I am not completely certain, but I think this may be the first time that the choir has sung “Boogie Wonderland.” That’s one image of the Beloved Community…Boogie Wonderland…where we boogie our way toward love and justice.
Perhaps that driving disco beat is exactly what we need.
What a week this has been…
First, the election results…especially the results here in Oregon… support for affordable housing…our sanctuary status overwhelmingly affirmed…the Clean Energy Initiative now a reality…
One congregant told me she was almost “giddy” on Wednesday morning.
It did not happen magically. How many of you made calls, attended meetings, wrote letters, gave money, knocked on doors, voted…
Nationally, the progressive wave has gotten larger as the week has progressed. More than 100 women elected to Congress, many women of color, the first Native American woman, women veterans, another out Trans Woman.
It is a good thing that the week gave us so much to celebrate.
Because the week also gave us a new…problematic… Attorney General, yet another mass shooting, more deadly fires in California and the exposure of yet more voter suppression.
We have been holding so much grief and so much anxiety for so long. We could all use some celebration.
Poet Anne Barker writes:
“We gather with a hunger for reconciliation.
What is done cannot be undone.
What is done next must be done with care.
These are the wounds we must heal together—
Grief and anger for all that has been lost, …
Pain that has gone without sufficient comfort,
Mistrust that was earned, that continues burning still.”
Grief and anger for all that has been lost.
I am going to get to hope this morning but I am not going to deny the weariness that many of us are feeling.
And we know that there remains so much to be restored…so much to be repaired.
Jewish mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria, taught of Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world:
Before God created the world, the entire universe was filled with God’s presence. God took a breath to draw back…shrinking to make room for the world. From that first breath, darkness was created. It is in the darkness that hope was born.
And then God said, “Let there be light,” and light was created and vessels were filled with it. God sent those vessels into the world, holding holy light.
If they had arrived unbroken, the world would have been perfect, so the story goes.
But the holy light was too powerful to be contained, and the vessels split open sending sparks and shards of light everywhere, scattering them like sand, like seeds, like stars.
It is our job to gather the sparks and the shards. And when enough have been gathered, tikkun olam, the repair of the world will be complete.”
Tikkun Olam. The repair of the world. Isn’t that what we need. In Pittsburgh. In S. California. And in our own hearts. The repair of the world.
And the sparks of light in that story, the shards of those vessels are all here…already…in us and around us…
Can you hear me building to a Universalist message.
The spark of divinity within each of us is already present, already available…waiting to be gathered into wholeness.
Tikkun Olam. Repair is possible because the love is already present…already a potential within us…just waiting to be revealed and allowed to shine forth.
Can I have an Amen?
I have been preaching a lot from the Universalist side of our religious family tree this fall. God is love and that love is freely given…to each and every one of us…unconditional and always available.
That is one strand of the theology that undergirds our affirmation of the inherent worth and dignity of each of us. The shards of light, the spark of divinity is inherent…built in…not optional…not a choice…for any of us…so our first principle says.
Inherent.
But when we move from God’s love that is just a given for Universalists…
When we shift focus from that love that just keeps coming our way, and begin to focus on our own ability to create the beloved community, our capacity to bring love into the world…then we are drawing more heavily on the Unitarian side of our religious family tree.
Love from us, not love to us. That is the Unitarian message. Our agency. Human agency. Our affirmation of inherent worth and dignity is also about OUR love.
Our Unitarian religious ancestors knew something about empowerment…also about privilege…but that is a sermon for another day.
Because beyond those issues of privilege, there is a more fundamental problem with that claim to universal, inherent worth and dignity. And we need to wrestle with it…especially in these days when hate and violence are being authorized.
Here is the problem: If every one of us has inherent worth and dignity…well that means those young white men carrying Tiki torches in Charlottesville, and the climate change deniers and, yes, even the shooters in Pittsburgh and S. California…the spark of divinity resides in them too…inherent worth and dignity…just like us.
Ouch. How do we deal with that?
There is in me, and perhaps in some of you, the urge to just write those folks off the island. To revert to a theology of damnation for some…for them…
I am no stranger to an anger that would…well…send those folks straight to hellfire…except my Universalism doesn’t let me believe those fires exist. It is a problem, because I feel that pull…
Especially when those folks have power…oh, yes.
The great Unitarian ethicist, James Luther Adams, dealt with this dilemma by resurrecting, for religious liberals, the notion of “sin.”
“Whether liberal[s] use the word ‘sin’ or not, [we] cannot correct our ‘too jocund’ (jocund…too rosy, too warm and fuzzy)…we cannot correct our too warm and fuzzy view of life until [we] recognize that there is in human nature a deep-seated and universal tendency…to ignore the demands of mutuality and…abuse [our] freedom.”
To ignore the demands of mutuality…
Adams goes on: “[We} have neglected these aspects of human nature in [our] zeal to proclaim the spark of divinity within [each of us].”
Adams is talking about evil. He is talking about evil done by folks whom we assert have inherent worth and dignity, folks in whom that spark of divinity burns…just as it does in us.
Bill Schulz, former UUA President and former Executive Director of Amnesty International, dealt with this in an essay entitled: “What Torture Taught Me.”
He concluded, after a decade of dealing with both torture victims and torturers, that, for him at least, belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person…is a myth.
For Bill, there are too many malevolent hearts, and too many god-forsaken places, where worth and dignity are absent. That shooter’s heart in the Pittsburgh synagogue was hate-filled, not able to hold worth. Not worthy.
It is hard to argue that.
Schultz raises challenging questions for us. Inherent worth and dignity, that phrase, has centered our entire ethical framework.
Perhaps we all have worth, even that shooter, but only in potential…worth that could be. Perhaps what is inherent is that possibility. Even though that potential can become so twisted. So…Evil.
I am not sure.
Worth must be assigned…Schulz insists…it must be granted by communities. And dignity…dignity must be taught.
Worth and dignity…not always present…I’m not sure.
But I am sure of this: worth and dignity require work to create and affirmation to sustain. Thinking of them as inherent may understate what it takes to make them real.
Perhaps they are not abstract or divine given attributes but the result of community practice. Perhaps only the accountable community can grant and nurture worth and dignity with any staying power.
Another way to say all of this is that each of us has potential worth and dignity…not inherent perhaps but potential certainly. That spark of divinity exists in each of us…in potential…waiting to be realized.
But like all sparks, that spark, that worth, that dignity is fragile. It must be nurtured…fed…and sustained. That is what we do in this church. We nurture our individual worth and dignity. And work for worth and dignity out in the world.
Our Universalist ancestors were right…love is there for all of us…waiting for us to welcome it…waiting for us to live into it. I believe that is true.
And our Unitarian ancestors knew truth as well. That the decisions we make and the way we live matters. That we, together, can make a difference. Our agency is not only real…it is essential.
The First Unitarian vision statement calls on us to be a beacon of hope.
Beacon of hope.
You know that a beacon is only necessary in the dark.
Meg Riley writes: “I do not think the light is where we primarily find hope. I think that the actual stuff of hope, the actual mysterious components that create it, can only be found in the darkness. …In the darkness we sense that there is something new that we need to see, and we fumble for the match to light a candle. In that impulse—the desire to see and the fumbling for light—is the birth of hope.”
That is what we aspire to do here in this church…to give birth to hope.
We are Universalists, but we are not just waiting around for that love to flow down.
We are welcoming asylum seekers, companioning them as they transition to their sponsors. We are supporting sanctuary and working for environmental justice. We are resisting racism and working to understand how privilege operates in our lives and in our world.
We light a beacon to point the way…not because we know the way…but because, in fact, the way is not certain and the outcome is in question. The spark of divinity, that potential within us is no guarantee that a Beloved Community will emerge around us.
We are Unitarians, too, who know that ours are the only hands on earth, who know that the building of the Beloved Community is neither easy nor without opposition.
We light a beacon because hope must always be regenerated and renewed…especially when darkness gathers.
That is what we do here. We are Unitarian Universalists. We kindle that beacon. We regenerate hope…week after week. When the news is good and especially when the news is bad.
We light a beacon of hope.
I will call for the pledges of financial support for this church in just a moment. The band is ready with more disco. The baskets are ready down in front.
We have been more direct about what the church needs this year than ever before. And there is a budget to meet.
But this day is not really about a budget…this day is about generosity of spirit and the commitment to keep this a place where hope is reborn…to keep this community thriving…
This day is about sustaining our hope.
“Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us when we falter.
A circle of healing.
Someplace we can be free.”
A beacon of hope.
May it be so.
Witnessing With Our Gifts
It is time for our pledging ritual.
In a moment, I am going to invite you all to come forward and make your commitment of financial support for First Unitarian for the coming year. For our visitors this morning, please feel free to simply enjoy the music and the spirit in the sanctuary. This is a time of joy for us. I should also tell you that we do this only once a year. You don’t have to fear visiting us again. Of course, if you wish to come forward and make a contribution, that would be a blessing.
Many of us have already pledged. So that (Just check) “I’ve Already Pledged” card is there for you. Needless to say, increases in those already pledged amounts would be very welcome. We have some ground to make up. There is a space for increases on that card.
And for those who are with us on line, now regularly well over 100 of you, just touch that “donate” button at any point during the pledging ritual.
We’ll begin by inviting the two center sections of the main floor to come forward, down the center aisle. They will be followed by the two sections at the sides of the main floor, and then by the folks in the galleries. Those in the side sections and the galleries should go out into the lobby and down the center aisle. Everyone on the main floor should return to their seats using the aisles on the sides. This will make the process smoother. Trust me on this.
Then the folks in the balcony, last but certainly not least, will come down to the main floor and down the center aisle.
If you have mobility limitations, raise your hand and an usher will come to you.
And if any of this is not clear to you, our ushers will be helping to point us all in the right direction.
Music Begins
I want to invite our co-chairs this year…David Livermore and Laura Jones to lead this off…David and Laura…come on down.
Let the pledging begin!
Sharing Our Gifts: Ain’t No Stopping Us Now, We Are Family
Topics: Accountability