First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Canton, Massachusetts

Of Streams and Steeples

Rev. Cricket Potter
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton
January 10, 2010

Reading:

Our reading this morning is from a book called Growing a Beloved Community by the Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Tom Owen-Towle. Tom writes from his own extensive experience having served 24 years as co-minister, with his wife Rev. Carolyn Owen-Towle, of First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, along with another five years and counting of interim ministry in the Southern California area. Here is an excerpt from his book:

A church is not a social club, a hospital wing, a political action center, or even a spiritual refuge, although all these disparate components are part of what a church is. Rather, healthy congregations are primarily sites for seeking and spreading the holy…. Through church life we embody our holy quest…. Our convictions are refined and our commitments enfleshed….

And what does it mean to assert that healthy congregations are “holy”? It means we create an environment where minds are simulated, hearts fortified, souls plumbed, consciences goaded, bodies embraced, and spirits restored….

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates brags that “he doesn’t go to church because it isn’t an efficient use of time. “ Gates is right, if efficiency means simply making money, cranking out a product, or grabbing quick pleasure. But there are many in modern society who hunger for renewal beyond efficiency and for meaning beyond machines…. And that process requires religion. The holy is seldom efficient, but it is oh so sustaining.

Sermon

When I sat down last week to start thinking about this sermon, knowing that right after worship we would gather for an Open Forum to discuss where we are going together with this interim time, several thoughts immediately came to mind.

First, I thought of the song we just sang (“Swimming to the Other Side” by Pat Humphries).

I first heard this song a number of years ago when I was serving as Ministerial Interim at First Parish in Lincoln.

It had all of us swaying to the rhythm and joyfully joining the choir for the refrain.

It also had many of us grabbing for the Kleenex boxes as we took in Pat Humphries’ words:

We are living ‘neath the great Big Dipper

We are washed by the very same rain

We are swimming in the stream together

Some in power and some in pain

For me, it touches a deep place of truth and yearning.

A place where I know that we are all so connected as part of this amazing creation that is all around us.

And yet, a place where I yearn to feel that connection more deeply because at times it eludes me for different reasons.

After all, our culture is one that tends to isolate or alienate.

Just try to get a live person these days when you call a business for assistance.

Or, try to reach a friend.

Half the time we get voice mail, email, or a text message.

Call me a Luddite, but I tend to find little warmth in these modern conveniences.

My second thought as I contemplated this sermon was of a passage from Anne Lamott’s book Traveling Mercies.

Anne Lamott always offers a brutally honest, wise, and funny take on faith and church life.

In Traveling Mercies, she has a chapter entitled “Why I Make Sam Go to Church,” Sam being her strapping, exuberant, and almost adolescent son.

She writes:

I make him (go to church) because I can. I outweigh him by nearly seventy-five pounds.

But that is only part of it. The main reason is that I want to give him what I found (in church), which is to say a path and a little light to see by. Most of the people I know who have what I want – which is to say, purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy – are people with a deeper sense of spirituality. They are people in community, who pray, or practice their faith; they are Buddhists, Jews, Christians (and I would add, Unitarian Universalists) – people banding together to work on themselves and for human rights. They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle; they are part of something beautiful. I saw something once from the Jewish Theological Seminary that said, “A human life is like a single letter of the alphabet. It can be meaningless. Or it can be a part of a great meaning.”

And finally, as I sat at my desk pondering my sermon for today, I remembered climbing up into the bell tower and steeple here two months ago at the invitation of our Buildings and Grounds guru, Ruth Johnstone.

Ruth was inspecting water damage and other areas of wear and tear while I was just excitedly along for the experience.

And what an experience it was.

It took several ladders to get up there including a very long, steep, and wobbly one.

One reward was seeing our massive 1000 lb. bell up close and personal.

“Paul Revere Boston 1821” is engraved right into the bell which was installed in December of 1824.

The second reward was the view out over rooftops, treetops, surrounding cemeteries, hills, and other steeples in the area.

What a powerful sense of heritage it gave me to be up there touching this huge bell that is almost 200 years old and getting a bird’s eye view of our church campus amidst the surrounding town.

I couldn’t help but to feel the significant presence this congregation has had for almost three hundred years in this community.

A few facts about First Parish’s beginnings.

June of 1717 is when twenty “brethren” signed a covenant as founding members of what was then First Parish Congregational.

In October of 1717, Joseph Morse was ordained as pastor of the church.

He went on to serve this growing community for nine years.

Interestingly, the next two ministers – Samuel Dunbar and Zachariah Howard – served 56 and 22 years respectively.

And, it was death that ended both of their service, hopefully at a ripe old age.

Back then, the Sunday service actually consisted of two long services in part because it took people considerable time and effort to get here whether on foot or with horse and buggy.

I quote from Daniel Huntoon’s A History of the Town of Canton:

The services consisted of extemporaneous prayers, sometimes fearfully long; the psalms were sung in metre, and it was considered sacrilegious to have any instrumental music. The sermon lasted an hour, and sometimes an hour and a half. An hour-glass stood on the pulpit by the side of the minister, which sometimes regulated the length of the sermon. As the distance from home was great, the worshippers were in the habit of bringing their dinner or luncheon with them,; and after the morning service, the intermission furnished an excellent opportunity to discuss the news of the week, the weather, the state of the crops, the girth of oxen, and possibly the morning sermon.

I bet that gives you a new appreciation for our hour-long services and my own limit of a 20-minute sermon!

But seriously though, think of all the generations of families that have come here to worship together, be married, have their children baptized or dedicated here, honor their dead, and support and celebrate with one another through all the passages of life.

Over several centuries, First Parish has been a place where people have come to mark the events of their lives and find meaning in all that life brings them.

And now in our time, this is a place where we can form the matrix of our lives and our children’s lives in a way that is empowering, hopeful, sustaining.

That’s some legacy that has been handed to us and is now for us to care well for and pass on to future generations.

Think of what others before us have found and nurtured here and what we now come here to find.

I think of Tom Owen-Towle’s words from our reading earlier, that in a faith community such as First Parish we aspire to

“create an environment where minds are simulated, hearts fortified,

souls plumbed, consciences goaded, bodies embraced, and spirits restored.”

Or, drawing from Anne Lamott’s metaphors, we come together on Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights and Friday afternoons to

“follow a brighter light than the glimmer of (our) own candle.”

Now, Bill Gates does not consider this effort to be an efficient use of his time.

Granted, he gives so generously to the world that clearly he does have a strong sense of what is important.

But, I personally need more, and by your presence here, I don’t think I am alone in this.

I need to share in moments like this –

where we come together to support and comfort one another,

where we remember all that is good and true,

where we encourage one another to be our best selves.

I need to feel that I can make a difference in the world and that together we can make a difference.

I need to know that together we can swim to the other side.

In one of my first sermons here, I spoke about the need to move from the “me” focus of the pervading culture to the “we” of community and the shared faith journey.

I stated that it is not enough to come to church, but that we must also be the church in our caring and giving, serving and supporting.

I quoted from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians back then, and I will draw from his letter to the Philippians for more guidance today.

Paul wrote (Philippians 4:8-9):

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received… do.”

This interim period that I am assisting you through is a time to “think about these things,” as Paul says.

It is an intentional time to pause, reflect upon what is worthy and true in our religion and what is lovely and worthy of praise in this gathered body.

It is also a time to consider:

What needs our attention?

How could we do better as we look to enriching this community and

reaching out to make a difference in the larger world?

I think of the view as I climbed up toward our steeple.

I think of our historical Paul Revere bell whose ringing calls us to worship every Sunday.

We have a worthy place and heritage here at First Parish that is now ours to build on and pass on for future generations.

And I haven’t even begun to talk about our larger Unitarian Universalist tradition.

You’ll hear more about this powerful legacy in sermons to come.

But for now, suffice it to say that our Unitarian Universalist legacy of searching, questioning, and speaking truth to power also calls us to reflection and action.

So, let’s ponder these questions:

When our children look back 25 years from now, how would we want them to remember what we did with this time of potential opportunity and renewal?

When newcomers come down the road– whether they be gay or straight, black or white, young or old, single or married, wealthy or struggling financially, citizen or immigrant – will they feel welcomed here?

Will they find something sustaining here that connects one person to another and also encourages everyone to extend that connection to the larger world?

And in just a few minutes at our Open Forum, we will gather to make some important decisions about what the worthy and true things are that we will work on together.

We’ve done a lot of reflecting and sharing as a community over the last few months.

I thank everyone who has showed up and participated.

Now we need to sign up and work on things as a community.

Whether you are a relative newcomer getting to know First Parish or a long-time member, if you care about this community and find meaning here, I invite you to get involved in some way.

This can be an exciting and formative time but only with your help.

So, I close with these words from the Rev. Kenneth Patton that speak to the richness of all that we can be and do together as a community of faith:

This house is for the ingathering of nature and human nature.

It is a house of friendships, a haven in trouble, an open room for the encouragement of our struggle.

It is a house of freedom, guarding the worth and dignity of every person.

It offers a platform for the free voice, for declaring, both in times of security and danger, the full and undivided conflict of opinion.

It is a house of truth-seeking, where scientists can encourage devotion their quest, where mystics can abide in a community of searchers.

It is a house of prophecy, outrunning times past and times present in visions of growth and progress.

This house is a cradle for our dreams, the workshop of our common endeavor.

May it be so for this community now and in the years to come.

Amen.