Land of Hope and Dreams

Rev. Meg Barnhouse

October 7, 2012

The Springsteen song ends “Well this train carries saints and sinners… losers and winners….” Can First UU be that kind of train? What would it look like for our faith to be rewarded? What does it take for the bells of freedom to ring?

Crazy, but that’s how it goes

Millions of people living as foes

Maybe it’s not too late

To learn how to love

And forget how to hate

THIS TRAIN

The theme of the stewardship campaign this fall is “All Aboard for the Long Haul!” Pledge 1-2-3! There are pictures of trains here and there, and we’re singing train songs. My sermon text for this morning said “This train carries saints and sinners, this train carries losers and winners. This train carries hussies and gamblers, this train carries lost souls. This train, dreams will not be thwarted, this train, faith will be rewarded. This train, hear the steel rails singing, this train, bells of freedom ringing! Meet me in the land of hope and dreams.”

I love that image of us all going somewhere together, getting on a different stations, hanging out the windows to greet the people we pass, handing food to them, trading snippets of conversation.

Is that something you feel like being part of?

One of the ways we do it is by supporting the mission of this church with our time, our talents and our money. We ask that you be generous within your means, and that is usually difficult. It’s necessary if we want to build the foundation under our dream of the future. This year, we are asking you to consider making a 1-2-3 pledge, a three year commitment. Why? Because it is good for us to feel one another on board. It would feel wonderful to stand up here and announce that over half of the congregation had made the vote for a long term, stable foundation for this church, that they were in it for the duration, that they were betting on the future, betting on this train and where it’s going. I am making a three-year pledge that increases each year. I’m going to try the adventure of giving a little more than is comfortable for me, of trying the spiritual discipline of letting money flow out to support something I believe in passionately.

The stewardship season is also the time when the leadership of the congregation gets input from the members, so when you pledge you are asked a few questions about what you think a really hospitable congregation would look like, what you think a congregation that was fulfilling its mission would look like, how we could be a significant presence in Austin. I am so looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feelings about First UU.

This is an important train. The reason we’re going is expressed by our mission: “We gather in community to nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice.” The direction we’re going is expressed in the ends, or the goals set by the board, which can change depending on input from the congregation. We’ll talk about where the train is going, but first I’d like to remind you where these tracks originate.

Our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors are the monotheists from Abraham on, the heretics of the fourth century, the liberal Christians and heretics of the Reformation, during the 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 (it contains no mistakes, and it is 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 till real good news around these parts! The Universalist strengths of community, spiritual inclusiveness and love made a good balance for the Unitarian strengths of reason, rationality, individuality and democratic process. Is that something you feel like being part of?

Work for social justice has always been a part of what we do. Susan B Anthony and Clarence Darrow were Unitarians. Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross, was a Universalist. e.e. cummings, PT Barnum, Dorothea Dix, Roger Baldwin, who founded the ACLU, Christopher Reeve. Working to make things better through working in politics has always been part of what we do. People we claim as Unitarians either because of church membership or their writings were Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, John C Calhoun (not all of them had good politics), Millard Filmore.

We are scientists and artists: Linus Pauling, Ray Bradbury, Tim Berners-Lee, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Fannie Farmer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Horatio Alger, Charles Darwin, Bela Bartok, Florence Nightingale, Frank Llloyd Wright, Beatrix Potter and Melissa Harris-Perry… now I’m just mixing categories, because who stays with their own category of people on a train like this?

Is the something you would like to be part of?

Dale’s question: I have been asking people this week why they go to church. To belong, to have a chosen family, to build a community, to have people to talk to, to have a chance to do work that makes a difference, to be somewhere you can hear your name called with affection, to have people who will ask you good questions, to think about things together, to grow into a better person in the world, to give gifts of courage, attention, affection, challenge surprise, experience strength and hope to one another. We are building community. That doesn’t mean we do it perfectly all the time.

We have worthy opponents: world views we see as destructive or fear-based, the apathy and exhaustion that marks many lives, our consumer culture that tells us to work more to buy more things, and life itself with its struggle and suffering.

Where is this train going? We are guided by our mission and by the ends/goals the board created from conversations with you.

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

Our Mission

At First UU Church of Austin, we gather in community to

nourish souls

transform lives

and do justice.

Ends

First UU Church of Austin is an intentionally hospitable community where:

All people are treated with respect and dignity
All people of goodwill are welcomed
People are supported in times of joy and need
People find connection with one another in fellowship
We are fully engaged and generous with time, treasure and talent
We invite people of goodwill to find a spiritual home with us
We engage as UUs in public life

First UU Church of Austin nourishes souls and transforms lives by:

Engaging and supporting members in spiritual practice and growth
Providing worship, programs and activities that awaken meaning and transcendence
Ensuring that members have a caring, supportive and safe place to rekindle the spirit

First UU Church of Austin witnesses to justice in our personal lives and beyond, by:

Practicing liberal religious values in the public arena
Empowering all people to access the richness of life
Providing leadership to the greater UUA community to expand the reach of our movement
Partnering with the interfaith community to live our shared values

Having listened to the church for a year now, and in studying the goals by which we steer into the future, I have a sense of where we would like to be:

Could we be a congregation with a reputation for generosity, a church that gives away 5-10 percent of its budget to efforts for justice? This includes giving away the (non-pledge) collection plate every week.

Could we be a congregation where the youth and adults have many experiences of hands-on justice work, from demonstrating on the steps of the Capitol to going on service trips?

Could we be a congregation whose strength in the arts is well-known in Central Texas, and where we weave art into worship, into justice work, into intergenerational projects and outreach projects?

Could we be a congregation whose people give and receive skilled pastoral care, where we teach one another, where we pass on our faith and our traditions from generation to generation?

Could we be a congregation with enough space to welcome all who need us, and that space reflects our pride and our joy in the gifts our church brings to our lives and the lives of others?

Could a church so skillfully and effectively run, where our staff and financial practices reflect our values, that other churches look to us as a model?

Could we be a congregation where people experience transcendence and deep connection, whether in worship, in chalice circle conversations, in justice work, in doing art, in teaching or fellowship?

Does this sound like something you would like to be part of? Let’s do it!

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776