Jerusalem. “By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept for thee, Zion. We remember thee, Zion.”

Each chapter is a poem, the first four are acrostics. They have groups of 22 lines, each starting with the next letter of the alphabet.

Lamentations are a form of prayer used in many ancient cultures. They are a crying out on behalf of a community, a cry from the heart and the spirit. There is anguish, self-examination, questioning of the way things work. “Did I cause this? What is my responsibility? Did I do something wrong? Am I supposed to learn a lesson here? What might the lesson be? How did this happen? What are the causes? What could we have done differently?”

Lamentation is rooted theologically: in your relationship to the Universe, to Wisdom, to God. Venting is just letting off steam, right?

Most of us have been taught that Venting is a good way to let off steam, to lance the blister of your anger. If you don’t express it, it turns inward. I was taught that as I was learning to be a therapist. Back in the 80’s, 30 years ago. Turns out, it’s not so true. Venting, with words or with physical punching, can make some people more angry, more aggressive. College students at Ohio State University, in a study directed by Dr. Brad Bushman were asked to write an essay, which they were told would be graded by another student. After they turned in the essay, they waited for it to be graded. It was returned to them with a big red F, and the comment “This is the worst essay I’ve ever read.” They were mad. One group of students was told to vent their anger by punching a big pillow. The other group just sat for a time. Then the researchers came in with cups and hot sauce. They told the angry students they could put any amount of hot sauce in the cup and their grader would have to drink it. The students who had just sat quietly with their thoughts poured a small amount into the cup. Those who had punched the pillows poured much more hot sauce, some filling the cups! That you need to vent your anger is being shown to be one of those “sticky” stories, to use a word from Malcom Gladwell. All evidence to the contrary, the story still persists.

Complaining is actually bad for you. Neuroscience (and if you are interested in this part, there is a class in the science of religion offered by two scientists in the congregation – look in the announcements in your oos) “synapses that fire together wire together.” Once you have a particular thought, it becomes easier and easier to have that thought again. You can complain, but if you become repetitive with it, it can cause a trend toward that kind of thought, and pretty soon you’re that whiny person who is hard to hang out with. Venting releases stress chemicals into your body, which is bad for BP, weight and blood sugar.

What can you do instead, that is different?

The ancient practice of lamentation differs from venting. It’s more often about a situation the community is in. It’s rooted in your theological view of the world. What is the world supposed to be like? Who is taking care of things? What is our part in what is happening? You are calling out in lamentation. To God, or to the Spirit of Life. Your heart is in a lament in the way that it’s not in a vent. Your attention is turned to your responsibility in the mess as well as wrongs done by another.

The first word of the book is “how,” which is central to the dynamic of lamentation. How did this terrible situation come about? What did I do? What was supposed to happen? What did I think would happen?

I wrote a lamentation in Biblical style, starting one line with each letter of the alphabet:

All the people on both sides seem to have lost their civility
Both Democrats are saying things which seem to me to be unwise
Civil discourse seems to be becoming a lost skill
Donald Trump
Education is so important to democracy.
Frustration and anger make better news than civil discourse.
Great? I think he means “Make America White Again.”
History is a great teacher.
I must admit I used to be riveted by the horrible things said and done.
Jefferson and Adams had a campaign nastier than this one.
Knowledge of the past gives us perspective
Laughing at it is not working for me any longer
My heart is seized with sorrow for my country
Nausea grips me as I watch the news
Oh, how did we get into this fix?
Please tell me everything is going to be all right
Quivering with dread, we listen for the next awful thing he’ll say
Remind me that nothing too terrible has happened yet
Sweet dreams of a just society fuel our actions.
Teaching civics in the school would help people understand how things work
Understanding others is what we should work on before trying to be understood by others
Variations in views are a quality of every free society
We’re all in this together
Xenophobia is a human failing we must always work against.
Yelling is a sign that no communication is happening.
Zero is the number of ideas on how to fix it.

Maybe next time you want to vent, hold it, deepen it, and write a lament in Biblical style. You might learn something, and rather than just going round and round in welle worn circles, you might. grant your pain some forward motion.

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 16 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.

 

Finding the divinity in the Mundane

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Youth of First UU Church of Austin
May 15, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

“Youth Sunday: Finding the Divinity in the Mundane” with the Senior High Youth Group. Our annual youth-led Sunday service. The wisdom of adolescence will share their particular insight into the topic of discovering the divine within the routine of our daily lives.

Call to Worship: “Finding the Divine in the Mundane” by Rae Milstead

Reading: “What is there beyond knowing” by Mary Oliver
read by Bridget Lewis

Homily: Kira Azulay

Homily: Alica Stadler

Homily: Alex Runnels

Homily: Theo Moers

Benediction: Abby Poirier

Text of this sermon is not available. Click the play button to listen.

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 16 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.

 

Make New Mistakes

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 8, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

“Make New Mistakes” If you can’t be the good witch, can you be the good-enough witch?

Meditation
Rev. Dr. Maureen Killoran

Let us tell the stories of mothers … stories that could be true.

Let us tell of warm mothers, soft and round, likely to be found with flour on their nose, and always ready to pour you a glass of milk to go with the cookies on your plate. These mothers are increasingly rare.

Let us tell of mothers who are like bubbles of champagne: they surprise your senses, leave you giggly, but when you least expect it they erupt with an unexpected ‘pop.’

Stories that could be true.

Then there are grouchy mothers, stressed mothers, exhausted mothers, faces lined with worry and spirits tired and grey.

Other mothers are wise and reliable; not prone to many words or to a lot of noise – but you know that when you need them, they’ll be there.

Let us tell of fierce mothers, the ones who’ll love you even when you’re wrong.

Let us tell also of absent mothers, whose memory shimmers at the edges of your heart.

Let us tell of distant mothers … cruel mothers … loving mothers … giving mothers. There are walk-away mothers … save-the-world mothers too-busy mothers … mothers you cry because you lost them, and mothers who make you cry because you can’t …

Stories that could be true.

May we hold in our hearts the mothers we have known; those who loved us-and those who tried.

May we forgive the mothers who didn’t get it right, and try to release the knots of disappointment … anger … grief … pain.

May we hold in our hearts the truth that mothering-nurturing-is a task that belongs to us all.

However old or young you are, whatever your gender, may you make extra room for nurturing in your life this week.

May you say something real to a harried store clerk, give a co-worker a genuine compliment, take time to listen deeply to a friend.

In our shared silence may we remember, and reflect, and create anew, the stories of love and nurture, from this point forward, stories that can be true.

Sermon

I worked for around 15 years as a therapist, and I heard a lot of people talk about feeling like a failure. When we explored that feeling, it seemed that anything less than perfection felt like failure to some people. They felt they had disappointed their parents. “What did your parents expect from you?” I asked “They wanted me to be perfect.”

Many of us are more critical of ourselves than anyone else could be. Our mistakes glare at us when we survey our lives. Things we’ve said, things we hadn’t thought of that we should have thought of. Damage we’ve done. Businesses we’ve attempted that didn’t make it. Relationships that didn’t last. Times when you yelled at your children when you had resolved not to yell.

Speaking of that, happy Mother’s Day. Parenting is a minefield of mistakes. Mother-guilt is the worst, as you look around and imagine that every other woman is a better mother than you are. You try to teach good values, manners, conversational skills. You wonder sometimes if your kids are already damaged by something you did while you were still building them in your body, or by something you forgot to protect them from, or by something they are doing that you should have known about even though they were trying with all their skill and might to keep it from you. For your own protection and peace of mind.

I’ll tell you how to be a good mother (and father.) Understand that they are watching what you do, along with listening to what you say. Be the person you would want them to be. Don’t only talk about your values, live them. Heal yourself. Ask what you would want them to do in the situations in which you find yourself, and then model that.

Back to my therapy office. I had a cartoon on the wall (and I’m not a big cartoon person) that showed Glinda in her psychiatrist’s office. She’s saying “Everyone wants something. This one wants a heart, that one wants courage …. It’s too much.” The caption underneath reads “Glinda learns just to be the good-enough witch.”

Some of us will go to great lengths to avoid making a mistake. It can keep you from trying new things. Mostly it’s the first borns and only children. Some of us grew up with people who would joke “I’m never wrong, except for this one time in 1993, when I thought I was wrong, but it turns out I wasn’t. … ” The family joked that the headstone on my grandfather’s grave should be engraved with “Often in error, never in doubt.” Sometimes people do the same things over and over, even though they’re not working, just because to try something new would be scary and odd, and these, at least, are familiar mistakes.

The world’s best wisdom says mistakes, even failures, are generative, they are necessary for growth. Mistakes are how you get to new knowledge. Thomas Edison said “I’ve not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

Danish Nobel Prize winner, Niels Bohr, says, “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field”.

The drive to avoid mistakes can lead to a certain kind of success. There is nothing wrong with this. Out of the 23 first NASA astronauts, 21 were first borns. This is not the case for inventors, though, many of whom are people who are more sanguine about trying things. They are more ok with making mistakes, doing things that turn out not to work. My older son and I were playing around with a puzzle. Nine dots in rows of three, making a square. The challenge was to draw a line, without picking your pencil up, connecting all nine dots. We had worked on it for about ten minutes, trying this or that, and my younger son came over to see what we were doing. He picked up the pencil, drew a line that ran, shockingly, out of the square, and then back down to connect the rest of the dots. They hadn’t said not to move out of the box, but we had imagined that rule for ourselves.

This congregation is vigorously living our mission, trying to figure out whether we want to be a Sanctuary Church, or just be a church that does sanctuary when it’s called for, and works with several refugees at a time trying to keep them from being in a situation where they have to leave their homes and families and go into sanctuary. We might make a mistake. We might have to say “Hmm. This isn’t working. We made a mistake. Let’s do something different.” You’re not irresponsible if you make a mistake doing things no one else is doing nor knows how to do. You’re not an idiot. You’re just trying a new thing.

We are moving forward on a building expansion and renovation project. We are using the best expertise we know how to use. We raised money at the top of the range of what churches can raise, 5 times our annual giving. You all are a tremendous success. Will we spend it all perfectly? We’re going to try. Might we make a mistake? What if we do?

What do you do when you make a mistake? You see what part of it was yours. You take responsibility and let go of the self-defense.

Then you say you’re sorry.

Then you try to learn and heal that part of yourself that led to the mistake. And you try to make amends.

“I’m sorry. I love you.” Repeat. To the universe. As you heal yourself, you heal others.

I made a mistake this week. I know better. I said things that hurt someone I like and respect a good deal. I realized I’d caused hurt, and I apologized. I was laughing about something just because it made me uncomfortable, I said, which was the truth. I was understood and forgiven on the spot. I didn’t forgive myself, though. That takes longer. Looking at what happened, I made a plan to get more comfortable with that issue. In order to say fewer hurtful things, some people try to watch what they say. That never works.

The beauty of working on yourself, on the thoughts and love level, is that you don’t have to watch what you say if you see more clearly, if you judge less and understand more.

“I don’t know what to say to these people,” I heard someone say.

Well, first of all, there is no “these people.” There are just people. There are those of us who are Democrat and those of us who are Republican. There are those of us who are comfortable financially and those of us who are struggling. There are those of us who are straight and those of us who are gay, and a lot of people on the continuum in between. There are those of us who are male and those of us who are female and there are those who move in-between on the continuum. The wider we draw the circle the less we have to wonder what to say to “those people.” They are us.

Go ahead and mix with folks you don’t know what to say around. You will make mistakes. Look forward to it. It’s the way we learn, and we love learning.

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 16 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.

 

Prayer beads for UUs

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 1, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

How might UUs use prayer beads? What is prayer for UUs? How does having something tangible in in our hand help our mind and spirit?

Call to Worship

from “Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers”
by Anne Lamott

Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, “Well, that’s pretty much what I thought I’d see,” you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here. […] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

Meditation

by Annie Dillard

The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through empty air. Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass. I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; there was no one else in sight. The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest. The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

Sermon

You were given three beads as you came in this morning. What we are going to do is talk about prayer beads. The reason for beads is that people want to pray. We want to meditate. We want to slow down and take ten deep breaths for our blood pressure, but we don’t. We want to remember to say kind things to our partner or spouse, we want to say the lovingkindness meditation during the week, but we don’t. Beads are there as a tangible reminder, something to hold, to help us keep track, to catch our attention, to ground us with their texture in our hand, to connect our meditation with our senses.

Beads have been used from time immemorial to help people pray. Of course they don’t know for sure when people began using beads to pray. There are beads that look like prayer beads from Egypt as early as 3200 B.C.E. In a museum in central Europe, there is a fossil of a necklace of shell and bone. We don’t know if it was used just for decoration or for prayer. These days, most of the world’s inhabitants — nearly two-thirds of the planet’s population — pray with beads. Maybe they relate to the abacus. Maybe ancient people did what the Christian third century Desert Mothers and Fathers did, carrying a particular number of pebbles in their pockets, which they dropped one by one on the ground as they said each of their prayers.

INDIA
In India, sandstone carvings dating from 185 B.C.E. show people holding prayer beads. The same strand of prayer beads, called a japa mala, is still used, designed for wear around the neck. It has 108 beads for repeating mantras or counting one’s breaths. Japa means saying the name of God, and mala means “rose” or “garland” in Sanskrit.

BUDDHISM
Buddhists inherited the mala from Hinduism, since Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism. They use 108 beads or a number of beads that goes into 108, so you would go around the circle of beads twice or three times to make the 108. In Tibet, malas of inlaid bone originally included the skeleton parts of holy men, to remind their users to live lives worthy of the next level of enlightenment. Today’s bone malas are made of yak bone, which is sometimes inlaid with turquoise and coral.

The 108 beads represent the number of worldly desires or negative emotions that must be overcome before attaining nirvana. Buddhists believe that saying a prayer for each fleshly failing will purify a person.

CHRISTIAN
It’s interesting that the word mala means “rose,” or “garland.” Roman Catholics and Anglicans use a Rosary as prayer beads. It’s name comes from the Latin “rosarium,” meaning “rose garden.” The beads were also sometimes made of crushed and cooked rose petals. Praying the rosary is a traditional devotion of the Roman Catholic Church, combining prayer and meditation in sequences (called “decades”) of one Our Father, ten Hail Marys, and a Glory Be to the Father, as well as a number of other prayers (such as the Apostle’s Creed and the Hail Holy Queen) at the beginning and end. The Desert Fathers (third to fifth century) switched from using stones to using knotted ropes or a piece of leather to count prayers, typically the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”) The rosary is given ceremonially to a Greek Orthodox monk as the second step in the monastic life. It is called his ‘spiritual sword’.”

ISLAM
In Islam, prayer beads are referred to as Misbaha, and contain 99 beads, corresponding to the 99 Names of Allah.

NATIVE AMERICAN
Beads have always had a spiritual significance to Native Americans; neck medallions as early as A.D. 800 served as talismans. Certain items of jewelry and other ornamentation using beads were often central in healing ceremonies.

AFRICAN
The Yoruba believe that using beads enhances the power of ritual objects. The Masai find beads so meaningful to their culture that their language includes more than 40 words for different kinds of beadwork.

PRAYER
We’re Unitarian Universalists. How do we pray? From not at all through all types of meditation to traditional asking God for help. People think and talk about prayer in such different ways. For most religious people of every faith, prayer is asking God to do something. You beseech the Lord, you beg, you plead. Some people teach that God is a good parent, that God knows what you need without being asked, but that the asking is for your benefit. That is how I was taught. Other people act like God is an arrogant and forgetful king, who could do anything he wanted to do for you, but, unless you beg pretty, unless you do everything exactly right and say just the right thing, with just the right tone, just the right level of faith, having sent seed money to the right religious enterprise, God will not do what you need for him to do.

I think prayer is putting our focus, our energy toward something, or being grateful for something or just holding something in our heart and mind. I think there is something important about paying attention, and that is a big part of praying. Paying attention to the thing. Anne Lamott says there are only three prayers you need: Thanks. Wow. And Help! Do you need to have traditional beliefs to be in a position to say “Help!” No. I like to believe that there is a river of love running through the world that I call God, and that I can call out to love for help. Does it come from outside me? Inside? From other people, from the animals, the rocks, the trees and the stars? From spirits of people who have died? From particles smaller than the bosun that respond to desperation with some kind of release of energy? Or is it just good for me to acknowledge that I need help? Does any of that really matter, when you’re desperate for help and some help arrives? But maybe it doesn’t arrive, and then you are left telling yourself stories about why it didn’t…. Choosing your beliefs is fraught with joy and heartbreak.

REPEATING PRAYERS
Maybe prayer, like ritual, is one way to change your consciousness at will. Medieval monks wrote that after several weeks of repeating a prayer for many hours a day, they entered an altered state. They said they could see a powerful light around them. One mystic described the condition as a “most pleasant heat,” a “joyful boiling.”

In the early 1970’s, Dr. Herbert Benson, president and founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard Medical School, documented a phenomenon he dubbed “the relaxation response”.

Benson experimented using Sanskrit mantras. He told his subjects to sit quietly and repeat the mantra either silently or aloud for ten to twenty minutes, to breathe regularly and to let all thoughts pass by, inviting the mind to be blank.

Benson found that those who repeated the Sanskrit mantras, for as little as ten minutes a day, experienced physiological changes-reduced heart rate, lower stress levels and slower metabolism. Repeating the mantras also lowered the blood pressure of those who had high blood pressure and generally decreased the subjects’ oxygen consumption (indicating that the body was in a restful state). Benson and his colleagues also tested other prayers, including “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, and found that they had the same effect. Even words like “one,” “ocean,” “love” and “peace” produced the response. It appears that Benson and his colleagues had uncovered a universal principle: repetitive prayer allows human beings to enter a relaxed state. More recently, researchers at U Mass and other institutions have discovered that meditation can lead to the thickening of certain regions of the brain. Gray matter is actually produced. There is a benefit to prayer that has little to do with belief at all.

We could use the three beads to: do the Buddhist prayer
1. yourself,
2. one you love
3. one you have trouble with

OR Do one thing you’re grateful for, one thing you are asking for, one thing you will give

OR Sets of ten deep breaths

I want you to think about the mission of this congregation. You could use the first bead to think about how your soul has been nourished, what nourishment it needs, how you have nourished the souls of others, and how you could do that today. The second bead is all about transformation. How has your life been transformed today, if it has? What kind of transformation would you like to experience? Could you help transform someone else’s life today? The third is the justice bead. How have you done justice today? What kind of justice do you need? Can you support someone else who is doing justice? We are not all activists every day: sometimes we are called to be in support. This is something you practice. I invite you to try it.

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 16 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.

Will the real me please stand up?

by Posted in Audio available, Marisol Caballero, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Marisol Caballero
April 24, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Have you ever felt like you are “faking it ’til you make it,” but wonder when the “making it” part will begin? How do such fears align with our theologies? How might such concerns actually serve us?

Call to Worship

“All That Lies Within You”
by Angela Herrera

Consider this an invitation
To you.
Yes-you
With all your happiness
And all of your burdens,
Your hopes and regrets.
An invitation if you feel good today,
And an invitation if you do not,
If you are aching-
And there are so many ways to ache.

Whoever you are, however you are,
Wherever you are in your journey,
This is an invitation into peace.
Peace in your heart,
And peace in your heart,
And-with every breath
Peace in your heart.

Maybe your heart is heavy
Or hardened.
Maybe it’s troubled
And peace can take up residence
Only in a small corner,
Only on the edge,
With all that is going on in the world,
And in your life.
Ni modo. It doesn’t matter.

All that you need
For a deep and comforting peace to grow
Lies within you.
Once it is in your heart
Let it spread into your life,
Let it pour from your life into the world
And once it is in the world,
Let it shine upon all beings.

Reading

Ms. Perfect
by Kaaren Solveig Anderson

Round, brown, doe-like eyes rested near the edge of her glasses. Best described as stout, there was nothing unhurried about her. The skin under her arms swung in pendulum force when she moved due to years of weight fluctuation. My grandmother. Far from slave to fashion, she nonetheless cared about her appearance, wearing a full-corseted girdle daily. She wasn’t ugly or beautiful, yet she sported a quick, one-sided mischievous grin that always kept you guessing as to her womanly guises. She was a klutz of enormous proportions, the trait I inherited. A woman who looked like a grandmother at thirty. It may not have helped that she drove a 1964 Plymouth Valiant with pushbutton transmission, the kind of car that no matter what your age screamed geriatric mobile.

My grandmother was a misfit of sorts. When I was a child, she was my icon of paradox. On one hand she was the mother of comfort. Her house always smelled of overcooked vegetables and well-used wool. When feeling out of sorts, she would promptly offer you her favorite food: Cheese Whiz on toast. On the other hand, nobody could embarrass me asa kid, making me uncomfortable like she could. She would be deep in conversation with someone while concurrently and unabashedly scratching her large bosom, oblivious to the obvious misstep in propriety.

She was queen of malaprop, which at times proved humorous and at others embarrassing. Once she was telling some friends of the family about my cousin’s recent abode in Missouri, where she was attending college. “Well, Liv has found such a nice condom to live in, it’s beautiful” It took everything in all of us gathered in her living room to bite any part of our mouth in an effort to control our laughter. The image of a house-sized latex condom serving as a woman’s condo had us in fits.

This odd woman could weave beauty into lives like none other. An avid, veracious quilter, she was a binder of pieces and parts. She took beauty seriously, and expected the rest of us to do so, too. She was the most patient, attentive counselor. When burdened with life’s questions and perplexities, her living room was always open, her ear always attuned, her answers measured. She could also give you a biting retort if she believed you to be slothy, unethical, or lazy in behavior.

My grandmother died ten years ago now. I miss her oddness, her quirky character. The older I get, the more I realize she had a lot to teach me- not in family history or in how to be a quilter, or how to make carnage of fresh vegetables. No, the older I get, the more I think she was perfect. She wasn’t a model with flawless features. She wasn’t a Nobel Laureate, distinguished, astute, or brilliant. She wasn’t even the nicest, kindest, gentlest person I know. She was perfect because she knew how to be her – Sylvia Anderson. She knew how to be human, not a facade of one. There was no pretense about her, you got what you saw. She fit into her skin, and her skin fit her.

My own skin doesn’t always fit so well. I get hung up on vanity, or trying to be hip or cool, or allowing conventional etiquette to rule my behavior or actions. I get in my own way of being me. My skin would fit better if I just remembered more often that wonderful woman I once knew and thought of her greatest gifts of being: contradiction, fallibility, and humor. The makings of a perfect gal.

Sermon: “Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?”

Those of us who grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons, or who had kids or grandkids that did, remember the life lessons of Scooby Do: you can spend a ton of time freaked out, trembling in the arms of your dog or running in and out of the same doors in an endless hallway, but in the end, that which you were deathly afraid of is usually not at all what you perceived it to be. In fact, our fears rarely match up to reality. Or, in the case of Scooby Doo and crew, our fears are usually an old, balding, maniacal capitalist.

Then, we grow up and figure out that there is still so much we haven’t figured out; so much we aren’t the best at yet; so much more to be afraid of the gang in The Mystery Machine. In fact, I am not sure that any of us ever feel we’ve really gotten a hang of things at any stage of our lives. As soon as we’ve figured out how to be good at being unjaded, bright-eyed twenty-somethings, we are already heading into our thirties. As soon as we feel like we are settling into our thirties – getting better established in our careers or discovering a passion we weren’t aware of in our young adulthood – we look in the mirror to find a gray hair springing up on the top of our head, or losing hair on the top of our head and growing them in strange, uninvited places and we think, “I’m just getting started here! My years are flying by so quickly!” And it goes on and on like this in every stage… All of us, to some degree, are faking it. We are faking having this adulating thing figured out. New parents often think, “How in the world did anyone think I could be responsible for keeping this tiny, fragile person alive!?”

Often times, this sense of “faking it ’till we make it,” is a psychological phenomenon referred to as Impostor Syndrome. The term was coined in 1978 by psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. They described it as, “phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” Those with Impostor Syndrome-esque thoughts, “are highly motivated to achieve,” yet, “live in fear of being ‘found out’ or exposed as frauds.” With all of the pressures of perfectionism that many of us place on ourselves, we often feel like phonies and secretly, maybe even in the back of our minds, worry that we will be found out at some point and the ruse will be up. Psychologists and sociologists say that Impostor Syndrome has an increased probability the more we feel we are being watched. The greater our level of mastery in our talent or field, the more likely we are to doubt our right to deserving such a station. So, those who are in supervisory roles, excelling in their careers, or possess any amount of celebrity. In fact, Impostor Syndrome has great prevalence among celebrities. Albert Einstein, at the end of his life, told a close friend, ” …the exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.” Maya Angelou, winner of three Grammy awards, a Pulitzer prize, a Tony award, and read an original poem at a presidential inauguration, once said, “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.” In a 2013 interview with Maria Hinojosa of NPR’s Latino USA fame, US Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor confessed, “I have been living in a state of lack of reality for the past 3 1/2 years.”

Last year, I got an email from the UUA, asking me if I would be interested in giving a talk at General Assembly in Portland. They were launching a series of talks that would be akin to TED Talks, but with themes with a large UU audience in mind. Apparently, they were only asking about a dozen or so “innovative leaders” within our movement to consider leading such a talk. I’ll be honest, my first thought was, “WOOHOOO!!!! What an honor!” But, within seconds, my second thought was, “Oh no! What, an honor!? Why me? Why and how on earth did my name get into anyone’s mouth as an innovative UU leader?!! What do I have to say that hasn’t already been said? What in the world am I going to talk about!?” I worked on a presentation informed by one of my favorite mujerista theologians (feminist theology from a Latina perspective), Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz. When the day came, I was shaking like a leaf on a tree as I looked out and saw members of this congregation, Meg was sitting right there, several folks I had known throughout various stages of my journey toward ministry, and a huge room of strangers expecting some unique idea. The stakes were high.

Then, editor of the UU World, Kenny Wiley, introduced me as if I were Prince himself, saying things like, “I have admired her for a long time… ” I thought, “Why?! I only know you extremely marginally through mutual friends. What in the world could you possibly know about me?” I shook through the whole presentation and was sure, at some points, that my knees would lock and I would pass out, on camera, in front of everyone. To be perfectly honest, though I know I have been super involved in the UU movement for most of my life and have worked really hard, I still have no idea why I was asked to do that talk. I’m not even sure how it went, though Meg and others told me that it went very well… but you never really know, right!? But, when observing facts, all I can say is that this year, I have been asked back to give another GA Talk! This time, Rev. Chris and I have been asked to co-lead a talk specifically on the subject of this month’s Spring Into Action focus: our church’s involvement in sanctuary. Thank goodness I’ll have Chris’ brilliance there to rely upon this time!

Now, hold on. Before you start ordering the catering for my pity party know that, like most who have impostor thoughts, I don’t always feel this way about myself and my accomplishments. I am only exposing my underbelly to normalize these emotions. Comedian, Tina Fey, is quoted as saying, “The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh, God! They’re on to me! I’m a fraud!” One day, you can have on new shoes – that sometimes does it for me – and be super-confident and the next be completely tentative of each step.

Historically marginalized and presumed incompetent populations are more prone to experiencing a high degree of impostor syndrome, such as women, people of color, and first generation immigrants, and higher education graduates. Comedian, Sarah Silverman, refers to this mental battle against oneself as an aspect of the “vagina tax,” that society charges women. Women in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) that continue to be largely an old boy’s club, are particularly vulnerable to feeling like a fraud. Studies show that although Impostor Syndrome certainly does affect many, if not most, of us, women are more likely to agonize over mistakes and failures, small and large, as view it as proof of their incompetence. Men, on the other hand, will not wrestle so much him self-blame. Women are more likely to view good fortune as some fluke or grand stroke of luck, while men will remember their accomplishments that made them worthy of such advancement. If a woman tries on clothing in her size that is ill-fitting, she will believe there to be some deficit in her body, where as a man is more likely to view it as a deficit in the clothing.

As is the case with women, people of color, and the poor, these self-deriding thoughts don’t come from outer space. They are messages that are fed to us from every direction from birth. It would be extremely difficult for even the most socially conscious, well-adapted member of such groups to not internalize some of these messages in some way, though Sotomayor asserts that, “the greatest obstacle people will experience in life is not discrimination (itself), it’s their own fear.”

Are thoughts of being an impostor always a bad thing? How do they serve us? How do they limit us? Well, for starters, a good measure of humility never hurt anyone. Feeling as if we have yet more to learn, more goals to reach, will keep us ever-striving and urge us against complacency and disinterest in healthy competition. Too much of this brand of self-doubt can be outright debilitating. It can keep us from fulfilling our dreams and potential; from realizing our passions.

Paraphrasing Mr. Rogers, Sarah Silverman reminds us that, “if it’s mentionable, it’s manageable.” She says, “I always look at myself knowing that I will have a certain degree of cognitive distortion… so I put it on a bell curve. I kind of adjust what I’m seeing and know that it’s better than what I’m seeing, whether that’s true or not.” I think that a good rule of thumb when thoughts like this rise up is to think of your best friend – the person you admire the most in the world. If they were saying the things about themselves that you find yourself saying, what would you say to them? Would you stand for them ignoring their greatness?

One of my favorite bloggers, who goes by the name Awesomely Luvvie, has some pro-tips for vanquishing impostrous thoughts (see what I did there!?) She tries to remind herself that:

– I am not the best. I don’t have to be. I am enough. The idea of “best” is temporary. The person who wins a race won it once. The next race, they might no longer be the best. Are they at least in the top 3? Did they beat their own time from the last race? We can reach for being the best but thinking we’ve lost just because we didn’t win is the quickest way to psyche yourself out.

– I’ve worked my bootie off. At the minimum, that hard work has earned me a ticket in. Even if I am not the best, the fact that I KNOW that I work hard, then maybe that alone is enough to have me in that room. My grind got my foot in the door. I can at least give myself that.

– Knowing that there are subpar and mediocre people out there who still think they belong in the room that your EXCEPTIONAL bootie thinks you don’t deserve to be in. Trust and believe that there are people with far less skills than you, who cannot be swayed from thinking that the room should have been named after them. People who cannot hold a torch to you are out here crowning themselves. Never underestimate the power of confidence. If you believe you’re the dopest thing walking, you might convince people of the same, just because you’re so headstrong about it as a fact.

– Even if I happen to be in the room by accident, and by no doing of my own, I AM IN THAT ROOM. It is no longer an accident. How do I make it intentional and purposeful? Well, I better learn from the best then. I better walk away from that room inspired, with a resolve to be a more superior version of myself. So next time I AM in the room, I feel at home in it.

(“Hidden Divinity” story from Earth Care: World Folktales to Talk About, p. 93)

Let’s remember to never stop looking for that inner divinity within each and everyone of us.

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 16 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.

 

What’s the difference between Trinitarian v Unitarian?

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons, Video available

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 17, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In this ongoing sermon series about differences between one historical, political, or spiritual perspective and another, this Sunday we’ll look at the differences between Trinitarians and Unitarians.

I’d like to start with a seminar question: What is the opposite of “Divine?”

In order to go more deeply into the history of Unitarianism, we’re going to go all the way back to the early days of Christianity. Rabbi Jesus had just died. Confusion reigned. What had just happened? What did it mean? Was anyone writing anything down? We think yes, possibly. What about the gospels, you might ask? There were many gospels being written. (Gospel means “good news.”) There was the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Thomas the Contender, the Gospel of Judas, , and nearly forty others. By the year 140, the four we have now were being used, along with the Shepherd of Hermas, and the letters of Clement, Bishop of Rome.

The final canon, or list, of the writings to be called The Bible was decided once in the year 397, and then again, a final decision at the Council of Trent in the fifteen hundreds. Even now, Roman Catholic Bibles have in them books that Protestant Bibles don’t have.

Mark was written first, around 70. Matthew next, late 70’s, early 80’s. Luke was around that same time, and then the Gospel of John was last, around 90, sixty years after Jesus died. The pictures of Jesus emerging from the four are somewhat different. The first three, called the “Synoptic Gospels,” (ie “seen from the same eye”) tell similar stories, even using some of the same words to tell the stories. Scholars think they used an early source we just call “Q.” John didn’t seem to use Q, and his vision of who Jesus is, or was, is elevated to someone who existed before history, from the very beginning, who is one with God. This is called your “Christology,” how divine you think he was, and John’s is the highest. Mark’s is seen as the lowest. In that gospel, Jesus is portrayed as mostly human, the Son of God, the Messiah. Equal to God? Not really, until John.

Christology, the amount of human v the amount of divine in Jesus Christ (Christ being the word for the divine part) was the thing early Christianity fought about most. People said he was God, and human at the same time. He was God so his death ( and resurrection) would be strong enough to save people. He was human so God would really have joined us here on this planet. That is the crux of the story, the heart of the difference between Trinitarian and Unitarian.

Teachers arose to address this conundrum and others. Our roots are with one of those teachers, Arius of Alexandria, Egypt. One teacher would say, “Jesus was both divine and human, and the way that worked was that his body was human, but his spirit was divine.”

“That’s wrong!” another would say, “Jesus was both divine and human, and the way that worked was that his body and spirit were human, but his will was divine, the same will as God’s will.”

“That’s wrong!” another would say, “Jesus was both divine and human, and the way that worked was that everything about him was divine, he just appeared to be human.”

Arius solved the problem of this dual nature by teaching that Jesus was not God, but was created by God, kind of a junior partner with God. Arianism is the name for that heresy, our heresy. “Heresy,” just means a belief that the mainstream calls an error. “Orthodoxy” is the word for what the main stream believes. At the council of Nicea, and again at church councils after that, the dogma was that God was a Trinity, One God in Three Persons. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They declared Arius a heretic and all of his followers heretics. You were in danger of being thrown in prison for disagreeing, as Arius had, with the idea of the Trinity.

Many conventions, councils, were held over the next thousand years, and this issue was one of the most contentious. Was Jesus “of the same substance” (homoousion) with the Father? Or was he, as some of the the followers of Arius were willing to compromise: “of similar substance” (homoiousion) with God. The difference between homoousion (the same substance) and homoiousion (similar substance, but not the same) one iota. See what one iota of difference can be. I hope you will bear with me for a moment when I draw a superhero parallel. When you think of Jesus as God, he is a superhero who can do anything. He is a being from another place, like Superman. He can fly, he can circle the earth so fast that time starts to run backward. When you think of him as human, he’s a superhero like Batman. Just a man with some amazing skills and equipment. One of the most frequently asked questions of UUism is “What do you think of Jesus, is he divine?” One UU way to answer is “yes, he was divine, and so are you.”

What is the opposite of divine? Remember our seminar question? For the Christians, the answer was “human.” If you have another perspective, if you believe that everything is connected, that the Earth is alive, that we are all part of one another, that there is one soul of all things, then human and “divine” are not opposites. If there is just Being, and Love, then those are part of what we might think of as “divine.” They are part of us. This is a part of Transcendentalism that derives from the wisdom of Hinduism and Buddhism. This is well within the theological tradition of Unitarianism. Hear it?

“Unitarian,” means One. God is one. No, Jesus isn’t a divine savior. We are all part of God. Trinitarianism splits God into three, with humans as the fourth, the broken piece. For some people, that way of seeing things has the most power. If you feel the need of a savior, you feel you need to be saved from something (hell? God?) or saved for something (heaven?) That savior should be powerful and loving. Why can’t God just save you, though?

You end up with a story that has God split off part of himself, give birth to a son and then kill him to satisfy some rule that was made by — God? Couldn’t God just forgive people without killing his child, or killing part of himself? Did God set up a system God can’t fix without death?

If Jesus is not divine, or is divine in the same way we are, and in the same way things are, at their heart, then it is the one-ness that we have to deal with. Lovely as long as you have a kind of dolphins-and-sunsets theology, where you sigh in awe of the beauty of it all. As you widen your view, though, you have to deal with the question of pain, cancer cells, flesh-eating bacteria, mosquitos and entropy. So if there is one soul of all things, it has to be the soul of all of the painful things as well as the lovely things. A more powerful story, but not as sweet. I don’t want you to be among the shallow thinkers who say “Oh, we believe in the oneness of everything” blithely, without thinking about that word: Everything.

We are from the Unitarians, the children of Arius and the brave dissenters against the doctrine of the Trinity, of people who wanted things to make sense. Heretics no longer, because we have formed a house of our own faith, where we are the main stream and we create our theology as we learn and grow.

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 16 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.

 

Transformation

by Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons, Video available

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
April 10, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The last of our church’s religious values, transformation is: “To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world.” What is transformation and how does it occur?

Call to worship

Now let us worship together.

Now let us celebrate our highest values.

Transcendence

To connect with wonder and awe of the unity of life

Community

To connect with joy, sorrow, and service with those whose lives we touch

Compassion

To treat ourselves and others with love

Courage

To live lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty

Transformation

To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world

Now we raise up that which we hold as ultimate and larger than ourselves.

Now we worship, together.

Reading

In the night,

I dreamt of a world made better by our togetherness.

Of reaching toward never before imagined horizons,
Made knowable and possible only by living in mutuality.

I saw distant lands made out like visions of paradise,
Replenished and remade through a courage that embraced interdependence.

We dwelt in fields of green together,
Fertile valleys nurtured by trust.

We built visions of love and beauty and justice,
Nourished by partnership, cultivated through solidarity.

I dreamt of lush forests thriving with life,
Oceans teaming with vitality,
Mountains stretching toward majesty,

Our world made whole again.

These things we had done together.

These things we had brought to pass with each other.

These dream world imaginings seemed possible in the boundless creativity we only know through our unity.

I awoke,

And still, the dream continues.

Sermon

“Transformation – To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world” – Today is the final of a series of worship service on our church’s five religious values. I think it is fitting that our value of transformation is listed last among our values. It is in many ways the culmination of living our other values.

Our mission arose out of our values, and I also think it is significant that two of our values ended up being restated in the mission – community (“we gather in community”) and transformation (“transform lives” – and really, to “nourish souls” and to “do justice” also require transformation). Here’s why I think that is significant. I believe that transformation, both in our own lives and in our world, is the reason for religious and spirituality communities to exist.

Joseph Campbell, a scholar of comparative mythology and religion wrote and spoke about the “hero’s journey”, mythological tales, which he found within all world religions. Such myths and religious stories, while, of course, not literally true, convey metaphorical truths about transforming ourselves and our world.

These myths contain a number of commonalities, not all of which we will go into today. Most often the central character is called from within a community where change is needed and must journey into a different environment – the wilderness, the desert, a mountaintop, the land of their enemies – where they are tested and challenged. In this process, the central character is spiritually transformed and returns to their community as an agent of continued transformation.

In these myths, transformation requires struggle – what the preacher at the little Baptist church we went to when I was a child used to describe in the temptations of Christ story as “trials and tribulations”. Transformation also always involves loss, as who the hero has been must cease to be in order for transformation to occur – something new to become.

It involves sacrifice and serving the needs of others, losing one’s self or giving of one’s self to something larger.

Campbell believed that we are all on a hero’s journey of sorts to find our deepest center – to transform ourselves into the person we were born to be. This, he said, is our “soul’s high adventure”.

Several summers ago, I spent three months as a student chaplain with the Seton hospital system. During that time, I was called upon to be with parents who had just lost young children, people in the throws of addiction, folks who had just been given a fatal diagnosis – people experiencing some of the most difficult situations we can go through in life.

People in that kind of circumstance are in a deep well of despair and grief. Being their chaplain required that I climb down in that well with them, that I dig deep down within myself and find some way to have at least an inkling of what they must have been feeling. It required that I feel with them and could truly say, “I’m here. I’m with you.”

And those experiences transformed me. Not only did they teach me a lot about what is and is not important in life, they put me back into touch with a range of emotions and ways of being that for many years of my life I had not allowed myself. They allowed me to reclaim the sensitive young boy I had been born, who had been told that such feelings were not appropriate for guys.

Now here is something significant about that story. Though I served many nights as a chaplain alone, I always had an intentionally constructed religious community I could call upon and go back to for support – my instructors and my fellow student chaplains – not to mention Wayne, my own church, friends and family.

That’s one of the paradoxes about transformation, growing into our true, most authentic selves more fully, ultimately happens through relationship with others and all that is.

We go out into the wilderness only to realize more greatly our interconnectedness, which then allows us a more profound sense of our place within that interconnectedness and our own expression of it. Thus transformed, we can go back into our community and more effectively be an agent for continued transformation.

This, I think, is the work of the church and of our own spiritual quests within it.

With our rituals, music, meditations, prayers, storytelling, faith development and other intentional ways of entering that deeper, more authentic place within, that spark of divinity in each of us, I think that religious community is particularly well”suited, in fact intended, to catalyze our souls’ high adventure.

Likewise, our rites of passage ceremonies and rituals, child dedications, coming of age ceremonies, weddings, memorial services and the like help us to mark and understand more intensely these transformations in our lives. Sometimes, we have intentionally sought out these transformative life events; sometimes they come unexpectedly. That’s the thing about transformation – it will come eventually whether we seek it or not. Our choices then are whether we use our agency in seeking it and how we respond to it when it comes to us spontaneously.

In 1991, I was the director of a non”profit organization doing clinical research studies to try and find new and more effective treatments for HIV disease and related infections. I worked with a network of similar non”profit research organizations to get some funding to send two representatives from each organization to the International Conference on AIDS being held in Florence, Italy that year. One of the funding sources stipulated that at least one of representative from each organization be a physician participating in the clinical research studies.

After talking with my board, we made the decision that I would ask one of our most active participating physicians to go with me.

And so it came to pass that I ended up inviting a certain Dr. Wayne Bockmon to go with me to Florence.

We flew into Rome, rented a car and drove the rest of the way to Florence. The entire way there we both talked about our miserable dating experiences, how we were both just done with the whole romance thing and would just be going it on our own in life.

The hospital back home where Wayne saw patients needing inpatient care had offered to obtain lodging for us in Florence. We get to Florence, and discover that the Hotel is called “The Grand” for a reason, marble staircases, Tiffany glass ceiling and all. Years later, we returned to it and could barely afford to have a glass of wine in the lobby.

They put us in one room together – a room that was clearly designed for a couple. At a reception that first evening, people kept asking us how long we had been together, and we would protest that we were just friends. But, after a week together in Florence, we had to start saying, “Well, now we’re more than just friends.”

When we got back home, I looked at Wayne and said, “Soooo, I took you to Florence for our first date, what’s next?”

It turns out that what was next was 25 years together in a relationship that has certainly transformed my life and made me a better person. Love and the transformation it brings come unexpectedly sometimes.

We found out later that the staff at the hospital and the folks at my organization had decided we should be together and conspired to try to make that happen. Joseph Campbell said that our transformations are the ones we are ready for. Maybe those folks knew something we didn’t!

So far, I have mainly been talking about individual growth and transformation. I’d like to talk now about growth within an institution, as a corporate body – transformation of the church as a religious community.

If the reason the church exists is to create a space within which seeds of transformation can be cultivated, then it makes sense that the church itself would also continually transform in order to be better and better able to fulfill our mission.

Our capital campaign is a giant and very tangible step this church has taken that will enable us to literally transform and enlarge our physical space. Doing so, will create a more welcoming space for the growing numbers of folks in Austin seeking a spiritual home that allows for that free and responsible search for their soul’s high adventure.

Doing so will also transform the religious community itself – who we are now will undergo a metamorphosis that I believe will move first UU Church of Austin into becoming even more fully the church it was born to become.

And yet, as I know our senior minster, Meg, has already talked about some, like with any of these journeys, it will not be without struggle – “trials and tribulations”.

I think it is worth reiterating that to get through the renovations, we will have to transform the ways in which we use the building and go about the activities of doing church for a while.

And all of these changes can stress us out. They can raise anxiety levels, so we will have to try help each other keep the level of anxiety in our community as a whole as low as we can.

It’s good to remember that sometimes anxiety expresses itself in ways that narrows the focus to something specific that may or may not be seem directly related to the larger, actual source of the anxiety.

So when someone leaves a stack of Styrofoam plates on a kitchen counter during the middle of the sanctuary remodeling and emails get sent, phone calls get made and Facebook posts get posted to try and ferret out the culprit, it might good for us all to try to take a step back and ask ourselves what might really be getting us all so wound up.

Might it be that what we’re truly stressed about is the fact that we’re temporarily not able to use our sanctuary? (And if we realize that, then we might have a better chance of avoiding all the drama before we find out that it was a construction crew who left them there anyway.)

Though, I have often thought, that if anyone asked Unitarian Universalists to articulate our theology of evil, all of our answers would somehow involve Styrofoam and invasive plants, me included.

So, how do we take that step back when we’re feeling anxious and before we find ourselves posting a screed on Facebook? Well, there are a number of methods, but it turns out there is one simple method that studies have shown can very often help.

It is just this. Breathe in on a count of four. Hold for a count of four. Breathe out on a count of four. Hold for a count of four. Repeat. Repeat until that anxiety driven older part of our brain let’s go of us and allows us to reengage the reason”centered parts of our brain.

That’s it.

And this works in lot’s of other situations too, including with the stress I bet a lot of us are feeling over the social and political discourse going on right now. I know Meg has also talked about this some also

I think it is worth continuing to discuss it though, because I think at least part the stress so many of us are feeling is due to the fact that:

– the racism and misogyny that have infected our current political campaign,
– the efforts to suppress voting rights,
– the laws legalizing discrimination against LGBT people being passed under a false claim of religious freedom,
– the efforts to take away women’s agency over their own bodies,

All of these are related. They are all in different ways efforts to maintain a system of straight white patriarchy.

Now, let me quickly add that I have a great deal of affection for many, many white straight guys, many of whom have helped fight for the rights of other folks. What we’re talking about here is a system of white straight patriarchy that got set up very early on and was the norm.

One characteristic of systems is that, once set up, they will struggle mightily to continue themselves, so it may be helpful to remember that the folks who are fighting to maintain the system have been taught that that is the way things are supposed to be by that very system itself. We can’t see the system sometimes when we are way down deep inside of it. That’s why people will support such a system even against there own interests sometimes.

In fact, I would argue that such a system harms even those who are at the top of its hierarchy by limiting the fullness of their humanity, like when I found that the definition of maleness I had been taught was keeping me from fully experiencing life. Knowing this, we might able to start from a place of greater empathy and curiosity when we engage those with whom we disagree.

And I do think we must engage them. As one of my professors at seminary said, “Like it or not, our religious values will be lived or not in the public and political arena.” The other voices will be there, so ours are needed for the transformation that heals our world and liberates all of us to have a chance. But our voices, again, are most effective when they are as non”anxious as possible – we self”differentiate, which means stating our values and convictions in a calm, non”personal way. By doing so, we may be able to lower the anxiety in the system itself, at least a little. And if, little by little, the anxiety in the system get lowered enough, more and more people will begin to be able to see the system itself.

And that’s when transformation becomes possible.

So, when that friend or family member you disagree with politically includes you on a mass email or a Facebook post that has your face turning red and steam coming out of your ears, try to remember our breathing trick so maybe you avoid sending back that scathing reply and then blocking them.

Breathe in on a count of four. Hold for a count of four. Breathe out on a count of four. Hold for a count of four. Repeat until the steam stops coming out of your ears.

Let’s practice that together. I invite you breathe with me.
Breathe in, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4.
Breathe out, 2, 3, 4. Hold 2, 3, 4.
Breathe in, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4.
Breathe out, 2, 3, 4. Hold 2, 3, 4.

Feels pretty good, doesn’t it?

Let’s trying remembering to do that a lot together over the next months, as together, we each continue our “soul’s high adventure”.

Benediction

Transcendence.
Community.
Compassion,
Courage.
Transformation.

May you carry these, our church’s religious values, with you today.

As you go back out into the world, may they nourish your soul and provide the foundation for fully living into the person you were born to be.

Go in peace. Go with love. Amen and blessed be.

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 16 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.