To What Ends

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 31, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The mission we say together every Sunday is our ultimate end (or purpose). We have other ends that help us move toward that mission though.

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

Say Yes. Whatever it is, say yes with your whole heart, and, simple as it sounds, that’s all the excuse life needs to grab you by the hands and start to dance.

– Brian Andreas

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

DREAMING
Chris Jimmerson

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.

Our 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

Ends:

- We live our Unitarian Universalist faith and values, teach them to our children, and act on them in the world

- We support and challenge one another in worship, spiritual growth and lifelong learning to practice a rich spiritual life

- We engage with one another to care for the Earth and the interdependent web

- We care for one another in intergenerational community and connect in fun and fellowship

- We embody the principles of Unitarian Universalism and invite people of goodwill to find a spiritual home with us

- We partner with other organizations and faith communities to dismantle a culture of white supremacy and other systems of oppression, within ourselves, within our church community, and beyond our walls

- We provide leadership to and collaborate with the greater Unitarian Universalist community to expand the reach of our movement

We are generous with time, talent, and treasure to realize our mission

Sermon

The year was 2017. The month – November. The leading cast of characters – our Board Trustees at the time. Their objective, should they decide to accept it, was to begin a process within the church to review our values, mission and ends. That’s how our story today begins.

Last week, I talked about how our values, mission and ends first came to be articulated back in 2010.

If you missed that service, our current values, mission, and ends are listed on the handouts we have placed around the sanctuary, within your digital order of service, and on a poster in the fellowship hall, as well as on our website and Facebook page.

One might suspect we want it to be easy for you to know about these things. To quickly review, values are the broadest, deepest aspect of our vision as a religious community.

Our values are the core of how we want to be in the world. Our mission then arises out of those values. The mission is our common purpose as a religious community – the overarching differences we are here to make.

The mission then gets further defined by that we call “ends”. It might help to think of ends as more detailed descriptions and goals for how we will live out our mission.

Ends embody what specific, measurable differences we hope to make. Well, seven years later after 2010, acting in accordance with commonly held best practices, the board engaged the church in a review of the values, mission and ends at they existed at that time. The board recruited volunteers to facilitate sessions with congregants, naming those sessions “Courage and Wonder: Visioning Our Future Together.”

Notice that Courage and Wonder” are directly drawn from among our values Statements In the sessions, congregants gathered into small groups of about four and were invited to share with each other based upon the following prompts: The first was,

- Tell me a story about an experience at First UU:

- a time particularly grounded in courage and wonder;

- a time when you and others were living lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty, open to and curious about the unknown;
a time when you felt especially alive, involved, and engaged with this religious community.

Then, folks were asked to share as second time:

“As you think about courage and wonder shaping our future at First UU, imagine there are no obstacles, that all you hear is “yes, we can do that together!” What 3 wishes would you make for what courage and wonder help our congregation create in the future?”

That was before the pandemic.

I wonder how we might answer those inquiries now?

Finally, the groups were given art supplies and pictures taken from magazines. They were asked to imagine that 10 years later the wishes they had come up with earlier had come true. Based on that, the groups each created a magazine cover using the art supplies they had been given that addressed the question:

“How is First UU changing lives now that your wishes have come true?” The board then took the magazine covers and summaries of the answers to the two inquiries and re-examined the values, mission and ends.

They found that the five values listed in your handouts still held true for the congregation. However, they slightly changed the mission from what it had been:

“We gather in community to nourish souls, transform lives and do justice” to our current mission, which is on our wall and that we said together earlier. They did so to reflect a bolder commitment within the church to anti-racism, anti-oppression and multiculturalism that had come out during the sessions. The term “build the Beloved Community” captured that bolder commitment and gave a desired outcome to the mission. But the ends were where the real action happened.

The board created an entirely new set of ends to more fully express that new boldness and desired outcome. It’s those ends that I want to talk about more today, because they still inform all of our ministries and programs.

There are eight of them, so I’ll just touch briefly on each one for now.

Our first end is “We live our Unitarian Universalist faith and values, teach them to our children, and act on them in the world.”

We do this through our worship services, music, Religious Education (or RE), and our social justice activities, which include our children and youth. For instance, a group of us is attending a reproductive justice resource fair and rally this evening at 6:30 You can find out more at the social justice table in the fellowship hall after the service. In recent prior months, our terrific social justice chair, Carrie Holly-Hurt, led several of our folks in publicly decrying horrible legislation that harms trans people, as well as in working on the “UU the Vote” voter turn-out efforts. We’ve lived our faith and values by becoming an immigrant sanctuary church, a reproductive freedom congregation, an LGBTQ welcoming congregation, a green sanctuary church, and by adopting the UU 8th principle, which calls us to dismantle racism and oppression in ourselves and our institutions.

Whew, I’m out of breath.

That’s a lot, and it is only a few examples of how this church is living out that first end.

The second one is, “We support and challenge one another in worship, spiritual growth and lifelong learning to practice a rich spiritual life.”

Because of this end, we have learned that to grow spiritually, we must challenge ourselves. Sometimes we can’t be in a space that feels entirely comfortable and safe – we have to be in a brave space. For instance, our moment for beloved community can be challenging sometimes. Once again, we also fulfill this end through worship, music and RE.

Our “chalice circle” small group ministries, Wellspring spiritual reflection groups, our meditation group, book groups fellowship and fun activities and other ministries also contribute towards folks practicing a rich spiritual life.

AND, one of my favorite reflections on spiritual growth came from something one of your fellow congregants shared with me a while back. They said something like, “I experience the spiritual when I am out working with others to struggle for greater justice in our world.”

Third End – “We engage with one another to care for the Earth and the interdependent web.”

As I mentioned, we are a UU Association accredited green sanctuary church.

We have a strong green sanctuary team, led by the dynamic duo of Beki and Richard Halpern, who have spearheaded our participation in so many environmental and climate justice efforts I can’t possibly name them all now. They and their team have truly made this church a leader in such efforts in our area.

I encourage you to talk with them and get involved. We also teach our children about and involve them in caring for the interdependent web.

Our fourth end states, “We care for one another in intergenerational community and connect in fun and fellowship.”

Celeste Padilla and her merry band of folks with our fun and fellowship team have organized a number of great, intergenerational events, including the best online variety show of all time, during the pandemic! My spouse, Wayne and I were thrilled to provide some off the worst jokes ever for that show.

We have at least one intergenerational service each month. We have an active care team for folks who are facing life challenges. Our RE programs promote intergenerational interaction, including our awesome summer camp that we just held.

The fifth end is, “We embody the principles of Unitarian Universalism and invite people of goodwill to find a spiritual home with us.”

Our wonderful congregational administrator Shannon and a group of terrific volunteers provide several “Path to Membership” classes each year to orient potential new members. Our excellent transformation through connection and service team helps folks find ways to get involved, which also helps folks get to know other church members. Since we’ve returned to in person services, we’ve engaged in several ways to try and invite people of goodwill to find that spiritual home with us.

Here are a few examples: We’re upgrading our playground and classrooms to make them more inviting. We’ve changed the church website to more directly feature worship services and ways to get connected. We’ve placed signs in the building, inviting visitors to speak with me after the service. And, we recently ran a targeted promotion on Facebook, promoting our values, principles and mission. Last week, we ran a sponsorship on our local NPR radio station, KUT, to do the same and inviting folks to visit the church website, as well as the church itself!

End number 6 is, “We partner with other organizations and faith communities to dismantle a culture of white supremacy and other systems of oppression, within ourselves, within our church community, and beyond our walls.”

This one is so rich and complex that I cannot even come close to covering it all this morning. We’ll address it more in the weeks to come though. We work with a large number of other organizations to carry out this end.

And, one of the vital things we’ve learned from this end is that it’s often most effective for those of us from a majority white, majority privileged congregation to follow the lead of those other organizations – for instance anti-racism groups led by people of color. Many of our sermons and the moment for beloved community encourage us to dismantle systems of racism and other oppressions.

Each year, your board of trustees reads and discusses an anti-racism book, and we’ve recently formed a new book group within the church that will be studying such a book together.

Our RE programs contain anti- racism/anti-oppression subject matter and activities. And of course, again, many if not most of our social justice efforts address this end. Both your board president, Nesan and I have noted how similar this end is to the UU 8th principle we recently approved. This end, then, is in close alliance with the priorities of our larger UU faith.

Our 7th end is, “We provide leadership to and collaborate with the greater Unitarian Universalist community to expand the reach of our movement.”

We serve as the “hub” congregation in our area, often coordinating local social justice efforts, working with other churches to provide Our Whole Lives, age appropriate sexual education classes and the like. Many of our sermon videos have been picked up and used by other UU churches, as has our music, and we’ve developed an online following with UUs across the nation and even overseas on our livestream. Our ministers, staff and some church members have served in various national leadership positions within our faith. I continue to serve as a mentor for other ministers, and our minister emerita, Meg, now provides counseling for other ministers. Our Inside Amigos immigration justice program and our immigration sanctuary efforts have served as models throughout our faith.

Well, last but certainly not least, “We are generous with time, talent, and treasure to realize our mission.”

What more can I really say on this one except, you certainly do, thank you!”

All of our ministries from RE to Worship to music to social justice to fun and fellowship to our governance – every aspect of this church is only possible because of our generous, talented and good-looking volunteers.

During the pandemic, like most other churches, we saw a decline in membership. Yet, we did not see a corresponding decline in pledging because those of you here today, online or in person, rose to the challenge and kept us going. So thank you, thank you, thank you for your time, talent and treasure. Wow, I know that was a lot and fairly didactic by its very nature. I think it’s important for us to be aware though, of what our ends are; why they matter.

Please know that the handful of examples I’ve had time to give you today of what we are doing to make progress toward them is just a small sampling. We’re doing and will do even more. Progress toward our ends is a large part of the way in which we gauge how well we are living our mission and values. Our ends proclaim who we are through what we do.

They require that we join together and strive toward them as a community. They call us to work in solidarity with others. They move us toward mutuality, unity and celebration of our interdependence.

Our ends our how we say “yes” to our mission and the vision that radiates forth from our values. So let us say, “yes” so that life can take us by the hands and start the dance.

SERMON INDEX

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