The importance of ritual

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers

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Stephanie Canada Gill

Sandra Ries

June 26, 2011

Stephanie Canada Gill

It’s always fun; when preparing a sermon, to look up the dictionary definition for your topic. So I went to www.dictionary.com; which gives me some choices from a variety of dictionaries, and the one which I found the most amusing, was this one from “The World English Dictionary”:

Ritual – (noun)

1. the prescribed or established form of a religious or other ceremony

2. stereotyped activity or behavior

3. [psychological] any repetitive behavior, such as hand-washing, performed by a person with a compulsive personality disorder

With that in mind, I am happy to be here with you this morning, so that we can enjoy our compulsive, repetitive behavior together.

It’s worth noting that some in this church don’t necessarily qualify what we do here together each Sunday as ritualistic or ceremonial. Yet each aspect of our worship service has a meaning, a context, and a reason why it is performed in the way that it is, and the manner and order in which we perform it are vitally important to us.

If you doubt that; I urge you to have a chat with any of the “old timers” here such as myself about our discussions; as a congregation, about any changes in our worship services. For those of you who have been here a while, please take a moment and cast your memories back to the time we added “Joys and Concerns” to the service… and when we removed it later. Or our discussions about how, when, and in what manner we would be including our children within the worship services.

Yes, I don’t believe that “Vitally Important” is too strong a phrase.

Ritual can be seen in terms of a structure, a template. There is something repetitive in the nature of ritual, but it is the way we each conceptualize ritual that is important. So let me share an experience I had about that, many years ago.

I had a period of time during my teens where I was still attending church, but no longer felt a deep connection to the faith of my childhood. And during that time, I had an experience worth sharing.

It happened on one of those many, nameless mornings, just as my mind was waking up in response to the communion plate being passed around. Ah, the sharpness of unsweetened grape juice, and its contrast to the tasteless little wafer squares. For me, it meant that the service was nearly over and my freedom was within sight.

But then I noticed something; one of my fellow congregants, who was sitting in the pew in front of me. I saw her face light up as she put the wafer in her mouth. I was captivated. I watched carefully, and I then I turned to look at others across the aisle, and in the pews behind me. It happened again and again, there, and then there! Somehow in that sad little square; people were tasting something I didn’t, and whatever it was, it was not something inherent in the wafer itself. It had touched their hearts.

I remember sitting back in the pew; almost light-headed, and thinking about what I had just seen. And then I realized that it wasn’t that the rituals of that church were meaningless, it was that they had become meaningless to me.

They felt something, something very profound.

It may seem obvious to you all now; but I tell you it shook me, and it made my heart clench. I was excluded from what I had witnessed, and I came to realize later that it was because they were experiencing the spiritual expression of their god, a god with whom I no longer felt contact.

Although it came to me much later, that day was the start of a personal quest. I began a search for rituals which did have meaning for me. I did not find meaningful expressions of ritual again until I came to THIS church. And it was here that I began to open up to Paganism. Until that time, I did not know that creating our own rituals was an option until I came to this church.

What was I missing? Well, let’s start by considering this concept:

Ritual is a way to make non-observable reality manifest.

I’ll say that again, a little slower:

Ritual is a way…to make non-observable reality…manifest.

Ritual touches something in our core, something significant and deep in us which has existed at least as far back as the painted caves, and likely before that. It touches our emotions, but it also appeals to our minds. Ritual speaks to the part of us which is so often beyond words.

In fact, we are going to perform something ritualistic together today after this sermon. Words give a clearness of direction; it is a way of expressly stating our sacred intent, if you will. But the non-verbal part is key. The non-verbal portions of ritual give us the opportunity to digest the words, and allow them to touch us on an emotional level. So here is an opportunity to transmute words into emotions. Later in the service, we are going to smudge this sanctuary.

So let’s look at smudging. This is a sacred act, which revolves around some similar concepts world-wide. It’s an ancient rite, we really have no idea how far it goes back in any of the cultures which use it.

Smudging has an element of purification, and of defining sacred space via scent. The two are intertwined, because in essence it sweeps away whatever is mundane, in order to make room for the sacred. Distracting thoughts, impurities from outside the circle of the holy space – smudging pushes those things out in order to create a void which the sacred can fill. It recognizes that in order for something new to be born, something old must give way. The smoke fills the room, and then fades. Now a new space is created.

Within that context; smudging has a symbolic connection to planting, to rededicating, to preparing the way for something new to begin. The way is made clear. What will we plant once the weeds have been plowed under? What are the furrows waiting for? These are decisions which are planted in our hearts, and later will bloom into words and actions

I believe we are accustomed to thinking of sacred space as someplace where the sacred somehow simply happens. But; in fact, the sacred consists of what we bring to the space, what we do while we are there, and how we take it and apply to our lives both within the ritual context and beyond. A ritual can be seen as a temporary construct, but in truth no ritual is successful if it does not in some way impact our lives on an ongoing basis.

The ancients understood this. They understood the core aspect of ritual construction – intention. Ritual takes the reality we envision; but cannot yet see except with the eyes of our heart, and ignites the process through which it will become our reality in time yet to come. So it’s important to know what our intentions are.

Ritual is a way to connect our emotions with our thoughts. This happens; in the case of smudging, through our sense of smell. The only way we have to begin the process of connecting with the unseen; or inexpressible, is by using one (or more) of our five senses.

The sense of smell is tied to memory. Scientific research has shown this. As such, it has the ability to create a strong memory, to create a path way in our brains; if you will, so that the repeated use of a given smell, over and over in a particular context will naturally take us more and more quickly in our minds back to that context. And that context was designed intentionally and so is supported by that smell. As such, it is absolutely ideal for religious ritual.

Nor is the sense of smell the only sense ritual can use to great effect. Our sense of hearing can be used both actively and passively. Passively, we had have music sung to us or played for us by a variety of amazingly talented people over the course of time. It lifts our spirits, it opens our hearts.

I sometimes refer to ritual as storytelling, as it is within ritual that we tell the story of who we are. Like a story, our ritual has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In our worship services, we begin the process of creating sacred space by the introductory music, which alerts us that we are entering the place where we create the sacred together. This space is infused with sacred sounds, unlike our day to day lives.

Just as a storyteller might set the stage by saying, “Once upon a time…”; our opening music says that we are stepping into a place where our ordinary reality takes a backseat to a magical sort of reality, where we are both the best of who we can be and; at the same time, the seekers who hope to learn more about the connections we long to feel, the connections to each other, and to the sacred within each of ourselves, In the most effective rituals, we meld heart and mind together to guide us on the next step of our journey.

We feel connected to the sacred, when we listen.

Our intention can be touched actively when we sing together. The hymns we sing together are an expression of our roots as a Christian denomination, in many ways. Singing is universal, but hymns are associated with Christianity. We join in aural communion via the sense of sound, when we stand together and sing a hymn from our hymnal. We’ve worked very hard to be more egalitarian, non-sexist, and so on with our hymnal, but that in no way changes these facts. Singing is a way to affirm our unity over our differences.

And our emotions are connected to our senses. We feel bonded as we sing. That bonding is intentional and deliberate.

Ask a Buddhist sometime about the importance of “breath”. He or she will tell you that the Universe was created via “the breath”. A Buddhist would say “Breath is the beginning of all things, and the crux of awakening”. Turn that over in your mind after the sermon. Oh, and breathe deeply when you do.

Now, I did mention that ritual context was designed and supported by our senses to bring our sacred intentions manifest. So what is our sacred intent? Our church mission statement reflects it as does our invocation of the chalice and the flame. This is not a church of sinners trembling before an angry god, this is a church of seekers!

This is our sanctuary, we designed and paid for it together, we collectively decided (or at least delegated) the decision of who will stand where I am standing each Sunday. Standing before a podium emphasizes something different about me and my purpose here than how I would be seen sitting at the edge of a circle. We have had active and; let’s say brisk and intense discussions about any ongoing changes about our rituals which take place here. Our emotions are very much involved, whether we like to admit to them or not.

It feels a little odd to say that Unitarian Universalists are emotional about ritual, doesn’t it?

But there’s no question that we are. And that is because ritual is the key to our intentions; as a congregation, and as a faith. There may words involved in the UU approach to ritual, actually with UU’s there are always words involved. Lots and lots of words. Let us never forget however that a vital part of our lives is happening between the words.

This weekly Worship service IS our ritual. We may draw from Christian traditions, we may draw from other faith traditions; for example today we will be drawing from traditions which use smudging darn near globally across the face of this planet. We have a multitude of influences throughout our hymnal, and I could go on and on, picking apart our ritual; piece by piece to show you the where and why each aspect of our “Order of Service” is done how it is done, why it is done, and the reason in this order, but I would prefer to get you started wondering; as I did so many years ago. Does it have meaning for you?

What about the smudging? I urge you to “push your envelope” a little and stay here for it, unless your allergies prevent it. Does it feel too “out there” for you? Or is there something some how satisfying about sitting through a brief few minutes in within our ritual which are strange, yet comforting in their own way. And in either case, why do you feel what you feel? What is your heart saying to you about this experience?

Let me return to the concept that smudging clears the way. Now we have a new minister coming. But have we thought about what we are willing to give up, in order to make space for what we hope to put in the place of what went before? What are the comfortable old ways we have done things in this church, which need to be set aside for the new? What are the outdated visions of how we see this congregation, which now need to be plowed into the furrows, so that they can fertilize and support new growth? I encourage you to consider those questions in depth over the coming weeks.

Change is uncomfortable. But change is the only truth which is inevitable in life. Resisting change is difficult, but embracing change will transform you.

Here is our opportunity to transform ourselves.

Ritual is a way to make non-observable reality manifest. Who we hope to become in our spiritual journey can’t be seen. The emotions which are summoned up in ritual, their power, our connections with the divine are invisible which which are summoned forth in ritual are not tangible. But these are the seeds of something which can compel us to express then beyond the confines of ritual. They grow day by day and if we nurture them, they bloom in the actions we take in the world to express ourselves as the best of who we can they be, and take those first steps in the process of making our world the best it can be. They change us, and they change our world, casting their seeds in turn to everyone who is touched by what we do. They become manifest.

Feel the new wind which is blowing through this congregation. Be ready to plant the seeds of your choice within your heart. Embrace the wind, and be transformed!

 

Sandra Ries

To continue the theme of change and transformation, I share with you some words from Unitarian and from Universalist leaders from our history.

For an expression of our hope, we look to Clara Barton:

“I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.”

For an expression of our determination in days to come, we look to Henry David Thoreau:

“All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight-to-the-finish spirit is the one characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers.”

For inspiration, we look to Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

 

Responsive Reading

The Spirit of those leaders who have walked this path before us, calls to us

We recognize their work, and its legacy.

They have joined people together in common purpose

Or have written in solitude and contemplation.

They have labored to bring justice and compassion to the world

And we are their heirs.

Each of us is human, each of us has stumbled and fallen

And yet we have risen, and we are gathered today.

With hope in our hearts, with joy in our vision

I seek to be nourished, I seek to nourish others.

Ready for new beginnings

I wish to be transformed, I wish to transform others.

Ready to help create a better world

I want to do justice, I want to join with others to do justice.

And so we set out on this journey together,

to participate in building a community of souls,

bringing our diverse perspectives together

To manifest the light within us, and around us

In this congregation, and in our lives

So May It Be!

 

As Stephanie said during the sermon, in a ritual, intent is important. In the group ritual we are about to perform, our shared intent makes it even more powerful. As Stephanie performs the smudging, I invite you to envision what “sacred space” means to you as an individual as well as to our congregation as a whole. And I invite you to reaffirm our sanctuary as a sacred space.

Endings and Beginnings

by Posted in Audio available, Ed Brock, Guest Speakers

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Nell Newton

Chris Jimmerson

Eric Hepburn

Brendan Sterne

Susan Thomson

Rev. Ed Brock

June 19, 2011

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Tribute to Ed Brock

Nell Newton

As Mick and Keith have already told us, “You can’t always get what you want, but you’ll get what you need.”

That is exactly what we got when we called Ed Brock and asked if he would consider serving as our interim minister for this past year. We didn’t know this at the time, but let me back up.

The process by which churches obtain interim ministers is much more streamlined than the search for settled ministers. While a settled search takes nine people about 18 months, an interim search can be done by five people in three months with the UUA serving as matchmaker.

Last spring we were wrapping up a successful and soothing year of interim ministry with Rev. Janet Newman. We knew we still had some work to do before we’d be ready to call a settled minister, and we’d heard stories about other interim ministers who specialize in shaking up the status quo. These are the SWAT ministers who come in swinging their brooms, with a critical eye for bad habits, and who cut no slack for sentimental tradition if it stands in the way of progress. Perhaps that’s what we should look for – a no-nonsense interim who would make us stand up straight, straighten our tie, and do things their way. It would be good for us. We knew we had some bad habits, and we were ready to be humbled, if necessary.

As the president of the congregation, I was kept apprised of the progress and would be the one to make any formal offers. The search team was sent four names of possible interims – and two had the reputation of being stem-to-stern change up specialists. Oooh! Perfect!

But nothing went as planned. For assorted reasons, none of those four names answered when we called to inquire. Oh dear. Perhaps we weren’t challenging enough for them? Or worse — maybe we were we too far gone…

I called the office at the UUA and tried not to let them hear the rising worry in my voice. Uh… could we maybe, uh… well, you see… we need more names… Of course, we’ll send more names. Not to worry, this happens all the time. Trust the process. You’ll get the right minister.

Four more names arrived, and immediately the search team pushed one name ahead of the others: Rev. Ed Brock. A minister trained in family systems theory – Oh! We’ve heard about family systems theory! And he’s a trained counselor – Oh! We could use some counseling! I was a little nervous when we called him. Would you? Could you? Consider us? Yes? Wonderful. Thank you. Yes! Yes! Yes!

When Ed first arrived, he didn’t kick in the doors, he didn’t tell us we were doing things all wrong, and he was nice. He was the kind of guy who would pull you over to the side and quietly tell you if you had spinach stuck in your front teeth. And during his first visit with the board, he gave us the nicest gift. He told us that during this year, we would be busy at work searching for our next settled minister, but that one thing we should always remember is that we already have our settled ministry in the form of our lay leadership and our community. We are the enduring ministry of this church.

Oh, my heart just melted then and there! Instead of telling us we were a lost cause, he had held up a mirror and showed us how strong, and lively, and beautiful we are.

Instead of marching ahead, he walked alongside us during a year of heavy work. He pointed out dusty places, and held a flashlight steady as we went into some dark spaces. He kept us company and encouraged us to keep going as we cleaned the windows, overhauled the by-laws, and learned to trust ourselves to do good work.

Ed’s ministry showed us that, No, you don’t always get what you think you want, but if you do the work, trust the process, and say “yes, yes, yes!” you’ll get what you need.

 

 

Chris Jimmerson

In the past year, I have had the opportunity to work with Rev. Brock, Ed, in a variety of ways and on a nearly weekly basis. After spending all of this time with him, I can tell you one thing for certain – The Reverend Edward L. Brock is …not normative.

And that’s a good thing! When it comes to large systems, oftentimes, normative is great because what has become normal practice is the result of much experience, experimentation and research to determine what works best.

In an interim minister though, normative could mean average, when what we are hoping for is excellence. Excellence is what we got in Ed Brock!

So, let me count the ways that Ed has been “not normative”.

1. Despite his self-effacing and modest disposition, Ed has dared to tell us how his experience and training might inform the opportunities and challenges we have encountered – to help up us begin to implement the covenant, governance and mission groundwork we had laid in our first year of interim ministry – even when it meant challenging prior ways of doing things and ingrained ways of thinking.

And all without disagreement or controversy!

2. He has sent us some of the wisest and most detailed email messages I have ever seen. Many of them sounded just like one of his sermons; some of them were shorter.

3. His sermons have contained a terrific mix of humor, inspiration and topical wisdom that we needed to hear. Some of them were even better than his email messages.

4. Ed gave some great stewardship speeches that helped increase pledges at a time when the church really needed it. As they said in the small Texas town where I grew up, “he can talk a dog off a piece of meat.”

5. Ed did all of this while mentoring not one but two new Unitarian Universalist ministerial aspirants. I’m so grateful for the advice and opportunities he has given me, not to mention for all of the various recommendation forms and paperwork he has had to complete for me as I applied to seminary, scholarship funds, the Unitarian Universalist Association, etc. In fact, it got to be so much extra work for Ed at one point that I took to taking previous forms he had filled out, reformatting them to fit wherever I was applying this time and giving them to Ed to sign if he was OK with what I had done.

Oh, that reminds me – (to Ed) Ed could you … (back to congregation) excuse me … (take to Ed) Ed, could you just sign and date this here. Oh, and on the second page also.

(Back to congregation) Sorry.

Suddenly I’m realizing, I can’t possibly cover all of the extraordinary gifts Ed has brought to us in the last year, so let me just close by saying this: If helping a congregation to call an exceptional settled minister by guiding us through the work necessary to chart a future filled with magnificent promise with that new settled minister is what we hope is “normative” for a second year interim ministry in UU churches, then Ed has set the new gold standard with us.

Thank you Ed, for a wonderful year.

 

 

Brenden Sterne

Our new congregational President Chris Jimmerson asked me to say a few words about this past year and the work that the church has accomplished with the help of Ed Brock. I am tempted to say a few nice things about Ed, but afraid that all the nice things that can be said about Ed have already been said, by Ed.

In all seriousness…

Early on during my first year on the Board of Trustees, a dozen or so of us sat around the tables on a hot Saturday morning in one of the classrooms, and Nell Newton, our president at the time, asked us to check-in by taking turns sharing with the group, what is was that we were giving up to be at church that Saturday

I thought it was a great idea to recognize what we sacrificing that day to do the work of governance. And that it would help us get to know each other better. There were a variety of answers. If I remember correctly I felt most keenly that I was missing time with my family – my daughter’s soccer game that morning, and maybe swimming in the afternoon.

Whenever anyone in our community, devotes some of the their time, talents or treasure in serving the mission of our church, they are giving up something too. Just to be here this morning, each of you has given up something. Maybe it’s time you could spend on your house. Or time reading. Or maybe it’s just sleep. As the parent of toddler I know how precious, precious sleep is. So we’re all giving up a little something to be here.

Ed was joking around these past two weeks as he asked us if we members of the congregation wouldn’t mind recording a brief message of support, that he could bring back with him and share with his family.

And if you reflect on that request for a moment – the human side of Ed comes out. On father’s day I think it’s particularly appropriate that we recognize that behind the professional role of Minister that Ed lives so well, there is also the role of husband and father. As many of you know Ed has a wife and children 7 and 9, in Washington state, that he has been apart from this year.

And that’s why he asked us record those videos. Because as he wants his wife and children to know why is doing what he does, and that what he is doing is important.

This shows that Ed has had to make some big sacrifices to be here with us. And what it also shows is how much faith he must have in our religion, and this church, leaving his family for a big part of this year.

Now I can’t speak for the good Reverend Ed, but I’ve come to know him a little bit, and I think that I understand why he is doing what he does. Just like most volunteers at our church – he does it for the money.

You can’t do Interim Ministry without a deep belief that what we do here at church is important. I can’t recall where I first heard the words, but they’ve stuck with me, and that is: ‘We have a life-saving message’.

Let that one sink in here for a second. ‘We have a life-saving message’. The ‘we’ in that sentence can mean Unitarian Universalism. And it can mean the First UU Church of Austin. Whatever works for you.

I know Ed really believes that we have a life-saving message, and that we can make a real difference in our community and the world.

I want to thank Ed for all his wonderful contributions to our church this year. And I want to thank the congregation for all your hard work and trust that you have placed in the board.

When I’m at church I’m always delighted to see that there is a community of people who are willing to make sacrifices – small and large – towards a higher purpose. I hope that you are, and continue to be nourished, and that you find your life being transformed, as I find mine.

I look forward to my final year on the board as your board secretary. And I’m excited about the arrival of our new Minister Meg Barnhouse.

 

 

Susan Thomson

I have been reflecting a lot lately on the state of our church 2 years ago and now. I was not excited about the prospect of an interim minister, even though I had been in congregations, including this church, with interim ministers of whom I was very fond. And perhaps that was why I was not looking forward to more as I had quickly bonded with these interim ministers only to have them move on from my congregation in a short time. So I was eager to just get on with it and hurriedly organize a search for our next settled minister. And if I had been the Grand Poobah, or the Decider, to quote a former President from Texas, that is exactly what we would have done.

I came to believe, though, in the wisdom of not only having one interim minister for one year but a second interim for the following year. Our church has been so blessed by both our interim ministers, Janet Newman and Ed Brock, who each brought different gifts at just the right time for us.

I have been struck in looking back on the past two year about how much our church has grown by doing things the right way. To have a deliberate transition from one settled minister to the next, with time for re-examination about who we are as a congregation, resulting in a beautiful new mission, values and ends-that was the right way to do things. For time to identify what needed to change to make us a better, healthier congregation as we prepare for our next settled minister-that was the right way to do things.

Joe Sullivan, a consultant with Unity Consulting, observed at our board retreat last weekend that we not only commissioned the Bridge Builders report from Peter Steinke, contrary apparently to many churches, we actually read it and actually implemented the actions called for in the report. So we have done many things the right way these past 2 years.

But what I would like to speak to today is not only the part that Rev. Brock has played in helping us do things the right way, but the courage he has demonstrated in pointing us toward the right thing to do. And there is a difference. Doing the right thing is much riskier. It involves poking more sacred cows. It is often more challenging to determine the right thing to do than to look through a rulebook or a policy manual for answers on the right way to do things. It takes more courage.

Ed has worked tirelessly to help us determine the right thing to do. He has done so with our mission, our values and our ends as his compass. And as we wish Ed Godspeed with grateful hearts for his time with us and prepare to welcome Meg, we know that we now have the foundation upon which we as a congregation can work tirelessly to do the right thing at First UU, to allow our mission and our values and our ends to guide us to become the thriving congregation we want to become.

 

 

Liberty, Healing, Good News

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse

May 22, 2011

 

Reading

UNICORN

I saw a unicorn coming at me on I-85. That’s what it looked like at first glance, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sensible person. I know there aren’t such things in the world, but there it was, this enormous gray ridged horn coming fast toward me southbound, and it was angled forward and up, as if pointing to the Blue Ridge Mountains and, after that, the sky. As it blew by me I saw that it was a church steeple on a flatbed truck, being shipped to its new church building.

The odd sight stuck with me. I started thinking about the church group that was getting that steeple. I wondered how much it cost, and I thought about all the things it symbolized. Most basically, the steeple symbolizes the church pointing to God. We all know that God is not literally “up there;” a lot of us Unitarian Universalists think of God as everywhere, and that’s just the beginning of all of our various thoughts on the nature of the One.

I asked myself what would be a better symbol of pointing to God. What direction(s) would it point? It might look like one of those Moravian stars with almost as many points as a chrysanthemum.

I wonder why people wanted to build one more church when there are already so many. Sometimes the reason is a growing population of people who need you, and no church of your kind is near them, so you build one. Sometimes the reason is a split in an existing church, and one unhappy, hurt, and angry group is making a new church where they can become the community they want to be. “All it takes,” someone once told me, “is a grievance and a coffee pot.”

I thought about how much hope it takes to build a church. “This time,” they might be thinking, “this time we will get it right. We will be good people and we will really point folks toward God and there won’t be politics or infighting or cliques and we won’t ever disappoint each other, and we won’t do things in a slap-dash manner, and this, finally, will be the church we have all been dreaming about. We won’t fight about silly things like carpet or moving the piano or the banners. We’ll be kind and respectful of one another, challenging one another lovingly, cleaning up our own hearts before we start trying to clean up other people’s hearts, and it will be like it’s supposed to be.”

I thought about how, from my perspective, a church like the one they may be hoping for is as mythic and elusive a creature as the unicorn. Churches cause lots of joy, but they also cause pain as they strive to improve people, as they strive to instruct people on the right and wrong ways of being a person in this world. Some say: “Don’t ever drink, but you may wear jewelry and makeup.” Some say: “Absolutely no vanity or fancy dress, but you may drink beer, as it’s one of God’s gifts.”

Some churches talk lots about hell and others don’t mention it, even though it’s there, undergirding everything. People try to be kind but often, when we feel passionately about something, it is hard to keep in mind that the other people are more important than correctness of behavior or purity of doctrine. A conviction that the loving God they worship will punish mistakes with eternal hellfire can make some people feel an urgency that comes across as meanness. Some churches are kind but ineffectual, and some are kind and powerful and they do lots of good and they function in marvelous ways.

Churches are like families. Present are the relatives who drive you nuts, the misunderstandings that hurt, and all the destructive behavior that families can have. At church you also get the warmth, growth, shared history, support and love you can find in a family. People act like people no matter where we are. We know we are supposed to be kind and loving and not jump down each other’s throats for not getting the right kind of free-trade coffee. We know we’re not supposed to fight bitterly about the best ways to work for peace. I heard a poem on the radio the other day, part of which was a prayer: “God make the bad people good and the good people nice.” Honey, we’re trying.

 

Sermon

HOW WE DO CHURCH

Last Sunday I talked a little bit about myself as a minister. I believe it’s good to get oriented at the beginning of an exploration by figuring out who you are, where you’ve been, and where you want to go. I told you about coming from a long family tradition of professional ministry, that I usually wear a teacher’s robe rather than a priestly robe, that I like leading in a collaborative way, thinking together with people about the joys and challenges of congregational life, and putting my energies, experience and training toward helping a congregation grow toward its vision of itself. I talked about me as a minister because that’s what I imagined you all would want to hear about, as I sat and thought about what I’d want to hear sitting in the pew, being curious. On the second Sunday I would want to hear about how the minister thinks about church. The kind of church we’re interested in is Unitarian Universalist church, so let me talk about that one in particular. Where did it come from?

To orient us in that way, I’m going to tell you about the Unitarians and the Universalists, that fascinating tradition of which this congregation is a part. I’m going to go through it very briefly, so trust that if there’s more you want to hear about, you might be able to hear about it more in upcoming years.

Our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors are the liberal Christians and heretics of the Reformation, which happened in the mid-1500’s in Europe. The Unitarians and the Universalists were both Christian denominations until the 1800’s. Unitarians proclaimed that Jesus was a great rabbi, but not God. God was to be worshipped and that was it. The Transcendentalists joined the movement, declaring (influenced by Buddhist and Hindu teachings) that God was in everything. So everything was to be worshipped, really.

Unitarians have been a mix of Christianity and Eastern religions for the past 170 years. The Humanist influence on the Unitarians began in the 30’s, as Biblical scholarship began to poke holes in claims of inerrancy (no mistakes, completely the word of God) of the scriptures. Imagining a world without religious wars, without faith-based limits put on scientific endeavor, without the anti-intellectualism of some religious conservatives, Humanism holds tremendous appeal to Unitarians. In 1961 the Unitarians merged with the Universalists, who were a Christian denomination, a Jesus-worshipping denomination, whose main message was that no one gets sent to Hell for eternity. That’s still good news around these parts, where for most people Hell is not metaphorical. The Universalist strengths of community, spiritual inclusiveness and love made a good balance for the Unitarian strengths of reason, rationality, individuality and democratic process. That’s where we came from, and I believe we are called to honor our ancestors and to stay in touch with where we came from.

In pews and chairs in UU congregations across this continent we have Christians, Jews, Pagans, Humanists, Buddhists, people who do Buddhist meditation along with practicing Christian ethics, people who honor their Jewish heritage but embrace the transcendentalist feeling for God in everything, spiritual humanists, humanists who are uncomfortable with the word “spiritual.” Astronomy professors sit next to Astrology teachers here because Unitarian Universalism has room for all of us. We worship God as we understand God, or we worship the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of Love, or we worship that amazing connection that can happen between and among humans who are focused on the same task, or who are singing together trying to be one voice, or we worship the transformation of life and the nourishment of souls that can happen when people of good will and lively mind come together and call themselves a church, even if they don’t agree on some things.

Our common ground is vast. We want transformation. We are hungry souls who want to be fed, and we see hungry souls around us and we want to create a place where they can be fed. We see a world staggering under the weight of unjust systems and we want to make that right. We want to see justice roll down like waters and like a mighty stream, and we are caught up in the glory of hoping we can be part of making that happen.

We want to be the church where gifts are given: courage, attention, affection, challenge surprise, experience strength and hope to one another. That is who we are now. We are the people who tell their children the stories of Jacob and Rebecca, Abraham and Isaac, Rachel and Deborah. We also help their children paint the face of Krishna a beautiful blue and talk about him playing the flute and partying with the cow girls.

We come to church because we are stronger together. One of you could teach your children that reason is a treasure, and that you should not believe something that injures your spirit, but with all of us teaching the children that, our light shines farther.

One of you could proclaim that it was wrong to believe in a god who did not believe in you. You would get some strange looks, but here we are enough to make that proclamation into a message folks can listen to.

We come to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We join together because many minds are often more wise and creative than one can be.

This congregations have the power to change people for the better, to send them out into the world with good news and a healing hand.

For that, we sit on committees. We clean and teach and write checks and we deal with people who are never pleased, people who voice only complaints and never satisfactions. For that we wrestle with one another over what programs are basic and which ones can be cut, we talk about money because it takes money to make it all happen.

We come together to be a part of things, to make the world a better place. To keep our kids strong against hellfire and despair, we do the small work of washing dishes and working the phones. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like lighting up the world. Sometimes it does.

Somewhere between the loftiest work and the lowliest work is the beloved community. Where we hold one another in love as we go through the chances and changes of life. We visit the sick, we light a candle. We are the hands and we are the hearts, and we work here to nourish souls, transfor lives and do justice. And the question is: What would it take to heal every one?

 

 

Where I come from is like this

by Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse

May 15, 2011

 

Well, here we are!

I’m so aware of the beginning held in this moment. I’m curious about you and you’re curious about me. When I imagined myself sitting where you are, when I thought about what I would want to know if I were you, I decided to talk a little bit about being a minister and what that means to me.

First let me talk about this robe. It’s called a Geneva gown, and it’s a hardworking symbol. It’s a teacher’s black gown, not a priest’s garb. A priest can speak for God; a priest is presumed to have some special connection to the Divine, even to be able to do miraculous things. I don’t think anybody can speak for God. I do think I can sometimes do miraculous things. I think you do to. Dancing, feeding people, doing art, making music, speaking lovingly, listening deeply, those are often miraculous activities we can all do.

I think of myself as a teacher, then, in a teacher’s robe. I’ve gone to school for this, I’ve studied and stacked up years of experience and poured myself into the life of a student of church life, of people, of theology, of how to lead a congregation, how to speak of things that are hard to speak of. The robe is like the one my mother’s uncles wore in their pulpits in the Carolinas and Tennessee, and this robe reminds me that I am standing in the broad stream of history and family tradition. They preached the best way they knew how, just as I do. My mother’s grandfather, James Hearst Pressly, was the minister of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Statesville, North Carolina for 54 years. He rode his horse to church from the home he shared with his thirteen children, his wife Mabel and one very mean rooster. Dinner time was somewhat chaotic, as they ate the food people had dropped off from their gardens or cellars, with guests who sometimes wandered in off the streets, people of various colors and socio-economic backgrounds who were always welcome without question. Everyone had to say a Bible verse before eating. That may have kept some of the riff-raff away. One evening the second-to-youngest boy Walter, who was called “Sad-Eye,” or “Sad,” for short, was being punished. He had to eat in a corner by himself. The children all said their verses. “Jesus wept,” said the youngest, David, for the fourth time that week. Sad, in the corner, piped up, saying “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” Two of those children became ministers like their daddy. The rest of the boys became doctors, no doubt having gained experience binding up the wounds inflicted by that mean rooster, who would hide and jump out at the kids and slash at their legs. My great-grandfather retired from preaching in this way: the Sunday after he turned eighty, he preached the sermon, then said “I do not think a man should preach when he is eighty. Today I’m retiring. Brother Matthews, would you have the prayer?” The surprised brother Matthews stood and asked everyone to bow their heads. While he was stumbling through the prayer, my great-grandfather walked down the aisle and went home. Me? I like parties, so that would not be the way I would do it.

The robe is like the one my father and his father didn’t wear when they preached. My grandfather Barnhouse was a famous evangelist on the radio in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. His sermons are still on the radio in some places in the country. He spoke around the world. People named their children after him, they bought his books and still do. He preached in striped trousers and a cutaway coat with tails. My father doesn’t like wearing a robe when he preaches because he worries that people will think he’s wearing it to be superior in some religious way. “I don’t want them to think that I think I’m better than they are because of some stupid robe,” he says. I say, “yeah, you want them to think you’re better than they are because you’re just better.” “Yeah.” It’s a joke. I wear the robe to signify that I went to school to learn this work. I wear it to remind myself of my link to the preachers in my mother’s family, who were journeymen preachers, and to the preachers in my father’s family, who struggled with being rock star preachers, who chafed under the idea that they were part of a larger denomination which laid demands upon them in terms of credentialing, ethics, behavior and connection. I will be part of this congregation and what it’s trying to do and be in the world. Part of something larger than myself. I always want to remind myself and my congregation of that.

“Preaching,” Mark Twain is said to have said, “is the ecstasy of presumption.” It is kind of an odd job. You’re paid to think about things, then to talk about the things you think about. In a UU congregation you are talking and thinking with people who are usually very good at both talking and thinking. You reflect on your life and the life of your congregation, you connect the congregation to the life of the community. You are called to be intellectually as well as emotionally intelligent and put both forward in perfect balance in your weekly sermons. Oh, and also in your daily life. You are called to help the people run their congregation by continuing to hold up the vision they are funding with their energy, good will, their minds and their means. You are friendly with everyone, even though you can’t be anyone’s special friend, because as soon as the minister is their special friend, they no longer really have a minister. Your job involves a lot of social interaction. I have people say “Come on, this is a party, you’re not our minister here!” Wherever church people are, I’m the minister. It’s just my luck that parties count as work! I love interruptions and stories and getting to know folks. I crave meaningful discussions and intense interactions and peaceful hanging out. I like filling a role that is larger than I am. Let me close by reading another of my stories, “Brick by Brick”