Sermons Presented at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Easton, Maryland

This is the online archive of sermons presented Sundays at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Easton, Maryland.

Members of the congregation discuss each sermon's meaning during our “Multilogue” and coffee hour that follow the presentation, and throughout the week by posting to this blog. Through this kind of dialogue, we demonstrate our commitment to a responsible search for truth and meaning.

Unitarian Universalism is a faith for those who want the freedom to develop their own religious values and beliefs without being bound by creed or dogma. These are the Principles and Purposes that we share:

- The inherent worth and dignity of every person.

- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.

- Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregation.

- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregation and in society at large

- The goal of world peace, liberty and justice for all.

- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

We encourage our neighbors to consider the Fellowship as their spiritual home. The Fellowship is located at:

7401 Ocean Gateway (US 50)
Across from Easton HS stadium
Easton, Maryland

Worship Services (with child care): Sunday, 10:00 am

Visit our fellowship’s informational web site at www.uufeaston.org . Or contact:

UUFE President
Richard Doughty
rldoughty@dmv.com

Membership Chair
Gail Woodall
gbwoodall@goeaston.net

Disclaimer and Copyright Notice: Sermons presented here are the copyrighted material and express the personal views of the author/presenter, and not the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Easton or the Unitarian Universalist Association. Permission to copy or distribute sermon text must be obtained from the author.

Dreams: Then And Now

Sermon by Rev. Daniel Higgins

Studs Terkel, in America Dreams: Lost and Found, relates a conversation with an African-American resident of Tennessee who lived in a rural town through which the Nashville/Chicago train passed, but did not stop. As a boy and as a man he told how that train was a symbol of escape and hope for a different and better live. He related that the train through that rural community carried with it “anonymous dreams.”

As I recall that story the phrase “anonymous dreams” lodges in the recesses of my mind. And what lodges is the question, “How can dreams be anonymous?” As I review my dream life and have conversations with Jean about her dream life the personal aspects are evident. I admit that I have had dreams that are totally unrelated to the people I have known or experiences that I have had. They are often in never-never land. Maybe in that sense they are anonymous. Both sacred and secular literature incorporate dreams in their writings and those who are interpreters of dreams. In the biblical tradition Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, becomes the interpreter of Pharoh’s dreams. In reflecting on the conversation between Terkel and the Tennessee resident I realize that Terkel is indicating that dreams can be both personal and corporate.

On Sunday evening, two weeks ago, there was a special on TV of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. A segment of that program filmed a portion of his “I Have A Dream” speech. As I listened I realized that his speech was both personal and corporate. It was a dream that one day his four children would “live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” and where “sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at table of brotherhood.”

The first reading of the morning from the book of Ezekiel is a corporate dream. It takes place in the aftermath of a battle. The battlefield is strewn with dead bodies. Israel has been defeated by the Babylonian army and the question arises, “Can these bones live?” The question can be stated another way. “What kind of life is possible tomorrow?”

There are two kinds of dream; dream of the day and dreams of the night. The Tennessee resident and Ezekiel’s dream are dreams of the day, which are far more compelling than dreams of night. Day dreams have a way of lingering, informing, and propelling to action. Day dreams, even through of unknown origin and have no acknowledged name, are powerful and persuasive. Consider the dreams for peace, justice, and equality. No one knows how ancient these dreams are. They are found in all the recorded writings of the human race. They are the shared dreams of the human race.

Dreams have a way of lingering until they are acted upon. It was in one of the summer gatherings at the home of Nancy and George Orr’s in the late 1980’s when this Fellowship was a band of twenty some liberals that the discussion arouse about having a home of our own. Founded in 1961 this Fellowship has met in homes, the Women’s Club, the Academy of the Arts, Temple B.Nai Israel, and Third Haven Meeting House. Like the ancient Israelites we wandered for thirty years looking for their promised land. It took the Israelites forty years to reach their promised land. We beat them by ten years.

I remember that meeting well. The suggestion that we could afford a building was viewed by some as a pipe dream. How could twenty some members afford property in Talbot County? In the early nineties this property came on the market at a cost of $250,000. With pledges and loans we rehabbed a veterinary clinic and held our first service on Easter Sunday 1992.

In 2006, with membership at 100 the renovation of the 1992 building began and was dedicated in September 2007. In August or September an interim minister will come and assist the ministerial search committee and the congregation in calling a minister.

I suggest that this is an important period in the life of the congregation. It is a time for dreaming, dialogue and discussion. These are necessary for the life and future of this congregation. The dream, the dialogue, and the discussion can be, should be, articulated in one on one conversations, in committee meetings: membership, religious education, finance, worship, social concerns, building and grounds, and during coffee hour. It is necessary that every member and friend be engaged in that dreaming, dialogue and discussion. Nobody should be left out.

I am reminded of an apocryphal story about a nine year old girl who offered a solution of how to achieve peace. She suggested that the world leaders be locked in a room and not be allowed to go to the bathroom until they had all agreed not to fight anymore.

Hopefully we will not have to be locked in a room until there is some consensus about the future direction of this congregation. The dream, the dialogue, and the discussion can take place in different formats so that everybody is heard. I suggest that at board and committee meetings discussions and dreams about our future be a part of the agenda.

Toward the end of his life Ernie Pyle, the well know correspondent of World War II described the atmosphere in a room where thirty five men had been assigned to a bombing mission for the next day. It was likely that one fourth of those men would not return from the mission. Those thirty five men know that. What these men felt, Pyle wrote, was not fear. Rather, it was “a profound reluctance to give up the future.”

As we consider our future I share with you some sobering statistics. According to the 2007 UUA Directory we have 162,477 members and a 57,166 church school enrollment. The U.S. population is 300,000,000. When the Universalist Church of American (UCA) and the American Unitarian Association (AUA) merged in 1961 membership was 155,449 and RE (religious education) enrollment of 61,000. The population of the U.S. in 1960 was 180,000,000. To put this in an historical perspective consider the 1900 census report. The UCA reported 860,000 and the AUA reported 250,000. The U.S. population was seventy six million and the Unitarian and Universalist denominations had a combined membership of one million, one hundred, thousand members.

During the late 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s at ministers retreats and conferences there were papers, lectures, and discussions as what contributed to our decline. Those discussions and meetings came to be known as the “Unitarian Univesalist Disapora.” Every retreat, every lecture, and every discussion had a rationale and thesis, but there was no consensus as to what contributed to that decline. It is interesting to speculate, but I suggest that our task at present is find ways by which we can be an effective voice for the Unitarian Universalism here in the mid-Shore counties of Maryland.

By any standard our world is not as it should be, or could be. But consider what it would be like if there had been no dreams;

no Ezekiel dreaming of what is possible tomorrow,

no Isaiah dreaming of the day when the lion and the lamb would lie down together,

no Amos dreaming of justice rolling down like might waters,

no Jesus dreaming of the time when the meek shall inherit the earth,

no Ghandi with his dreams of nonviolence,

no King with his dreams of when all of us will sit down at the table of brotherhood.

Next month on May 18, after the worship service, we will have our annual meeting. As I look forward to that meeting there is a phrase that keeps running through my mind. I am not sure if it is from a song or if from a poem, but I share it with you. “Trust your dreams.” In 1991-1992 we dreamed and realized a permanent home. In 2006-2007 we dreamed and significantly upgraded our worship area, religious education space, and office facilities. As we approach the church year 2008-2009 and beyond may we all continue to “trust your (our) dreams.”

Perhaps an eleventh beatitude ought to be added; Blessed are the dreamers for they will change their world.

Shalom. Amen.

Poetry at the UUFE

The service this week was dedicated to poetry and poetic prose read (and some written) by UUFE members.

Dwayne Eutsey

I’d like to share with you this morning some poems by three of Japan’s greatest Zen monk-poets: Ikkyu, from the 13^th century; Basho, from the 15^th century; and Ryokan from the 16^th century.

What I like about these poems, aside from the way they often evoke vivid imagery like what you see when a lightning flash suddenly illumines everything around you on a dark night, is their simple earthiness. They’re not concerned with some otherworldly reality—they capture and express those moments when our ego selves disappear for a brief, shining moment and we experience “What Is” right here and now.

That’s the whole purpose of Zen. As religious scholar Houston Smith observed: “Zen’s object is to infuse the temporal with the eternal—to widen the doors of perception so that the wonder of the satori experience (or sudden awakening) can flood the everyday world.”

As I put this part of the service together yesterday evening, such a flood overcame the walls of my consciousness. We had the TV off, the windows open. The rains had passed but the sky was an odd mix of grey and yellow, the grass of my neighbor’s yard was a deep, plush green. Sitting back from my laptop, I could hear a dog barking outside somewhere, various birds were chirping and twittering, even some sea gulls were crying, with an occasional car or truck rumbling by…and as my son told me incomprehensible things about the DS computer game he was playing, a breeze infused the room, and, for that moment, I simply was.

These poems, along with the help of a little wine, helped to instigate that momentary lighting flash of awareness.

***

Ikkyu (1394-1481)

I Hate Incense

A master’s handiwork cannot be measured

But still priests wag their tongues explaining the “Way” and babbling about “Zen.”

This old monk has never cared for false piety

And my nose wrinkles at the dark smell of incense before the Buddha.

A Fisherman

Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.

A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.

Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and out of the clouds;

Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night after night.

***

Basho (1644-1694)

Summer grasses:

All that remains of great soldiers’

Imperial dreams

Slender, so slender

Its stalk bends under dew—

Little yellow flower

O bush warblers!

Now you’ve shit all over

My rice cake on the porch

Nothing in the cry

Of cicadas suggests they

Are about to die

***

Ryokan (1758-1831)

First days of spring…blue sky, bright sun.

Everything is gradually becoming fresh and green.

Carrying my bowl, I walk slowly to the village.

The children, surprised to see me,

Joyfully crowd about, bringing

My begging trip to an end by the temple gate.

I place my bowl on top of a white rock and

Hang my sack from the branch of a tree.

Here we play with the wild grasses and throw a ball.

For a time, I play catch while the children sing;

Then it’s my turn.

Playing like this, here and there, I have forgotten

The time.

Passers-by point and laugh at me, asking,

“What is the reason for such foolishness?”

No answer I give, only a deep bow;

Even if I replied, they would not understand.

Look around! There is nothing besides this.

Sally Woodall

Jack Woodall served 2 years in the Navy during WWII. He wrote this letter to his wife, Doris, on the verge of coming home. It includes a note to his 16-month-old son, Ken, whom he had never met.

Oct. 13, 1945

Dearest Wife & Son,

Well, Pretty Lady, love me? You’d better cause I love you very much. It has been a fair day here, a bit warmer for a change. (I’ll be glad when you are keeping me warm.) I’ve been on the base all day long, had to be because my name was posted on a draft bound for Boston. The train was delayed, so I’m still here. The good news for today is as follows: Heave out and lash up tomorrow morning and be ready to get under way at 0800. Transfer to separation center Boston, Mass. If all goes well, hon, I leave for home in the morning. I’ve got my fingers crossed. I’m almost sure this is my last letter to you, and when you receive it I’ll be almost there. I’ll call you after I get a hotel and such for us. Your aunt better not be visiting you either. We’ll have a lot of fun with or without her. I’ve got to square away what little gear I have with me. I hope I’m not delayed again. If you don’t get any mail after this letter, you can expect a phone call. I’m very sure this is it though. Take good care of yourself and don’t worry about me. I love you very, very much.

Hello, son, how are you? I hope you are all ready to meet me cause I’m coming home at last. If they hold me back this time, I’m going to start walking back. It won’t be long now, if all goes as it should I should be a civilian in ten days. Goodnight, sleepyhead, be a good boy.

Goodnight, darling, can I have another kiss or maybe two? All my love, darling, and God bless you both.

Love and prayers,

“Woodie”

Jim Richardson

Night Ambush

Before dark they returned to the place

Where they had seen bicycle tracks beside the rice paddy.

They took their positions in a ditch,

Smoked cigarettes, and nervously waited,

In silence, in the black of the moonless night.

Tonight, there would be no sleep.

Soft words passed down the line

To make certain all were alert.

Solomon, would whisper to him, “Are you awake?”

Then he would whisper, “Hollis, you still there?”

He heard the radio operator’s muffled voice

Talking to the command post.

He listened to the unending songs of frogs and crickets,

And to the mosquitoes buzzing around his ears.

At some point he guessed it was afternoon back home.

It would be a cold day but his mother would be outside

Behind the house, tending her garden.

He was surprised how clearly he could picture her there,

Kneeling in front of the bare brown of her December flowerbeds,

Weeding around the plants and getting the earth ready for spring.

She would be dressed in her old blue canvas winter coat,

A pair of patched red woolen pants, worn-out tennis shoes,

A fuzzy wool cap that one of her boys had left behind,

And work gloves too big for her hands.

Her garden was where she went for solace.

She loved all flowers but favored her perennials.

Spring would bring Shasta daisies, baby’s breath,

Day lilies, coreopsis and foxglove. Rows of delicate coral-bells

Would line the brick walk and lemon yellow roses

And blue-purple clematis would climb the redwood fence.

In a few months the whole backyard would be full of life.

He imagined his father arriving home from his office,

Tired from the day’s work and from the pain in his leg.

He might sit on the low wall of the patio for a few moments,

Watching her work in the thin winter sunlight.

Nancy Orr read "The Fish", by Elizabeth Bishop. This poem can be found online here:

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fish/

Judy Hedges

There is no clear demarcation where prose becomes poetry...rather a mutable melting place...much like where the shoreline meets the sea...

ALL BLUE BEYOND

September...weathered canvas chair on rock ridge that holds the mossy stones that hold the antique house in place above the heath above the cliff above the breakers on boulders above Casco Bay which surrounds Bailey Island and sweeps off into infinity...

It is a crystal moment as I let my pen become my camera, my canvas and brush in my intention to remember the surrounding scene easily and often—as I make it the “wallpaper” on the back of my mind. Then I shall be able to slide in and out of monarch mode...becoming the butterfly in her ballet with the bushes—savoring nectar and sunshine before alighting seaward in the vision in a sacred way, it will slide from simile to my actual concept about my dance on this place and the unknown ever-afterings we call death...

In this—Keats's season of mellow fruitfulness—the shrubbery drinks in the sun and gives it back as blue juniper berries, red translucent orbs and larger yellow globes...as intense scarlet rosehips and lacey white or cornflower blue asters. Bittersweet vines grow up small cedars and crows call from stalwart spruces. One moment stillness...the next (as if with the breeze's baton) a host of butterflies rise up flutter, bow and flicker. Up and around they float before again alighting and becoming bronze quivering ornaments on the flowers and fruit. With each wing pattern a miracle, as a whole—almost too much loveliness. Randomly a duet commences...diving, dipping circling before one chooses Goldenrod and another Ivory Yarrow. The message comes from their needs, their nature...feasting upon the fullness before them. Beauty is their backdrop, their bounty. They are busy being butterflies. It is enough.

*************************************

How much more golden seems the heath for the celestial blue above and the aqueous blue below...as infinity borders the here and now. The sea sparkles as the sun moves on a descending arc. The light lingers less at this equinox time...

Will my tomorrow panorama include the butterflies—or will it be the mystical departure date—when---pulled by a compelling force—they work their way to the ring of lavender asters at the cliff edge then continue on...part of a pattern, yet each springs as a solitary...such fragile wings set firmly in flight...to the lighthouse, then the outermost island as they follow the fritillaries of my other autumns on to the meeting of sea and sky. Does this papillon parade lift prose into poetry?

When I hear the chords of my September song, so shall I go... Of the heath one day...out to the horizon the next. May I fly as light as my monarchs do. Oh, Gods of golden hours, give me harmonious flow—give me the grace of the butterfly...

Somehow my pen is a finch's feather, my pages are bound birch bark... The sunbeam slants, shadows intensify the light, the air calms and cools... The rosehip nectar is tart on my tongue. My toes are dusty with ragweed pollen, my wrists balsam-scented...the black, gold and white stained glass patterns shift in kaleidoscope ways as I furl then fling my wings in readiness...

Rest on the rim...recall the dance with the days...wonder wakes too the glory of it all...the bell buoy bongs...the loon calls...the beckoning blue...wings...now

A Parable of Grace

Sermon by the Rev. Daniel Higgins

For those of you that read the April newsletter you will notice that the sermon topic listed in the bulletin is different than the one listed in the newsletter. In preparing the sermon I thought the new title reflected more accurately the theme of the sermon.

A colleague of mine, Frank Schulman, when he was a student at Harvard Divinity School had the task of filing the sermons of the minister of the First Church in Cambridge, MA. Frank came to the conclusion that the sermon titles often had little relationship to the content of the sermon.

William Ellery Channing was the minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston (1803-1842), now the Arlington Street Church. One Sunday morning leaving his house on the way to church he met one of the parishioners walking away from the church. He stopped, greeted him, and inquired as to why he was leaving the church. The parishioner replied that he didn’t like the sermon title. From then on Channing never announced a sermon title. There is no record as to whether the attendance increased or decreased. We might try it here and see what happens.

In James Woelful’s book, Camus: A Theological Perspective, he wrote, I begin this study of Camus with the idea of grace. It may seem strange to introduce reflection on a writer well known for agnosticism in this way. But those who are familiar with his writings know that “grace” is one of his most characteristic words. I begin with grace because there is an important sense in which it is the foundation of Camus’s life and thought.”

“The term grace is not a monopoly of religion. It is taken from a general setting in human experience. In our common usage, grace, is used chiefly in its adjective forms; gracious, grateful.”

One of the ways to consider the parables of Jesus is to view them as stories about grace. Consider a few; The Lost Sheep, The Ten Lepers, The Wedding Feast, The Lost Coin, The Great Banquet. The two best known parables of Jesus are The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan. It is the parable of the Samaritan that is under consideration this morning.

Let me begin by citing Voltaire’s comment that “if you would converse with me, first, define your terms.” In the Britannica World Language Dictionary there are nine definitions of grace. It is the third one that is applicable to the biblical parables; “unmerited favor or good will, any kindness of favor freely rendered, unmerited love.” Grace is a gift with no strings attached. Jesus indicated that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The sun rises and sets on us all.

During the 1980’s when the UUA was in the process of adopting our Purposes & Principles I made the argument, unsuccess-fully, that somewhere in that document we ought to affirm the concept of grace. I suspect the reason we didn’t is that there is still a residue of Calvinism in our mist. Some are like the two New Englanders who met on the village green and one commented to the other that it was a beautiful day. To which the other responded, “Aye, but we’ll pay for it.” One does not pay for grace. One does not earn it. One does not deserve it. The only proper response is gratitude, acceptance, and thankfulness.

Elie Wiesel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, relates the story of three rabbis who spent time in the concentration camp at Buchenwald. One evening they decided to put God on trial for allowing Hitler to carry out his “final solution.” The time was set. The trial was held. The evidence was presented. God was found guilty. The rabbis sat for a while is silence. Then one broke the silence saying, “O, my friends, it is midnight and time for prayers. “ The rabbis bowed their heads and prayed. That’s grace, the ability to express gratitude even in the direst of circumstances.

It is easy to be grateful when life is going well, when there is no crisis to deal with, when your 401 (k) is intact, and the pay raise comes through. It is not easy when life is at six and sevens, when we “walk through the valley of death,” or when we experience what the mystics called “the mid-night of the soul.”

In the biblical tradition the parables are examples or illustrations of living encounters. They are reflective of life. They are not dreams, imaginations, or fantasies. They do not stray off into the never-never land of Lewis Carroll or Walt Disney. They are intended to evoke a response. They are not for idle entertainment. The listener is forced to transfer the description of a known or familiar happening to the urgent issues of life.

Robert Capon in his book, The Parables of Grace, maintains that the parable of the Good Samaritan is a misnomer. The central figure of the parable is not the Samaritan. He is one of three characters who had the opportunity to exhibit neighborliness. The central figure is the man who fell among thieves. Capon writes, “This means, incidentally, that Good Samaritan Hospitals have been likewise mis-named. It is the suffering, dying patients in such institutions … not the doctors and nurses with their authoritarian stethoscopes around their necks. It would be much less misleading to have named them Those-Who-Fell-Among-Theives-Hospitals.” (Maybe TACL (Talbot Association of Clergy and Laity) ought to consider renaming its Good Samaritan Fund.)

I resonate with Capon’s thesis. For six years I was an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) with the St. Michaels Fire Department. EMT ‘s share their skills until they can get the patient to a better facility. What is important is not the EMT. What is important is the patient. Similarly what is important are not the Good Samaritans, but those lying on the Jericho roads of life.

The parable does not call us to be good examples. It calls us to have an understanding what it means to be a channel of grace. That’s the thrust of the story. Neither the priest or the Levite, the establishment, understood that.

The ancient rivalry between the Jews and the Samaritans went back centuries. Race, animosity, hostility, hatred, and religion feed the hostility. It is a reminder of the present situation between Jews and Arabs in Israel and Palestine, the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, and other racial and class tensions in our world. To teach a lesson about grace Jesus chose a heretic to drive the lesson home. The impact upon his hearers could not have been misunderstood.

If this story were being told today it is quite conceivable that the person who fell among thieves could be a Native-American or African American, a Black Muslim, a Shintoist, a Buddhist or a member of one of the world’s religions. The incident could have taken place on route 33 or US 50, or on one of the rural roads in Talbot County.

Jesus whole parable, with its piling up of detail after detail of irrational behavior, points not to meritorious exercises of good will but to the sharing of grace; an outcast comes to minister to an outcast, a loser comes to the aid of another loser. The Samaritan could resonate with Richard Baxter when he saw a drunk on a London street, “There, but by the grace of God, go I.”

What is too be imitated in the Samaritan’s action is his spiritual insight into the bizarre workings of the mystery of grace. The lawyer and the priest are told, in effect, stop trying to understand what it means to be a neighbor in legal and rational terms of class, profession, and social status. Let your definitions go. Jesus echoes what he said on another occasion, “Whosoever shall lose his life shall find it.”

Several years ago when the St. Michaels Fire Department was having its carnival on the St. Michaels High School grounds I noticed a teenager wearing a T-shirt with the inscription “Losing is not an option.” Someday that young man will, hopefully, understand the absurdity of that slogan. Losing is always an option, for in losing we often find ourselves. One of the important things that every happened to me, at one period in my life, was losing a job. It helped me, in a sense, to find myself. As long as the most important thing in our lives is wining, being successful, we live in moral terror of losing.

Lewis Thomas, a physician who was able to bridge the gap between science and literature, while listening to “Mahler’s Ninth Symphony” wrote “It is not easy to be a social species and at the same time such a juvenile almost brand new species. Being useful is easy for an ant. You just wait for the right chemical signal, at the right stage of the construction of the hill, and then you go looking for a twig of exactly the right size and carry it up the hill and put it in place. Then you go back and do it again. An ant can dine out on his usefulness, all of his life and never get it wrong. “

“It is a difficult problem for us, carrying such risks of doing it wrong, getting the right twig, and not even recognizing the outline of the hill. We are beset by strings of DNA, immense arrays of genes, impelling us to try our whole lives to be useful, but never telling us how. The instructions are not coded out in anything like an operator’s manual. Ours we are obliged to figure out and in this respect we are slow learners.”

The priest and the Levite were slow learners. They could not bring themselves to venture out of their safe theological and sociological boundaries to even learn, or determine, the condition of the man on the Jericho road. The Samaritan had learned as an outcast that you do not pass by those who are outcasts and abandoned on the Jericho roads of life.

In Dale Wasserman’s musical Man of La Mancha Don Quixote is questioned about his courtesies, his valor, his defense of women, his chasing of dreams, and his episodes as knight-errant. Aldonza asks, “Why do you do these things?”

“What things, my lady?”

“These ridiculous, … these things you do.”

Don Quixote replies, “That I may add some measure of grace to the world.”

Our tasks, as religionists, is to be aware that we do not merit all the blessings and benedictions that come our way. It is also our task as individuals and as a congregation to “add some measure of grace to the world.” The Aldonzas of the world will ask why. The Samaritans and Don Quixotes of the world know that it is losing our lives that we find them.

And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” When that happens those that find themselves on the Jericho roads of life will have some understanding of the mysterious workings of grace.

Shalom. Amen.

The God Question

Sermon by Nancy Orr

Readings:

“We must start in religion from our own souls. In these is the fountain of all divine truth. An outward revelation is only possible and intelligible on the ground of conceptions and principles previously furnished by the soul. Here is our primitive teacher and light. Let us not disparage it…. The only God whom our thoughts can rest on and our hearts can cling to, and our consciences can recognize, is the God whose image dwells in our own souls.”

William Ellery Channing (1780-1842)

“I once decided that I was not religious, simply because I rejected the first God I was introduced to. How incredibly unimaginative, to let someone else define God for you and, then, having outgrown their definition, never to unshutter and look out a larger window.

"Human history presents a pageant of Gods, one succeeding the next. Begin with the cave dwellers, for whom the greatest imaginable powers were forces of nature. Hunters and masters of fire, they heard God thundering from the heavens, electrifying the landscape with lightning bursts of anger…. ..‘God’ was in fire, lightning, thunder, and even the game they hunted to give them sustenance.

"When agriculture replaced hunting and gathering, the female metaphor of fecundity supplanted that of the male hunter and spear thrower. God became Goddess, the womb more emblematic of creation and destruction than lightning bolts or spears. Power now lay in reaping and sowing, in the turning of the seasons…..‘God’ became ‘Goddess,’ procreation creation, birth life.

"With the city state, power was cloaked in the robes of authority. God was now Lord and King, protector and enforcer, leader and judge. The king or lord dispensed favors, gathered a portion of each person’s bounty, and led his people into battle against other kings and lords.

"The Hebrews believed that their God and King was the only God and King. Their one God punished and rewarded his people not according to their allegiance but according to their behavior. This prompted a religion with ethical foundations. With God rewarding moral actions more swiftly than he did ritual sacrifices, new religious images emerged. ‘You are our Father,’ Isaiah said. Jesus spoke of God as ‘Abba,’ or Daddy. Jesus intuited that God is not only beyond us but also within us, participating in our love for others and in our quest for justice….

"The biography of God continues through the Enlightenment, when – with our newfound ability to make a watch – the Deists’ ‘God’ turned out to be a watchmaker. He created the world, set it ticking, and then moved on to his next creation. Modern science suggests metaphors for God that arise too from recent discoveries, like the holograph, when the whole is in each of the parts, or the Gaia hypothesis, when Mother Earth reprises the Goddess in a more embracing way. Even as each organism is a colony of cells and organs are coded with the same DNA, by the same measure, everything that lives may compose a larger organism marked with the DNA of God. This is not to suggest that we are God’s creator. Whether based on societal, scientific, or theological metaphors, our ‘inventions’ of God simply suggest the possible nature of the creator.”

From Forrest Church, Lifecraft, Chapter 5, “The God Project.” Beacon Press, 2000.

This past fall the Unitarian Universalist Association embarked on a national outreach campaign to build awareness of who we are and what we stand for. William Sinkford, President of the UU Association of Congregations, stated that “it is clear to me that now, more than ever, our values are needed to help heal our wounded world. …Now is the time ..to make ourselves known to all those seeking a liberal religious home.”

The awareness campaign was launched with a series of four prominent ads in Time Magazine. The first full-page ad asked, in large, bold letters, “Is God Keeping You from Going to Church?” I was somewhat taken aback when I first saw this. These words struck me as a bit too confrontational. I’m not the only one who was bothered by them. A letter to the editors of U.U. World echoes my discomfort in stating that this is too negative a message and is insulting to the belief of many UUs. The ad was certainly attention-grabbing, and it went on to say “Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the idea of God – or at least someone else’s idea of God. Yet maybe you yearn for a loving, spiritual community where you can be inspired and encouraged as you search for your own truth and meaning.” I recognize that this last statement captures for many of us the religious impulse, the search, that brings us together in this UU community.

“The God question” was also prominent in a later Time magazine ad. This one led off with these bold words: “My God Is Better Than Your God.” This was followed by these words: “Is this any way to talk about religion? Maybe you yearn for an open-minded, spiritual community where people respect each other’s beliefs and worship together as one faith. Where no one’s idea of God is better than another’s. Welcome to Unitarian Universalism.”

These Time ads react against the dogmatism and divisiveness of fundamentalist religions. At the same time they open a door not to a rejection of, but to a reexamination of, the God question. These ads invite searchers into a faith community where no one’s idea of God is better than another’s, where we are encouraged to pursue “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning,” in the words of our fourth UU principle.

When it comes to the God question, many of us are escaping the God of our childhood, as John Turner said in his sermon on “Unbelievers.” This is born out in the recently released poll of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Their survey results show that 44% of Americans have left their childhood faith, including those who have switched denominations. 16% are unaffiliated, though more than one third of these say religion is important and they are trying to define it for themselves. This survey reports that Americans are comfortable with change, and we seem to be a nation of seekers.

I know that I have outgrown my childhood concept of God as illustrated by the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” This conjured up for me an image of a bearded male figure floating on a cloud somewhere up in the ether. I dimly remember an illustration conveying something like this in a storybook. Much later I found that I was uncomfortable and felt myself a fraud in reciting the Apostle’s Creed, beginning with “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” I don’t think I ever gave up genuine belief in something; I just gave up pretending to myself and others that I was a believer in these words. Today the closest I personally come to naming the unnamable is “still small voice.” It is not born of my own ego, but feels like something beyond myself that has helped me to let go of what I have no power to change, and to see beyond my own immediate pain or desire. A humanist would explain this as reason working through experience. For me it feels more like an answer that comes unbidden, a positive force, a spirit of life that is there when I am willing to open myself to it. This hints at the meaning the word, “God,” now has for me, a mystery that is unknowable in human terms.

Clinging to an outmoded or unauthentic image of God, or allowing someone else to define God for you, can be a dead-end in spiritual growth. We must start “from our own souls,” as William Ellery Channing wrote.

UU minister Kim Beach has called the God question the central question of faith, and he wrote of the difficulty of naming “that which is worthy of your devotion, that is, your God.” Beach quotes the distinguished UU theologian, James Luther Adams, who wrote, “Whether we use the word ‘God” or not, every human being….holds something to be dependable, something to be sacred, something to be sovereign.” Beach speaks of “naming God” as “this elusive, astonishing process by which we give distinct reality to the sacred and creative element in our experiences.”

In our congregation, as in many UU congregations, we struggle with naming God. Some reject these three letters altogether and are offended when they are used in worship, because they represent, for that person, an outgrown or rejected concept. Unitarian Universalism has abandoned an exclusively Christian identity, and it is a challenge to find language that speaks to our theological diversity. We sometimes engage in a kind of internecine culture war over the language of religion.

One UU minister, Sarah Lammert, wrote that “our fierce individualism informs our religious language and practice… During my early years in the ministry, like many of my colleagues, I attempted to be inclusive and respectful by using the laundry list liturgical style: ‘Dear God, Goddess, Creator, Spirit of Life and Love, Mystery Behind the Veil, O Higher Power, Creative Energy, Spark of Insight, Light of Truth and Reason, and Source of All Being.’ But somewhere between ‘Spirit of Life’ and ‘Higher Power,’ the eyes of my congregants did beginneth to glaze over!” She went on to say that “It is a delicate dance, this foxtrot between individual belief and corporate worship, and one that is evolving in our movement.”

Our UU Hymnal has evolved over the years to include a gathering of worship materials from all the world’s religions as well as from secular poets, philosophers, and public figures. The newest hymnal includes even more gender-inclusive materials, and a recent supplement ranges even further into other cultural and faith traditions. UU religious education materials also have this same broad reach into many religious and cultural traditions.

I did a quick survey of language used in our Hymnal, searching for different words or phrases that substitute for the word, God. Taken separately, not as a laundry list, each one of these conveys an insight or a suggestion of the nature of God that may resonate with some of us. Listen to these: “Mysterious Presence” …. “God of Many Names” … “O Eternal One” ... “Lady of the Season’s Laughter” … “Weaver of Our Lives’ Design” … “Creative Love” … “The Great Compassion” … “Precious Lord” … “Great and Fiery Force” … and, of course, “Spirit of Life.” These terms come from sources as diverse as the 11^th century mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Hindu poet, Tagore, an ancient Central American Indian culture, an African American spiritual, and from mainstream Western poets and writers.

Our hymnal also includes many hymns and readings using the word, “God.” I sometimes ask myself if the word carries so much baggage or so many wounds from some individuals’ past religious experiences that it must be banished. I think that we must recognize and accept that Unitarian Universalism has grown out of the liberal tradition of Western thought. Today in the UU canon the word “God” with a capital G has remained in the mainstream as a metaphor for the sacred , a metaphor for which we may supply whatever meaning it has for each of us. Certainly the word in its liberal sense is widely used in the writings of those I have quoted today and by many other contemporary UU ministers and writers.

Our Worship Committee is having an ongoing dialogue about the religious language used in our Sunday worship services. We are constantly engaged in this “delicate dance, this foxtrot between individual belief and corporate worship.” In a recent email exchange, Dwayne Eutsey stated “I believe ‘God’ is a word that religious liberals need to reclaim from the fundamentalists and evangelicals. There are many different ways to understand what that word represents, and it’s part of our Unitarian Universalist heritage.” Dan Higgins stated that for UUs “the word, God, is a word for ultimate reality.”

This brings us back to the question, “Whose idea of God?” May we not arrive at our own personal definition and concept of the God we are naming, and allow others the same freedom?

When we begin to invoke the language police, we subject ourselves to the ridicule and put-downs of Garrison Keillor and other less benign critics of liberal religion. We enter a minefield of political correctness in which we are exquisitely sensitive to any language that is at odds with our own emerging theological views.

Is the word so important? Does it matter that we may not all have the same idea of God, or that some may reject the concept entirely? Others may ask, then what makes you a church, if you can believe, or not believe, anything you like?

We are bound together, not by a creed, but by a covenant. We say it together every Sunday, and that’s important. Our covenant was not handed to us from above, but came from our own minds and hearts. It was created and crafted in an inclusive, group process in which we struggled together to articulate what our mission is as a congregation and what it is that binds us together.

We affirm that we support spiritual growth and that we cherish diversity. Since the nature of God is unknown, we have the freedom to explore our own unique understanding and relationship with God. We come together as members of a religious community to tell our own stories and respect the stories of others. Kim Beach also said that “the lines between our search for God and our search for self are intimately intertwined.”

Through the course of a year or so here, we celebrate water communion and flower communion and dance around a Maypole, these rites growing from earth-centered religions; we offer experiences in Buddhist meditation, gather to celebrate the Goddess and women’s spirituality, engage in a drumming circle, hold our own unique Seder, encourage deep personal searches in a “Building Your Own Theology” course, give expression to our personal theology through works in the community, as well as come together every Sunday to worship as spiritual Pilgrims, each on her or his own unique journey. We can’t use ninety-nine names for ultimate reality in order not to offend anyone, so we often go back to saying, simply, “God.” It is your idea of God that we hope to invoke, intending it as a metaphor that summons whatever image of ultimate reality or spirit of life that speaks to you.

I close with words from a favorite hymn: “Sing out praises for the journey, pilgrims,

we who carry on, searchers in the soul’s deep yearnings, like our forebears in their time.

We seek out the spirit’s wholeness in the endless human quest.” ( Mark M. DeWolfe)

Faith Without Certainty

Sermon by the Rev. Daniel G. Higgins, Jr.

Paul Rasor, Unitarian Universalist minister, who is director of the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, VA, in his recent book Faith Without Certainty maintained that for a religion to be credible “it has to make a make sense and it has to make a difference.

We gather this morning on Easter. We come as a community to celebrate our faith after the forty day period of Lent waiting, often not knowing for what.

One of my favorite sitcoms is All In The Family. In a recent rerun Archie Bunker, in fierce argument with his agnostic son-in-law is asked, “Archie, if there is a God why is there so much suffering in the world?” Archie: “I’ll tell you why. … Edith, if there is a God why is there so much suffering in the world”? There is an awkward silence. Archie yells, “Edith, come in here and help me! I’m having to defend God all by myself.”

Pity the God who has no better defense than Archie. And also, perhaps, pity the God who at times has no better defense then the church. So we wait. We wait for answers to the questions about injustice, suffering, evil, and unfulfilled hopes. We wait.

Traditional Christians have waited this past week through Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. All of us have waited through the continuing crisis between Israel and Palestine, the containment of terrorism, and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. We listen to the local and national news. The locale shifts to murder, rape, theft, arson, and the posturing of politicians.

The disciple of waiting is not one that comes easy. The discipline of being honest about the human condition, the discipline of refraining from giving easy assurances to complex issues, and the discipline of faith requires a patience that few of us cultivate. It is painful to wait. Yet we have waited, waited for this event we call Easter with its narratives about an empty tomb and its message of resurrection. What have we waited for?

Not withstanding the vital importance of the resurrection story for some segments of the church, past and present, it is naïve to suppose that there is anything approaching a consensus as to what it means. A wealth of interpretation is unavoidable given the biblical record and the pluralism of the church. We should not be embarrassed by this diversity of understanding. We should not be troubled by our differences but rejoice that the Easter narrative makes possible different explanations, explanation that attempt to grabble after a truth.

The truth is there whether one believes in the physical resurrection of Jesus’ body, or views the biblical record as an attempt to unearth some profound understandings about hope and rebirth. Joseph Campbell, in Masks of God, elucidates that truth. “One must remember the central truth about Easter. We are called out of the house of bondage in the way in which the moon throws off its shadow to emerge anew, in the way that life throws off the shadow of death. Easter makes us experience in ourselves a call out of bondage, by so experiencing it that does not destroy the religious tradition.”

Celebrating rebirth is one of the oldest religious observances in the human calendar. It comes from a fundamental instinct which springs from a longing for reassurance, for a belief in order, succession, and life itself. These spiritual longings are not the particular expression of any one faith.

It is interesting to note that the root meaning of the Hebrew word for salvation is “to have ones doors opened out of confinement into open space.”

Easter has been an event, a season of hope and resurrection for a long, long, time. Anyone watching the slow, certain, approach of Spring must understand its fundamental significance. It is more than a matter of symbolism. It is life itself; life that is not the particular province of the poet, or the philos0pher, or the theologian, but life that gives an understanding of trans- cendent realities.

Easter is not in the religious tradition of the West a spring rite or a cult of nature. It is much more than that. Underlying this complexity is a persistent and common theme, a theme that is connected to Good Friday. It tells us that pain and tragedy is a condition of life and when we face calvarias of the spirit the message of Easter dispels that of darkness and despair.

There is a mistake about Easter. The message is that too many view Easter as a message of comfort for the dying. But the central message of Easter for the living. It is about change, and renewal, and rebirth. Easter is not about the where, or the what, or the when. It is not about the celebration of a single event, or a reported event. It is about resurrections. It is about life in its fullness; life’s potential.

In the early nineties I was in Phoenix, AR, when as a member of the General Assembly Planning Committee we were exploring the possibility of a site for the 1997 General Assembly. While I was waiting in the lobby of hotel for an appointment with the manager of the Convention Center I fell into a conversation with a guest at the hotel. This guest, obviously lonely, and desiring company suggested if I was not busy perhaps we could have dinner together. I declined the invitation although I had nothing urgent for the evening other than look over the center’s facilities.

Perhaps you are wondering why I tell you about that chance encounter. I tell it because I wonder how many other meetings, how many other encounters, I have avoided for the sake of being playing it safe; of being in control. I often wonder ho many possible resurrections I have missed because I feared the trauma of rebirth.

I wonder if perhaps you haven’t had the same kind of experience, some memory of that man, that woman, that child, you have avoided who might have opened up a new relationship or a better understanding of yourself. O course we don’t know, we will never know, what might have happened. But we know that in some way, some part, some important part of us, lies buried and wants to be let out of its tomb to experience a resurrection of joy, energy, and good will.

This is what Easter is about – letting our best selves out of the tomb that encases, out of ruts our lives feel comfortable with. The church has dwelt too long on a risen Christ; the Christ enthroned on altars and celebrated in sacraments, the Christ who is venerated as an icon of worship, the Christ who is the center of a religious cult.

What the church needs to do is concentrate on a spirit that is the incarnation of good will, and embodied purpose to serve and help, the desire to assume some responsibility for the weaknesses, the lack of knowledge, and the folly that we find around us. Easter does not call us to worship a person, but offers a faith to live by. What we need is a resurrection of the radical ethic of love; non-violence between races, classes, cultures, and nations. It does no good to sing our “Alleluias” unless we strive to realize our potential of what it means to be human in often dehumanizing circumstances.

I believe in resurrections because I have seen people change jobs at great risk, stop smoking, defend unpopular causes, and die with dignity. I believe in resurrections because I have witnessed people of faith being brave and compassionate. I believe in resurrections because I have seen people change the communities in which they live.

I share with you a film that carries an Easter message, one perhaps you may have seen. It comes from the movie “Ground Hog Day.” In one of the scenes Bill Murray, a weather man, turns to a man sitting next to him in a bar and says in a voice of utter desperation, ”What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was the same and nothing mattered.?”

The obnoxious and egocentric weatherman is caught in a time-warp fantasy. He is stuck in Punxsutawney, PA, where he went to cover the February 2^nd activities, for him there is no tomorrow. When he wakes up each morning it is the same morning, and he is the only one who knows it. He meets the same people, eats the same food, and makes the same weather forecast. He is doomed to live the same day over and over again until he gets it right.

The weatherman goes through the stages of feeling trapped, depressed, and living as if there is no tomorrow. He finally comes to the not-so- profound -but-still-pretty-rare-realization that he can change his world only by changing him-self. That’s the Easter message of the movie. It is about making the best out of what you have and where you are. It’s about making adjustments so that life doesn’t become a trap. In life we face the difficult task of daily renewal. It is getting up in the same place, doing the same things, but making it mater. Making it matter is what the Easter story and the resurrection is all about.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Church emphasizes what dies and what comes to life.

“It is sown in corruption,

it is raised in incorruption;

It is sown in dishonor,

it is raised in glory;

It is sown in weakness,

it is raised in power.”

The early followers of Jesus spoke in the only religious language they knew. They spoke of the “power of the resurrection,” not as the continuance of life but as a spirit; a spirit that confronts the limitations of our visions, a spirit that rolls away the stones of selfishness and greed, a spirit that bursts asunder the tombs of pride and prejudice, a spirit that rejects despair and embraces hope.

The Unitarian Universalist philosopher Henry Nelson Wieman put it this way. “To be resurrected, in the noblest sense, is to undergo that transformation of interests and loyalties by which one can live not only for the highest ful-fillment of his/her own time, but for the highest fulfillment of all time.”

Let me repeat. “To be resurrected, in its noblest sense, is to undergo that transformation of interests and loyalties by which one can live not only for the highest fulfillment of his/her own time, but for the highest fulfillment of all time.”

Shalom. Amen.

Jesus the Storyteller

Sermon by the Reverend Betty Jo Middleton

One can hardly pick up the book review section of a newspaper these days without learning that another new book about Jesus has been published.. I recently purchased one that is a few years old, after hearing author Stephen Prothero interviewed on television. The book is American Jesus, subtitled How the Son of God Became a National Icon, in which the author traces images of Jesus as Sage and Savior, Manly Redeemer and Superstar, Mormon Elder Brother, Black Moses, Rabbi and Oriental Christ. It’s an interesting and intriguing book, and I commend it to you.

Today is Palm Sunday in the Christian calendar, beginning Holy Week, during which time Jesus is said to have been welcomed as a hero riding into Jerusalem, then creating problems in the city, scaring the ruling Romans into arresting and crucifying him (as was their custom at the time), dying, being buried, and then rising again on Easter morn.

A truly problematic story and event for most liberal religionists.

“Who do men say that I am?” This question was reportedly posed by Jesus when asked if he were the king of the Jews. Who indeed? Prothero says that when Jesus asks this question, as related in three of the Gospels he “doesn’t get a simple answer. Some say John the Baptist. Some say Elijah. Some say one of the prophets.” The images proliferate as time goes on. “The friendly Jesus who abided in the hearts of Victorian evangelicals would scarcely have been recognized by the stern Puritan divines, and there is a world of difference between the Elder Brother of Mormonism and the Black Moses of the black church. At least in the United States Jesus has not stood on some unchanging rock of ages, but on the shifting sands of economic circumstances, political calculations, and cultural tren