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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
January 13, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org
Though Unitarian Universalists are a people of many theological or philosophical perspectives, the human possibility, our potential for doing good in our world has always been central to our world-view. What are the ways in which we are being called toward our full potential. What lures us toward creative, life-fulfilling possibilities?
Call to Worship:
DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CARES AT THE DOOR
By Norman V Naylor
Do not leave your cares at the door.
Do not leave there your pain, your sorrow or your joys.
Bring them with you into this place of acceptance and forgiveness.
Place them on the common altar of life and offer them to the possibility of your worship.
Come then, and offer yourself to potential transformation by the creative process that flows through you and all life.
Reading
FOR A NEW BEGINNING
John O’Donahue
In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
Sermon
Earlier, we lit the flame of our chalice, calling it into being. And yet “being” is not quite an accurate description. A flame is not a stable object, but rather an ever becoming process of fuel and oxygen being burnt, one flame dying so that the next can arise, giving the impression to our eyes of one steady flame.
A worldview called process theology says that we are like that flame. We are ever changing processes of becoming, changing into something new with each moment of our experience.
For process theology, God is not omnipotent, but rather is a benevolent force, offering to us almost limitless possibilities from which to choose in each moment, luring us toward those potentialities that are life-giving and life fulfilling, that move our world to-ward greater goodness and beauty, that expand our awareness and spiritual wellbeing.
God then holds our experiences, as well as those of all else, to retain what has been actualized in our world.
The non-theistic version of this substitutes the possibility for novelty, the creative processes inherent in our universe, for God. Love and justice become what lure us toward the creative choices that will enhance our live and world.
Now that is probably that shortest, most simplified version of process theology ever spoken. Process theology is much more complex than what I have just outlined.
I wanted to start by sharing a little about it with you this morning though, because I think it provides one useful way for examining the subject of this month’s theme that our Faith Development classes and activities have been exploring – the Soul Matters theme of possibility.
Unitarians and Universalists have always been a people of possibility. When other faiths have placed depravity at the core of humanity, we have seen potential instead.
A couple of Sundays ago, we talked about how what we do not know, uncertainty and mystery can sometimes create within us experiences of awe and wonder and beckon us toward creative exploration and possibility.
Last Sunday, we thought about how letting go of what may be holding us back can oftentimes create new, more life-fulfilling potential for us. For example, letting go of relationships that have become unhealthy or toxic, so that we can spend more time building those that mutually enhance one another’s lives.
Today, I would like to explore some other ways that may offer us more creative means for reaching toward our full potential.
First, I talk about something closely related to the idea of the things we need to let go to make our full potential possible.
Far too often, I think we tell ourselves stories that make the challenging or difficult seem like impossibilities for us.
- I’m too old/too young.
- I have to be perfect.
- What would other people think?
- It’s too risky.
- I am not good enough/smart enough! talented enough, worthy enough, etc.
- If I do this, they won’t love me anymore.
And there are so many more false stories we tell ourselves. I think fear of rejection, loss of belonging, is involved in a lot of these stories. Fear of rejection is one of the big ways we stifle our creative potential.
Jia Jiang is an entrepreneur who, in his early 30s, realized that a childhood incident had caused him to develop an even higher level of anxiety around being rejected than might be the norm. He ran from any possible chance of rejection, which was harming both his personal life and his entrepreneurial efforts.
So, he decided to go into a period of 100 days wherein each day he would do something that was likely to lead to being rejected. He wanted to see what he could learn from this and whether it could help him work through his fear of rejection. One day he asked a complete stranger if he could borrow $100.
Another, he went to a burger joint, had his lunch and then walked back up to the counter and asked for a burger refill. He convinced a Starbucks manager to let him be a greeter all day like they do at Walmart stores. On yet another day, he knocked on the door of a stranger’s house and asked if he could plant a flower in their backyard.
Needless to say, he got rejected a number of times. But, he also began to notice if he stayed engaged. if he did not immediately flee if told, “no”, that creative possibilities began to open up.
When he admitted to the Starbuck’s manager that his request to be a greeter was a little weird, the manger said, “OK, go ahead. Just don’t do anything too weird”.
The person at the first house he asked about planting a flower in their backyard said, ‘no.” By now, a more confident Jia asked, “why”? The person answered that they had a dog that would just dig it back up anyway but then referred him to the lady across the street who loved flowers. The flower is now growing in her backyard.
So in a way, what he did was to desensitize himself to rejection and even learn to embrace it as a gift. I want to let you hear his conclusions from his experiment.
VIDEO
I think Jia’s story also reveals a couple of other ways that we are called to creative possibilities first, we have greater possibilities when we educate ourselves – open ourselves to having our consciousness raised, and, second, we reach our greatest potential in relationship with others.
We can educate ourselves by formal means, but also by putting ourselves in situations from which we can learn, as Jia did.
One of the ways in which we are learning together here at the church, is how we can better recognize and dismantle a culture of white supremacy and other systems of oppression, within ourselves, within our church community, and beyond our walls, as one of our new ends statements related to our mission puts it.
To that end, a subset of our change team, a group that is working on antiracism and multiculturalism here at the church, has put together an exercise for us this morning.
You will see up on your screen and on a handout you have were given on your way in, a question related to the Language of Anti-Oppression, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
What is discrimination against someone based on race and reinforced by systems of power?
- a. white privilege
- b. Jim Crow-ism
- c. racism
- d. apartheid
Please decide how you would answer the question and then pair up with someone near you. You’ll each take one to two minutes each to talk about why you chose the answer that you did.
OK, you may begin now.
Let’s come back together now. You’re Unitarians, so I know you are wanting to know if you got the correct answer, but to find out, you’ll have to come to workshop at 12:30 today mentioned on your handout and announcements, where you can learn more of the vocabulary of building the Beloved Community.
So, we can learn from each other. Even further, each one of us can only realize our own greatest potential, I believe, in relationship with others, especially those who have much different life experiences than our own.
We grow the most when we learn to not only encounter but value difference and alternative perspectives. This is one of many ways that our silos rooted in racism, bigotry and ideology harm all of us.
And especially when it comes to movement building, we absolutely must have relationships and community, we must have solidarity, to maximize the social possibilities for which we yearn.
I love the way poet Marge Percy expresses the possibility to be found in building movements in her poem,
“The Low Road”
What can they do to you?
Whatever they want.
They can set you up,
they can bust you,
they can break your fingers,
they can bum your brain with electricity, … ,
they can take your child, wall up your lover.They can do anything
you can’t stop them from doing.
How can you stop them?
Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse,
you can take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.But two people fighting back to back can cut through a mob …
Two people can keep each other sane,
can give support, conviction, love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge.
With four you can play bridge and start an organization.
With six you can rent a whole house …
and hold a fund-raising party.A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,it starts when you care to act,
it starts when you do it again after they said no,
it starts when you say WE and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.
Here is another take on how movements start.
VIDEO
I think that advice about learning to follow might be a great source of possibility, especially for those of us who are managerial class, white and used to being in positions of authority.
I’d like to end by returning to the process theology with which I began.
What if God is calling you to toward those potentialities that are life-giving and life fulfilling?
What if God is answering your desire to reach for your full potential, with a “yes”?
Or, if you prefer, what if the possibility for novelty, the creative processes inherent in our universe – what if love and justice are luring you toward possibilities that expand your awareness and spiritual wellbeing and move our world toward greater goodness and beauty?
What if the universe is saying, “yes” to the world of which we dream?
How will we answer?
Benediction
GOD SAYS YES TO ME
– Kaylin Haught
I asked God if it was okay to be
melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
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