First Parish Unitarian UniversalistForming and Transforming – A Sermon for Celebration Sunday
Rev. Cricket Potter
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton
March 28, 2010
Reading
In this Stewardship Month, we have a heard about how First Parish feels like a second home in many special ways. So, our reading speaks to the kind of welcome we all wish for when we return home, perhaps sometimes feeling less than worthy. Here is Jesus’ parable of the prodigal or lost son:
There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'
The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we have to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'
Sermon
Our reading this morning tells one story about being lost and returning home.
Now I want to share another story from Anne Lamott’s book Traveling Mercies.
This is a story from her minister:
When she (Lamott’s minister) was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. The llittle girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his squad car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, 'You could let me out now. 'This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.'
Anne Lamott then goes on to say,
That is why I have stayed so close to (my church) - because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their tawny voices, I can always find my way home.
Two very different stories about home and finding our way there.
Both of these came right to mind when I read the words you wrote last week when you were asked to complete the phrase “What I Value at First Parish is…..”
As we heard earlier, you wrote about:
acceptance, openness, love,
a safe and supportive place,
a sense of peace for you and your family,
a sense of belonging,
a place to learn, grow, be challenged,
a place that helps you weave the story of your life.
What I heard in your words is that First Parish is much more than just a social gathering, much more than a place for you and your children to get a little enrichment now and then.
For you, this place and these people offer deep meaning and sustenance.
Here we are both formed and transformed as we engage with the richness of community and embody the Spirit of Love and Life.
Here we look beyond the “me” to the “we” to embrace how deeply connected we all are.
What I find so poignant in Anne Lamott’s story is how that little girl’s church serves as her reference point.
Before she gets lost, I imagine her exploring as any child does.
She is carefree and curious in her wandering until suddenly she panics when she realizes she doesn’t know where she is.
She runs and runs until finally a policeman sees her and stops to help.
She doesn’t know her address.
She has no idea where she is.
And, she’s not much help to the police officer – that is, until she sees her church.
That is a landmark she knows well and can use to find her way home.
Now she’s all set and says with renewed confidence,
‘You can let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.'
My hope is that First Parish can serve as a similar kind of reference point for all of you as you explore and engage with life in all its complexities.
I think of a compass that guides us on our path, not just to home but to what is important in life.
The direction First Parish guides us toward is one that
- Celebrates family, relationship, and the gifts we all bring as individuals creating community;
- Opens us to the beauty and mystery of life and teaches us that we need not and sometimes cannot have answers for it all;
- Places love above all else as we seek to nurture compassion and forgiveness within ourselves.
Here I think of the prodigal son.
He went off to explore his way in the world as we all need to.
He lived a bit wildly, lost his part of the inheritance, and then realized he had strayed enough and was suffering for it.
He then chose to return home fully expecting to meet his father’s wrath and, at best, to be offered a hired hand’s position.
Rather than being judged by his father though, he is welcomed back, with arms open wide.
He is celebrated for having found his way home.
When the older brother pulls an attitude, acting all self-righteous and judgmental, the father makes it clear that there is no need, or place, for such judgment.
Only love and forgiveness would do in welcoming back a son who had been lost - in many ways - and was now home, safe and sound at last.
This can be the tough part of being together in community.
We are asked to stretch and see beyond our individual selves to embrace the larger good, which at times can clash with our own ego, agenda or comfort zone.
Perhaps, we don’t agree politically with the person sitting next to us or we struggle with how they are different from us.
We are asked to be with one another in the spirit of love, to be generous of heart and expansive in our compassion.
It’s not easy, I know.
After all, we come together as a community that ranges in age from 2 to 92.
Between us all, we have a huge range of experiences, perspectives, and needs.
It can almost seem a miracle that we can come to any kind of consensus at all whether it be
religious education plans for the children,
budget plans amidst a tough economy,
plans for going into search for a new settled minister,
or plans for how best to use and preserve all the structures and
spaces that house this community.
Yet, we do.
We come together and transcend our differences as we draw from the deeper well of compassion, acceptance, and love and thus learn how incredibly transformative that is.
We realize that our presence truly matters and that we each have something to learn from one another regardless of age, race, tradition, or sexual orientation.
Here we build a common path amidst our diversity, facing into all the joys and challenges of that shared endeavor.
As the Lutheran pastor and author Rev. Peter Marty writes, “Holiness is born out of communities, not solitary lives.” (Christian Century, August 23, 2005)
I would be terribly remiss in celebrating all the community is and does if I didn’t look beyond our time together to the larger world.
Because I believe that one of our greatest gifts in the work we do together is learning our place and calling beyond our yellow doors.
Our faith as Unitarian Universalists teaches us that we can and must make a difference, here and now.
We have the wherewithal to create heaven right here in this life.
That message is one of the things that drew me to this tradition, knowing that it wasn’t up to God at some future time to act in this world or the next.
We are the hands of the holy right now as we reach out to serve others.
I am reminded of a passage from the book Speaking of Faith that a group of us read in a class last fall.
The author Krista Tippett writes,
One of the phrases that recurs most often in my interviews…is the moral longing and commandment to “repair the world,” Tikkun Olam. There is a Jewish legend behind this notion. Sometime early in the life of the world, something happened to shatter the light of the universe into countless pieces. (These pieces) lodged as sparks inside every part of creation. The highest human calling is to look for this original light from where we sit, to point to it and gather it up and in so doing to repair the world.
I believe that so much of what we are about here as a Unitarian Universalist community of faith is upholding that original light in ourselves and others.
We teach our children about that light.
We celebrate it in our worship.
We nurture it in our small gatherings such adult workshops, covenant groups, or circle suppers.
We seek to go out into the world and help others kindle their own light.
We as Unitarian Universalists also encourage one another to trust that as flawed and inadequate as we may feel at times, we each have exactly what’s needed to help repair the part of the world that we can.
And that’s a powerful message for us all to believe in, especially for our children.
My friends, we have so much to celebrate here.
I hope that during this Stewardship Month, as you have heard others share what First Parish means to them, you have spent time reflecting upon what this community means to you.
Does this feel like home to you?
Do you find peace, acceptance and support here?
Is this a welcoming and nurturing place for your family?
Does being in the First Parish family help you weave your own story?
I will close with these words from Unitarian Universalist May Sarton and her poem “Gestalt at Sixty” in which she describes what I see as the gift of community:
Lovers and friends,
I come to you starved
For all you have to give…
For all you have to tell me,
For all I have to tell you.
We talk of first things and last things,
Listen to music together….
No one comes to this house
Who is not changed.
I meet no one here who does not change me.
May it be so.
Amen.