Interdependence Day

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Rev. Michelle LaGrave
April 14, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We often speak of interdependence in terms of the web of all life, from earth to all the plants and animals. But what does interdependence mean in the context of human life? How does interdependence impact human relationships and human community?

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

RENEWAL IN THE WEARY WORLD
Rev. Shari Woodbury

Welcome, all who seek renewal in a weary world.
Welcome, all who come with love and energy to share.
Welcome, to those who worry for the future.
Welcome, each one who is grateful for today.
Know that in this place, you are not alone.
In community we share our strength with one another
and we keep the flame of love burning bright.
Know that in this place, responsibility is shared.
Here, tradition holds us; ancestors shine a light from the past.
Here, the young lift their bright faces, and beckon us onward.
Take my hand, and we can go on together.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

SURVIVING THROUGH RECIPROCITY
Robin Wall Kimmerer
An excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass

Scientists are interested in how the marriage of alga and fungus occurs and so they’ve tried to identify the factors that induce two species to live as one. But when researchers put the two together in the laboratory and provide them with ideal conditions for both alga and fungus, they gave each other the cold shoulder and proceeded to live separate lives, in the same culture dish, like the most platonic of roommates. The scientists were puzzled and began to tinker with the habitat, altering one factor and then another, but still no lichen. It was only when they severely curtailed the resources, when they created harsh and stressful conditions, that the two would turn toward each other and begin to cooperate. Only with severe need did the hyphae curl around the alga; only when the alga was stressed did it welcome the advances.

When times are easy and there’s plenty to go around, individual species can go it alone. But when conditions are harsh and life is tenuous, it takes a team sworn to reciprocity to keep life going forward. In a world of scarcity, interconnection and mutual aid become critical for survival. So say the lichens.

Sermon

Text of Rev. Chris’ Homily is not available.

Rev. Michelle’s Homily

A little over 30 years ago, I headed off to Norlands Living History Center in Livermore, Maine. I had recently graduated from college with a double major in history and anthropology. I was especially interested in museum education and historical archaeology. And, after 17 years of schooling, I was especially interested in not spending most of my days reading, researching, and writing. So it was, that with great excitement and a little trepidation, I headed off to live and work on a historic farm.

While we had some hidden access to modern amenities like running water, real bathrooms, minimal heat, and electricity, we interns, of which I was one, lived as if the year was 1870 most of the time. As it was a working farm, chores needed to be done whether visitors were present, or not, and they were divided by gender. Much of the time, I was the only woman intern. I rose early, dressed in costume, walked the half mile uphill from the 1795 house in which I was living to the main area of the farm. I milked the cow, fed the chickens, collected eggs, pasteurized milk, made butter and cottage cheese, did all the cooking on a wood stove, weeded the garden, and so on. Fall was a time of harvesting, canning, making apple cider, bottling hard cider. Winter brought lots of snow and ice, horse-drawn sleigh rides and cutting 2 foot thick ice from the pond for the ice house. I taught school in the one room schoolhouse, danced in the barn on Saturday nights, made homemade ice cream, and finished off crazy quilts. I assisted with the births of piglets and a calf. And, when visitors weren’t around, I had the opportunity to try my hand at the men’s chores, too, like driving the team of oxen to pick rocks out of the fields before they were plowed and splitting wood and, yes, I learned there were some very practical reasons for the old fashioned division of labor.

Most of all, though, I was amazed at how much I had learned to do, how empowered I felt, how self-reliant I had become. I imagined that I could homestead, someday, if I wanted to. I was taken in by this feeling of independence.

And then I got sick, really sick, and I learned that feeling of independence was just a feeling; that in some ways all that selfreliance was just an illusion. I was the last of the interns to come down with whatever it was. I became feverish, weak, and beyond exhausted. The director of the museum had to take me home, down the hill to that 1795 house, get me inside, start the fire in the wood stove, and make sure I had plenty of wood right next to the stove. I fell into bed and slept, getting up only to put more wood in the fire or use that hidden bathroom.

And, at some point during that time, I began to feel better enough to think and I realized how totally and utterly dependent I was on other human beings. If I were all alone, I would not have been able to make it outside, through all the snow, over to the woodshed, and brought in all that wood. I would have frozen, become hypothermic.

Remember what I said last week? About how our lived experiences are the raw material, the scripture from which we build our theology? I was not yet a minister, had not yet been to seminary, or even graduate school and had not been raised UU. Though, as Callie Pratt, I attended an 1870 Universalist meetinghouse on Sundays, I had not yet been exposed to the Unitarian Universalism of the modern day, or its Principles, or its Values. I knew nothing of the interdependent web and was not familiar with the concept of interdependence. I was fascinated by these ideas of and feelings about independence and dependence; how both could be true at the same time. I did have a lot of survival skills and I did need other people in order to survive. I had experienced, in a very in-your-face kind of way, the concept, the reality of interdependence. Revelation was not sealed.

We humans are just like the algae and fungi of this morning’s reading; fairly independent when resources are plentiful, fairly dependent when resources are scarce, and totally interdependent – with each other, with the earth, and with all of life, all of the time.

And, we people of First UU Austin, are like the people in this morning’s story: a community in which each person has a role to play, each person is needed, and each person needs each other; it is all together that we become whole.

As Unitarian Universalists, we often place a high value on individuals hearing a call, finding a purpose, seeking fullfillment, and so on. Sometimes, we just want to be helpful, or useful. It can be easy for us to focus on these roles as something of a higher purpose. But today, and especially because it is New Member Sunday, I want to ask us, all of us, to focus on the opposite – on being helped, on allowing ourselves to be helped. (in appropriate ways, of course) I’d like us to think about how being served is of as much value as being of service. We all have different skills, different needs. We all go through times of joy and times of struggle. We all have times of service and times of being served. None of us should focus overly much on one over the other. Both are important. Balance is important. We are an interdependent community. With each other, with the earth, with all of life.

We all need one another, in all the ways, and all the time.

May it be so. Amen and Blessed Be.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Closing Words

by the Rev. Peter Raible

We build on foundations we did not lay
We warm ourselves by fires we did not light
We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant
We drink from wells we did not dig
We profit from persons we did not know
This is as it should be.
Together we are more than anyone person could be.
Together we can build across the generations.
Together we can renew our hope and faith in the life that is yet to unfold.
Together we can heed the call to a ministry of care and justice.
We are ever bound in community.

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