A Chalice Reflection & "At-onement: A Circle Ministry Sunday"

Chalice Reflection
of
Jack Martin
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
September 27, 2009

At sunset this evening our Jewish friends will begin celebrating Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement - the holiest of all Jewish holidays. Yom Kippur is designed to provide an opportunity for self-reflection for what has occurred over the past year - a time to own personal responsibility for any shortcomings, mistakes, and misdeeds made during the year and to make amends for wrongs and injuries committed.

Our UU faith tradition does not have a day intentionally designated to process our atonements for misdeeds or shortcomings. However, the past four years, at First Parish we have founded and cultivated a ministry that in many ways mimics many of the intentions of the Jewish day of atonement— self-reflection, holding ourselves accountable, being the best we can be for one another. It is Circle Ministry. Circle Ministry is not a one time a year event, but occurs twice each month. It is not an individual, solitary process, but involves engagement, feedback, and support from others. In Circle Ministry carefully chosen topics and evocative questions prompt the discussion and self-reflection for each two-hour session. In every group, as our stories are told, insights into self and others are gained, and bonding of group members occurs.

The joy of Circle Ministry comes in sharing our personal stories. Because our stories generally make us feel vulnerable to being fixed, exploited, dismissed, or ignored, most of the time we tell them only gradually or not at all. Neighbors, coworkers, church friends, and even family members can live side by side for years without learning much about each other’s lives. Circle Ministry is a corrective to this fear of making ourselves vulnerable. Members of the group speak from their own experiences; they tell their own stories from their heart and soul; criticism, fixing, and advice giving are avoided; and deep, generous and respectful listening is the central principle that makes the process work.

Sharing time matters. Sharing time provides rare moments in our lives when we get below the surface. The more we know about another person’s story, the harder it is to dismiss, marginalize, distance or harm that person. Sharing time works because we come to understand ourselves, others, and our world in more complete ways. Sharing time has been rippling through our church community for the past three years. Calls have been heard; needs have been acted upon; and support, care, and hard work have been given to our church and to our community by Circle Ministry groups. Our faith community here at First Parish has been greatly strengthened and enormously enriched because of Circle Ministry. It is my hope that more of you who have not yet experienced Circle Ministry will take advantage of this shared ministry program and join with us this fall.

“At-onement: A Circle Ministry Sunday"

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
September 27, 2009

Just a few days ago, a good friend died. He was also a mentor, a colleague, a scholar, a preacher, a public figure, a husband and father, and a prophetic teacher for all of us. At the age of 61 and a day, shortly before sundown, we lost Forrest Church.

It is a time of turning. The leaves are turning. The birds are turning south. Creatures of field and forest are scampering about to store food for the cold months ahead that they might tuck into the earth for warmth and shelter. We humans turn reflective as the remains of a day swell into a burnished montage that mirrors the horizon of treetops, as a harvest moon shines like a pumpkin lit from within. I ponder what it means, this letting go, this turn of direction, these celestial orbs that all but tease with the arresting magnificence of their settings and risings, and this loss of life and presence to which we’ve grown accustomed.

When I did my first memorial service, it was a graveside rite, and I turned to Forrest to ask his counsel. I was then Assistant Minister at All Souls in New York City, where Forrest was Senior Minister. It was just over a decade ago. My learning curve for ministry felt frustratingly slow. But I had a master teacher. He offered these words:

As we stand now together under the rounding dome of the sky, with the resilient Earth beneath our feet, washed by air and sunlight, we recount things timeless and reassuring.

We know, deep in our flesh, the sure cycles of nature, the fit of a human life span into the seasons of the generations, the Earth, and the Universe: a sublime and elegant design.

From dust to dust; from spirit to spirit; from eternity to eternity: Between these spans, a human life fits.

Many of you know that Forrest had a lot more to say—about love and life and death and the universe and what it means to be Unitarian and Universalist. As for Unitarian, he used to quip that ours “is the religion to have when you’re having more than one.” Forrest was a consummate Universalist. He recognized the inclusiveness of it all. He understood that we are woven. His gospel was love. He understood the God he described as “greater than all but present in each” as a loving God. And he didn’t hesitate to use God language. After all, he was a preacher whose last name is Church!

This morning these words that he offered during my early years of ministry invoke reverie on the cyclical nature of each of us and the cyclical ways of earth and sun, moon and stars.

“As we stand now together … we recount things timeless and reassuring.
We know, deep in our flesh, the sure cycles of nature, the fit of a human life span into the seasons….”

His words sound amid the holiest time in the Jewish calendar, the Days of Awe, ushered in with Rosh Hashanah, literally the beginning of the year, and observed by Jews worldwide. Today’s sunset marks the beginning of the day that concludes these Days of Awe, Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year. “This moment of most intense spiritual experience,” observes Arthur Waskow, “is the moment of atonement—the moment when all misdeeds are covered over.” Waskow compares Yom Kippur to the prayer shawl known as a tallis, describing this day as “a kind of tallis in time—a prayer shawl to cover the confusions of the year. As worshippers…pick up the tallis, they cover their heads for a moment so as to wipe away the pointless, pathless wanderings of the world,” making it possible “for a moment to look toward God, ….to stand face to face with God.”

There are elaborate rituals for worship on Yom Kippur, and they vary from synagogue to synagogue. Some are ancient and some, innovative. One ancient rite that finds its way into contemporary practice reinforces the belief that on this day it is possible “to stand face to face with God.” The priest speaks aloud the name for God not spoken at any other time, the name that may be rendered YHVH/Yahweh, an apparent acronym for the identity of God revealed to Moses through the burning bush as told in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus. While some render Yahweh as “I am who I am,” Waskow explains it as “a kind of distillation of ‘I Am Becoming Who I Am Becoming.’” It’s a name “that was not a name in the sense of a label by which God could be called and controlled, and therefore the Name which could not be said aloud…. Only on Yom Kippur was the Name said, aloud, in all its original awesomeness.”

Central to Yom Kippur rituals ancient and modern is a turning, tshuvah, “repentant return,” and “for all human beings.” According to Waskow, the centrality of tshuvah survived the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE with added strength. The rabbis held that the very arrival of the day invoked God’s forgiveness, but with a critical qualification:

“If someone said, ‘I will sin and repent, and sin again and repent,’ he will be given no chance to repent. If he said, ‘I will sin and Yom Kippur will effect atonement,’ then the Day of Atonement effects no atonement. For transgression between human beings and God, Yom Kippur effects atonement; but for transgressions between a person and his fellow, Yom Kippur effects atonement only if he has made peace with his fellow.”

This Day of Atonement is thus a day of “at-onement.” There is a paradox here. One stands as an individual before God and all that is holy and turns, repents, of all that is unseemly across thought, word, and deed in the year that is past. One also stands as a member of religious community before God and all that is holy and can do so credibly only if one “has made peace with his fellow.” There is no allowance for hypocrisy here, no crack in the ritual that allows a person to be at-onement with God while hiding unreconciled discord with fellow humans. At-onement with what is holy, with what is ultimate, with “that which is greater than all but present in each,” happens only from a well of right relationships with one’s family, with one’s friends, and yes, with one’s presumed enemies.

It is a time of reflection, of turning, of reconciliation, of at-onement. It is apt that our first Circle Ministry session of this church year will take place a week from today, so close to this time of at-onement.

Also known as small group ministry, the premise is that we gather in a circle—that most inclusive shape—and listen deeply. Yes, participants speak, but out of a covenant that underscores deep and respectful listening. “Silence” is the first topic of the season, for it is in a circle of silence that we quiet ourselves, that we diffuse our inner noise that cuts us off from our fellow humans sitting around us. Each person checks in. What is happening in your life? What is happening in my life? No commentary, no expressed sympathy or advice or murmurs. It’s all part of the behavioral covenant of this ministry of circles. And when the topic is introduced—in this case, “Silence”—silence is held for a moment before anyone speaks. I suppose it’s a tad ironic that we do deign to speak about silence, but as stories are heard and told, we enter a sphere outside of our own egos. The very sequence of holding silence, listening deeply, hearing, and being heard is a form of reconciliation that permits us to know an at-onement that is rare in the rhythms of our daily lives.

Within each of us there is a silence-
a silence as vast as a universe.
We are afraid of it- and we long for it.

When we experience that silence, we remember
who we are….

Silence reveals. Silence heals.
Silence is where God dwells.

writes the poet, Gunilla Norris.

You may or may not use the term God to describe your experience of amazing silence, of attunement to the day, of reflection in this season of letting go. You may or may not find the term God meaningful in this season of imminent death all around us though you would never know it to look out the window or walk on the beach or stroll through a park or lie back into a pile of leaves vividly costumed and newly arrived from their downward dance. You’d never know that in this glorious silence, this all-out beauty fest, gardens and friends were so close to deep slumber. “God” might not work for you, but try “awe,” days and days of it.

Turning, tshuvah, reflection, reconciliation, is so naturally the holiest time of year. For Jews, yes, but for all of us who are creatures of the phenomenon we call nature. Summer’s boldness is becoming autumn’s brilliance is becoming winter’s bones is becoming spring’s buds. We are creatures of cycles.

“So goes the year,” writes Waskow, “the circle-dance of life in tune with the music of the sun.” And yes, in harmony with the moon, as we’re reminded by these Days of Awe, these holy days that take their calendar cues from the moon as it circles the earth even as the earth swings elliptically about the sun.

We gather in the solo reflections of our hearts in this house of meeting to reflect, to meditate, to wonder, to sing, and to hold silence. We gather in the community of this congregation to affirm and be affirmed that we are not solo acts, but gossamer strands of a cosmic web. We gather in circles to listen and discover that we are heard. We move through our days and become story after story after story. And on a holy day some among us pause and dare to see “face to face” an essence whose name is spoken aloud only on that day. Some of us pause and don that prayer-shawl that “the confusions of a year” might be diffused through a holy glance at what matters most, a holy act of turning and transformation that mirrors this season of turning and transformation.

History merges with timelessness. A life merges with eternity.

From the eternal to the specific, from the arcs of celestial bodies to the circles in which we sit together to the circle of hearts present here and now, we discover the holy.

“When our heart is in a holy place,” we sang moments ago,
“We are bless’d with love and amazing grace.

…. [When] we hear our voices in each other’s words,

….When we share the silence of sacred space,
[When] the God of our Heart stirs within,
[When] we feed the power of each other’s faith,
Then our heart is in a holy place.”

So it is as we consider this imminent Day of Atonement, as we experience a ministry of circles, as we worship together, and as we seek to live out our lives in “inclusive spiritual community.” We stretch our souls. We discern our roots in the traditions that are Christian and Jewish. We revere by participation or consideration a holiday, a holy day, that moves in its own arc across the sunset and sunrise of consciousness that we are all turning, willfully, willingly, but as surely as summer turns to autumn; and in turning, we find ourselves amid “the seasons of the generations.”

“The very interweaving of the themes of history and nature, the human life cycle and moments of spiritual experience—remind us that in some sense all the realms of life are dancing with each other. The circles of the sun, and of the moon; of a single human life between the generations, and an entire people’s history of renewal; of every quiet act of newness, birth, creation—all are echoes of One Circle.”

So writes Arthur Waskow, affirming Judaism’s celebration of festivals as reverence for “the Unity that underlies all life.”

I lost a friend this week. We all lost a friend this week. Some would say his death was untimely, that 61 is too young, far too young, to die. We speak out of our own yearning for life. We take again and again that first deep breath and cry out in our longing for life. What is enough? What will ever be enough as we consider our own life span? Forrest died surrounded by family and friends, surrounded by a congregation called All Souls, embraced by an even greater family of all souls.

Into “the seasons of generations, the Earth, and the Universe….from dust to dust, from spirit to spirit, from eternity to eternity,” his life fit magnificently and will echo throughout eternity the One Circle that embraces us all, the great silence from which each of us have emerged and into which each of us turns with all possible grace and gratitude.

Let us hold together a moment of silence.
………………………………

Amen

Sources:

Forrest Church, quotes from sermons and books and conversations, www.allsoulsnyc.org

Gunilla Norris, Inviting Silence: Universal Principles of Meditation, Bluebridge, 2004.

Joyce Poley, “When Our Heart Is in a Holy Place,” in Singing the Journey: A Supplement to Singing the Living Tradition, Unitarian Universalist Association, 2005.

Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy: A Celebration of Modern Jewish Renewal: A Creative guide to the Jewish Holidays, Beacon Press, Boston, 1982.

A Parable & "Open Doors, Many Entrances"

A Parable
by Jan Carlsson-Bull
as part of the worship service of
September 20, 2009
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts

There is a tale told by ancient voices of a special room at the very center of the village. No one had ever seen it. It was a room with no walls, not even mud walls, and no roof, not even one cobbled together by the village craftsmen, and of course how could they build a roof with no walls… Yet every so often villagers would gather for a common meal and there would be talk of smoke rising from the center of the village. Where did it come from?

There must be a room, a secret room where a fire was burning. Who had lit it? Who kept it going? Who tended the coals that it would safely go out? No one—not even the ripest apples of the village—could say for sure how the story began; and no one would fess up to ever having been in this mysterious room. Yet there were rumors that the village elders knew differently, that the village elders had access to a key which they held secretly; and only they knew where the door was; only they knew how to enter.

Villagers went on about their lives. They gave birth to new villagers. They tilled the soil as best they could; they reaped whatever harvest fate seemed to provide. In their social circles, they told the story of the secret room, and with each telling the room took on more specifics—an incense burner at its center, an age-old sage stoking the fire, the aroma of a feast in preparation. And with every embellishment, the frustration grew—that only a select few knew the secrets of this room. They shook their heads and then nodded knowingly. “This is the way it’s always been. Only ‘they’ are privy to the sacred space. Only ‘they” have the key to the door that opens onto this sacred space.”

You can imagine that one day things changed. One day the youngest of the villagers were out on the village green, running about like wild things, toppling one another and careening across the grass. It seemed that they would never tire. As the sun began to set, there were calls from the many huts that circled the green: “Time to come in. Time to come home. Time for dinner!” Reluctantly, they withdrew from their common playground. Each began to drift onto the paths that marked the way to their own home. As the sun set further, one little girl looked back; she looked again. There in the center of the village common was a spiral of smoke rising as if from someone’s hearth. She looked hard and harder. And she noticed that every plume of smoke that rose from every village chimney leaned inward toward a center, and at that center, a common plume spiraled skyward.

She noticed and she thought, and she went to bed that night and dreamt. Her dream revealed a small house in the center of the village square, a house rather like her own and those of her friends, but this house had doors on every side. In fact, there seemed to be many sides; she couldn’t even count how many. Each door was open, and through each door curled a plume of smoke, wafting in from the very hearth of her own house, leaning in from the hearth of every house in the village. She stood and stared outside this simple house on the village square, and as she stared trance-like at what seemed to be arms of smoke leaning into a center, the arms began to motion her in, into the small house in the center of the village. She paused; she pondered. “So many arms inviting me in, so many open doors, so many entrances.” She took a step forward and with a start, woke up, with a story to tell.

“Open Doors, Many Entrances”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
September 20, 2009

In deep space
There is no air
To walk in space
You have to open the door

There are so many doors
There are so many ways
How many doors have you opened?
How many ways have you found?

Some doors are small
Some doors are big
Some doors are hidden
Some doors are visible

Some doors are open
Some doors are closed
Some doors are broken
Some doors are perfect

Some doors are firm
Some doors are fragile
Some doors are sophisticated
Some doors are simple

If you plan to get in through doors
Why waste time on windows?
If your favorite is an orange
Why waste time on an apple?

If you source is open
Why make your destination closed?
If your reality is virtual
Why make your dream real?

If you cannot open the front door
Why not try the back door?
If you cannot open the door once
Why not try it twice?

There is a door
There is a way
There is a way
There is a light

Do not be timid
Just go ahead

As this verse of unknown origin reveals, there is no mystery about it. We enter a space through an open door. We enter a community through an open space. There’s no secret lock, no secret door, no secret entrance. But there are folks already bustling about inside inviting us in.

Every person here showed up at one of the doors of this Meeting House or Parish House for the very first time. Maybe it wasn’t literally a door. Maybe it was in the aisle at Shaw’s or Stop & Shop over a conversation with a parishioner about why this church was doing such and such or what is it that we believe anyway? Maybe something was said or gazes met in a way that said to the asker, “This is worth checking out.”

Maybe it was a virtual meeting in cyberspace. You cruised the Internet. You landed on http://www.firstparishcohasset.org/. You discovered our mission statement and found yourself in agreement; you previewed our activities and found yourself intrigued; you decided to try us out.

Maybe it was your kids. Perhaps as a parent with young children you decided it was time to offer them some form of religious education. You didn’t want them to be told what to believe. You wanted them to be affirmed for who they were. You wanted their questions to be honored. You wanted them to have a religious identity but with beliefs that were fluid and classes and outings that reinforced caring behavior and tuned into early questions and young energy.

Maybe it was your voice. You love to sing. You had a friend in the choir, and he told you how much fun, how satisfying, it was for him to sing in our First Parish choir.

Maybe it was your neighbor carrying on about something called Circle Ministry. “I never thought I could feel so close to a group of people I thought I already knew,” she said. So you prodded her and she said more. “You talk about stuff like Fathers and Mothers, like Race and Class, like Daydreams?” you asked, intrigued. So you joined her group. And you decided you’d try the rest of church too.

You came to a worship service. Perhaps the music inspired you. Perhaps a minister past or the one standing before you this morning spoke to your heart. Maybe you took your children to our RE classes. Then someone invited you to host coffee hour or join our Outreach Committee or help out with the Lobster Roll Sale. You were invited to serve. And you said to yourself—“Well, I’ve been thinking that I wanted to do something to make a positive difference; maybe this is it!” You got to know people. You rolled up your sleeves. You felt good about what you were doing. You stretched your soul.

This is how it works when you find your niche of ministry at First Parish Unitarian Universalist.

Now some of you might be thinking—especially if you’re fairly new—that there’s some magic about getting involved, about feeling that you really belong. Some of you might think the way the villagers did in the story I told. There’s some mystical plume of smoke emerging from an inner room, and only a favored few know about it. None of us likes to feel like an outsider, but the notion that there are a few insiders with special knowledge about how it all works is as mythical as a single plume of smoke rising from an inner sanctum.

So you take the chance. You end up on a committee. You end up in a Circle Ministry group. You end up teaching an RE class. You end up agreeing to co-lead a leaderless Senior High Youth Group. Then you think: Omigosh, what have I done? All I want to do, all these other folks want to do, is simply impossible. We’ll never be able to make it all happen. If nothing else, the logistics are overwhelming.

Now I could say, that “God works in mysterious ways her wonders to perform,” paraphrasing that 17th century poet William Cowper, but most of you would shake your heads, with an “I don’t think so!” on your face. Or I could say a nonchalant, “Oh, miracles happen!” And you would shudder given the maze of tasks before you. OR you could have listened to Jim’s account of the wedding envisioned by this couple so in love. Beyond expectations, it happened as they dreamed it could. How? Through so many hands doing the work, through so many hearts filled with a vision.

That’s exactly the way this church works. Sometimes the wheels lock; sometimes the boiler goes caput; sometimes the budget crunches; sometimes we sing off-key; sometimes we flatter ourselves by considering this congregation “organized” in 1721. Yet there must be an explanation for our survival across 19 professional ministries and countless lay ministries over these 288 years.

You who are here this morning and the grand you who have been members and friends of this congregation over the centuries, have found an open door, an entrance that worked for you, and you passed through and found fellowship and meaning and a life of spirit and deed and responses if not firm answers to your deepest questions.

Through what door have you entered? What path are you considering?

We who are Unitarian Universalists have historically been branded as heretics. Some of the ancestors of our faith paid with their lives. Yet a heretic means simply one who chooses. We know we don’t like to be told what to do; we like choices. Throughout this congregation, throughout our faith, there are choices in abundance. One of the core choices each of us faces is what our ministry will be here.

You’ve heard me speak of shared ministry. This is a notion that each of us performs a ministry, a service, to make possible our congregational life. It can’t happen any other way. I know I’m the professional, but each of you has gifts of ministry, of service; and your lay ministries, your gifts given and received, constitute the very flame in the chalice that is this parish. Your gifts are the dynamic core of who we are and who we can be.

What is your ministry? I believe there are four simple questions to consider when you ask this question—and I invite each of you to ask it:

1) What am I good at?
2) What do I like to do?
3) What needs to be done?
4) What door will I walk through to make my ministry live?

What am I good at? Sometimes what we’re good at is what we least like to do. I’m really good at weeding a garden. I’m really good at turning a messy document into a fairly coherent text. Do I like to do these things? No. So what am I good at that I like to do? Or even that I kind of like to do? Well, I kind of like to chair committees, but that’s your job, and I’m not about to stand in the way of your opportunities.

Let’s move to the next question. What needs to be done? I daresay most committees could give you a list. Or you could check our newsletter or our weekly e-mail update or reconsider that recent phone call from a committee chair. But what needs to be done aren’t simply tasks. Listening needs to be done. Fellowship needs to be experienced. Songs need to be sung. And soon a brunch needs to be savored! While you’re at that brunch, you’ll receive a yellow booklet [hold it up] prepared by our Leadership Development Committee. It contains a comprehensive set of descriptions of all current committees at First Parish and what each does. It’s a booklet ripe for your reflection of what needs to be done and how that might link with what you’re good at and what you like to do.

Then there’s that final question: What door will I walk through to make my ministry live?

There is a door for you. There is an entrance that works for each person here and each person who shows up. Who you are and what you yearn for and what you offer from the rich experiences of your life are a perfect fit. There are as many doors, as many entrances, as there are those of you ready to walk through.

There is a door
There is a way
There is a way
There is a light

Do not be timid
Just go ahead

Besides, you’re invited.

With open arms and love to each and all of you. Amen.


Sources:

Chalice Reflection of Jim FitzGerald, September 20, 2009.

William Cowper, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” in Reformation Theology, at http://www.reformationtheology.com/2006/04/god_moves_in_a_mysterious_way.php.
(“God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform…”)

Door (September 30, 2008) – 56, from Frontier Poetry at http://www.hwswworld.com/poetry_all.php Copyright 2002-2008 Hometown Innovation Automation Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“A Parable,” Jan Carlsson-Bull, September 20, 2009.

Chalice Reflection & Gospel--That Is, Good News!

Chalice Reflection
of
Sarah Shannon
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
September 13, 2009

Good morning. As I understand it, this morning is about becoming and growing a community in which each person, no matter how big or how small, feels valued and respected and that he/she is a contributing member of the group.

One of the things that I was most looking forward to when I joined First Parish was sitting here as I am today – with my husband, Ken, and my children: a small, family unit that was part of a much larger community of individuals. When we joined the church, we didn’t actually have the two children that we have today. Now, when I go to sit, I will join them and begin teaching my two boys what church is, why it’s important, what I believe, how to formulate their own beliefs, and, of course, how to sit still, listen, and be quiet!

Looking back, I can remember going to church with my parents and sitting in the pews – they were uncomfortable, hard, and stiff. I hated having to sit still and be quiet and I was a sit still, be quiet kind of child, not like my boys. I loved to read. It would have been easy for my parents to let me bring a book with me. I would have been a perfect angel, but that would have defeated the purpose of bringing me to church. I can imagine that for some of the children here today, they are feeling the same way that I did as a child. And, I’m sure that some of the parents of young children are feeling the same way that I do today.

As a member of your RE committee, I believe that days such as these, our intergenerational services, are just as, if not more, important than the RE classes that go on across the street. These services teach our children that what they are learning in their RE classes is part of a much bigger entity and that Sunday isn’t just about another “class” they have to attend after a long week of learning; it’s about a religion; it’s about faith. The opportunity to attend the services shows our children that the two, class and church, aren’t mutually exclusive of each other.

I look forward to working as a part of the First Parish community to grow the Religious Education program and to teaching my children how to be contributing members of this community as well. It is my hope that even though they are small, John and Michael can start contributing now – whether that be by answering questions in their RE class or by listening to Reverend Jan on a Sunday morning and asking Ken and me questions about what she said on the ride home. I love that each person in this worship house has a voice. And I love that the tiny, high-pitched voices are just as exciting to listen to as those that are loud and deep!

If there are any parents who would like to register their children to be a part of our Religious Education Community, I will be across the street after church and would be happy to help you.

“Gospel—that is, Good News!”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for the Sunday of our Annual Meeting
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
September 13, 2009

YOU are for celebrating. You who are little kids and big kids, you who are young adults and young parents, you who are on that 50-yard-line of life, and you who are further down the field, you whom I call our ripest apples. You are all cause for celebration. Why? Because you’re alive and you’re here, and we’re here together on this first full September Sunday morning of our new church year. For me, that’s Gospel, which means…good news!

But there’s more.

We’re a growing congregation. Like the child and the townspeople in the story I shared earlier, we’re planting a garden together. We’re sowing seeds even in this season of almost-autumn. We’re sowing seeds and we’re tending the garden that is First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset. How?

You got up this morning and you had a choice. What will I do? Where will I be? You came here. You came and some of you brought your children. I see faces that are familiar and faces that are new, kids and grown-ups whom I know and kids and grown-ups whom I hope all of us will come to know. You took a chance that here you would find fellowship and song and questions that matched yours and maybe even some welcome silence—though we’re not as good at silence as we are with the other stuff.

Then there’s our choir. They’re already singing their hearts out with a rousing “Jazz Alleluia” and a traditional spiritual about “Good News.” And there’s the choir that is our whole congregation, as we lift our voices to the strains of “Enter, Rejoice, and Come In.” How can you help but smile when you sing “Enter, Rejoice, and Come In?” Its upbeat melody and steady rhythms remind me of the sounds of a carousel.

How else do we tend our garden? Right after this service, we’ll gather in fellowship across the street. We’ll have a more social chance to greet friends and newcomers, and we’ll make sure that everyone—please let’s make sure that everyone—is included as we gather in clusters and share the news of our summer and our hopes and plans for the year ahead.

Some of you will register your children for our religious education classes. They begin next week. I can’t imagine a better way for our children and youth to grow into caring adults than to participate in a program that builds an identity of caring and sharing and learning about other faiths as well as our own, and for our younger teens to begin a program called Our Whole Lives—OWL for short—that teaches healthy and caring relationships, and for our older teens to come together across congregations for a Senior High Youth Group. This is all good news for how our children grow!

By now, most of you have had a chance to read our September newsletter. In just a few short weeks, nine members of this congregation will leave for Guatemala through a project called Common Hope that this congregation has participated in for close to a decade. You’ll bring shoes that we gathered and purchased last spring, shoes that will find their way onto the feet of village schoolchildren. In fact, it’s not too late for the rest of us to gather even more shoes. Most importantly, you, our Common Hope Vision Team, will bring yourselves, your good will, and your readiness to roll up your sleeves and work on behalf of our neighbors to the south, neighbors who struggle mightily to makes ends meet. And you’ll reunite with Salomon, the young boy turned young man who has been the recipient of this congregation’s generosity for many years. You’ll meet Salomon’s wife and new baby. And you’ll work hard and remember well so you can come back and tell us the good news of your time there.

I could go on. Gospel is alive here. Who we are and how we seek to be for each other and this community and our world is all about the Gospel—that is, the good news of this faith whose core is love.

As background, I grew up as a Presbyterian, which is not a bad thing by the way! As a Presbyterian Christian, I grew up learning what I thought was “the Gospel.” I didn’t know there was more than one! Gospel for the younger me meant the good news of the coming of Jesus and that he was my Lord and Savior. I know there are some Unitarian Universalists who also identify as Christian. If anyone asks me if I’m Christian as a “UU,” I say, “inclusively but not exclusively,”—that is, yes, I am, but I’m not just Christian. I find truth in other religions and in literature and poetry and movies and the drama of the ocean. I know, some of YOU would say the drama of the Red Sox! In this part of the country, the Red Sox is Gospel!

But it’s one thing to be a fan, another thing to be committed to an ongoing community whose driving force is walking together in a covenant—a community promise—of love. As Unitarian Universalists, what is our Gospel? What is our core force? “…the glowing coal at our center is radically inclusive love” are the words Elizabeth Stevens chooses to describe it. Rev. Elizabeth Stevens is minister of the Kitsap Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bremerton, Washington, and with her permission I share her words with you this morning. Inspired by exciting worship and stirring lectures and the energy of over 3,000 Unitarian Universalists gathered in Salt Lake City, Utah at our General Assembly this past June, Liz wrote of her “strong feeling that the 'glowing coal' at our center is radically inclusive love and that we are called from that center to the work of building THE (global) beloved community.”

Beloved community is a phrase often used by the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King scholars Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp describe King’s vision of beloved community as “a vision of a completely integrated society, a community of love and justice wherein brotherhood would be an actuality in all of social life.”

Love, community, and passion for both are at the heart of our deepest and widest hopes for this faith community. As for that “glowing coal” at our center, I remember when my daughter Sarah, now 30-something, was about seven years old. On the ride home from church one Sunday, I mentioned something about our flaming chalice. Without a second’s pause, Sarah chimed in, “Oh yeah, that ‘steaming pot of fire.’”

What glows and steams for you? What is your faith gospel, your good news? I’ll be asking you to share your stories over the year ahead. I know you have them, or you wouldn’t be here.

For now, let’s catch some of what Liz and I caught in the presence of our larger UU world this summer in Salt Lake City, some of the “Gospel fire,” we might call it.

Love is at the heart of a campaign launched at that same General Assembly that stirred Liz and me. You’ll hear more about it as the year unfolds. “Standing on the side of love,” it’s called. Like any campaign, this one has a manager. His name is Adam Gerhardstein. Adam is a young adult who manages this campaign out of our Unitarian Universalist Association’s Office of Advocacy in Washington, DC. Right after General Assembly ended, he wrote of his experiences with its launching, which included a number of volunteers who filmed folks telling their own “love stories.”

Each morning [wrote Adam]… the Standing on the Side of Love volunteers gathered in my hotel room/campaign headquarters at 7:30 am. We started each meeting by checking-in about our experiences the previous day. …Here is one story:

‘I filmed a straight woman who said that she stood on the side of love with her daughter and her daughter's female partner, who are unable to marry. As a queer person, I was deeply moved by her words, and my face must have shown a strange mixture of pain and gratitude. Later that day, a Spanish language news program was searching for a Spanish-speaker to interview at the interfaith rally. I'm neither Latina nor an immigrant, but I speak Spanish, so I volunteered. I told the reporter that we were supporting immigrants because it is wrong to persecute families who only want to work hard and build better lives. Afterwards, the cameraperson, a middle-aged Latino man, said a soft and heartfelt, 'Thank you.' I recognized the emotions on his face--they were the same emotions I had felt listening to that mother.’

Adam ends his message with the simple words, “Love is powerful.”

I could tell so many more good news love stories, and so could you, but I have a clock right in front of this pulpit. And it’s telling me that even “good news” has a period at the end of a sermon about it.

This morning’s gospel for me is the good news that we are, that we are here, that we are here together, and that we are here together in the promise of standing on the side of love all year long and into all the years of our life together. May it be so. I love you each and all. Amen.


Sources:

“Enter, Rejoice, and Come In,” Words and music: Louise Ruspini, Arr. by Better A. Wylder (1923 - ), in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 361.

Adam Gerhardstein, “Standing on the Side of Love at GA,” July 7, 2009 e-mail from love@uua.org. A one-time email to everyone who experienced the General Assembly launch of the Standing on the Side of Love campaign.

http://www.standingonthesideoflove.org/

Rev. Elizabeth Stevens, “…the ‘glowing coal” at our center…” quoted from July 2, 2009. Permission to quote received by Rev. Stevens July 7, 2009.

Kenneth L. Smith and Ira G. Zepp, Jr., “Martin Luther King’s Vision of the Beloved Community,” Christian Century, April 3, 1974, pp. 361-363. Material prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1603