First Parish Unitarian UniversalistWhole and Humble
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
September 14, 2003
“My help is in the mountain
where I take myself
to heal the earthly wounds
that people give to me.”
(from the first Reading by Nancy Woods)
Haven’t we each felt so wounded? By people—even by loved ones? Those are the wounds that hurt the most, for longest, forever even, or so it seems. The earthly wounds that people give to us.
The wounds given us by life are not nearly so bad as the ones given by people, isn’t it so? Those acts of God or fate or bad luck—call them what you will—the tragedies, terrible accidents, awful illnesses, and deaths of loved ones, some of which life bestows upon each and every one of us, eventually, are tough enough.
But the wounds from others are the ones that send us up the mountain for healing. Oh, to find a sunny rock, a gentle stream, a tall tree—these are aids in the difficult inner-work of owning anger and learning to love oneself unconditionally, regardless.
That work requires great courage and a life-time. Unless we dare to begin it, though, the hard scabs of bitterness, depression, anxiety and fear will never slough off to make room for a new layer of smooth yet porous skin.
With clergy sexual abuse and misconduct being so much in the news again recently, feelings and memories may be readily stirred up and old wounds be revisited. As your minister, it is my fervent hope that anyone who has suffered physical, sexual or emotional abuse or seen it perpetrated on others—whether by clergy, stranger, neighbor, friend or relative—will seek help if he or she has not done so already.
Some members of the congregation have confided in me. I honor deeply the level of trust entailed in these confidences. I also know that my level of training is insufficient for the healing of such profound wounds as these and I will take special care to help people find someone better prepared than I to provide the support they need and deserve. Going alone to the mountain may not be enough, but help is available and healing is possible.
The poet Nancy Wood proclaims, “My help is in the mountain that I take away with me.” But, the hymnist calls us into community with one another, as we sang, “may we know each other’s anguish, and with love that casts out fear, bind all our wounds again.” (“From the Crush of Wealth and Power,” Hymn #125 in Singing the Living Tradition)
True enough, the hymn did begin with waiting on the mountain, “something broken in us all waits the spirit’s silent hour, pleading with a poignant call.” But, then it calls us to open up to each other, “even [though] our hearts are wary of the friend we need so much.” To “bind [each others’] wounds again” “with love that casts out fear” and “with a gentle touch.”
We may go alone to the mountain for the spirit’s silent hour, for the healing that comes in the solitude, with the rock and the stream and the tall tree, or from God if by some name we worship. But, we also need one another.
We come together here, to this place of “memory and hope,” seeking wholeness, and offering wholeness to each other. Each one of us at some time or other arrives here, some Sunday or many Sundays, with a broken spirit. It’s not unusual that someone weeps silently (or not so silently) in a back pew, or a front or middle pew—or wishes they could. And, it’s not unusual for that same person to wish to be ignored, even as they would welcome, even long for, the comfort of a gentle hand on their shoulder or reassuring message passed eye to eye.
I recall being that weeping person myself: a mother of small children, for whom nothing felt right even though nothing was really that wrong, sitting alone near the rear of a UU sanctuary. I wondered later how I could have gone un-noticed. At the time, I was grateful I had, and very thankful for the healing that I experienced in that worshipful space. By the postlude, I felt more whole, healed by the hymns, the silence, the choir, and most of all by sensing the warm-hearted, like-mindedness of the people gathered who were yet strangers to me—but not for long.
We come together here, to this place of memory and hope, seeking wholeness, and offering wholeness to each other. Some folks—and not just newcomers—come through the yellow doors of First Parish as consumers, looking for what they can “get,” as in a good sermon, inspiring music, nourishing Religious Education for their children, support in a trying time, or compatriots in their favorite cause.
But, “consumer” is not who they really are. And those things are not what First Parish really offers. I mean, I hope we offer those things! And, as for the sermon, well, please give me the benefit of the doubt, at least until the benediction!
The dictionary says “to consume” is to destroy, as by fire; to do away with, to use up; to waste, devour, to absorb completely or obsess. Is that who we are? Consumers?
Please don’t misunderstand. Being consumers is not all bad. At times, it’s necessary, even life-saving. When we or a loved one is traversing the harried health care system in these times, we must be vigilant consumers, to make sure we get the care we need. And, has there ever been a time when buying a used car didn’t entail a visit to a mechanic for a second opinion, or the purchase of a house, a home inspection? Even when church-shopping, it’s important to visit around until you find a place you can call your spiritual home.
Nevertheless, and despite the American culture’s incessant message that we need, need, need and therefore must buy, buy, buy, consumers are not who we really are and what’s important about First Parish is not what you will get.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “She’s going to say that it is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Sometimes it is, but that’s not what I’m going to say.
She’s going to say, “in order to get anything for yourself at First Parish, you must give of yourself.”
Often you must, but not all the time, and that’s not what I’m going to say either.
Who are we, really? We are seekers. First Parish offers you the company of seekers. What is important about being in this company, this congregation, is not what you may get or even what you may give, but who and what you may become.
There are many ways to find yourself within the company of seekers here. The most apparent is in worship, or for your children if you have children, in their concurrent Chapel service and Religious Education classes.
Afterwards, for all, there is the time of fellowship after the service, misnomered “Coffee Hour,” as if everyone drinks coffee. We hope it is a friendly time for all, but it may be a bit daunting, not just for newcomers but for longer-timers who feel they don’t know anyone anymore in our growing congregation.
So, consider joining in on a smaller group activity. The choir, for example. It will rehearse next Sunday at 9:15 and sing in the service that day.
You could join a Covenant Group. These are small groups of six to eight people, who meet at least once a month for personal sharing and conversation in some depth on agreed-upon topics. There will be an opportunity today in the Chapel during Coffee—I mean, fellowship!—Hour, to learn about Covenant Groups from those who are currently involved.
We also offer periodic Adult Religious Education programs. These always include a three-session Introduction to Unitarian Universalism in the fall, which will be offered on the last three Wednesday evenings in October. One Sunday in October, there will be a display of potential Adult RE curricula and an opportunity for us to see how many people would be interested in what topics.
In the meantime, you could go on a Seasonal Walk next Sunday after Coffee Hour, in the cemetery next door with its spacious views, lovely trees and still ponds, looking for signs of autumn on the Equinox. And, the following Sunday, you could go on an outing to visit the Concord home of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of our Unitarian forebears, whose life and thought I will explore in next week’s sermon.
Additionally, there are pot-luck suppers provided by the Program Committee during the year and Membership Committee offerings like the smaller Circle Suppers hosted in people’s homes.
Finally, if you join the First Parish folk who serve dinner to the homeless downtown Boston on the fourth Friday of the month or participate in any other Social Action project, or volunteer on a committee, or teach a Religious Education class, small group fellowship will be a welcome side-effect.
Watch our monthly newsletter “First Parish Life” and the table to the right as you enter the Parish Hall after services, for details on these and other {on the many, many} opportunities to get to know your fellow-seekers here at First Parish. I mention all these possibilities, not just for newcomers but also for the longer-timers who feel they don’t know anyone anymore in our growing congregation.
Who are we, really? I think we are seekers. First Parish offers you the company of seekers. What is important about being in this company, this congregation, is not what you may get or even what you may give, but who and what you may become.
My colleague, our neighbor, the Reverend Deborah Cayer at the Unitarian Church of Sharon, offered worship reflections for her fellow UU ministers at our monthly gathering this past week, in which she contrasted consumerism in our congregations with what she feels our congregations ought to be about: “generosity” and “meaning-making.”
Yes! And, I’d say, we’re about authenticity, too. We’re about emotional maturity, intellectual honesty, ethical principles, and spiritual depth. In a word, we’re about integrity.
I was surprised to see that the first definition in the dictionary for “integrity” hearkens back to where I began this sermon, with healing wounds and becoming whole. It says, “Integrity is the quality or state of being complete; unbroken condition; wholeness.”
But, the dictionary makes integrity sound static: a state of being, wholeness. That’s wrong. We’re not static. We’re forever becoming, never complete. Always a bit broken, never unbroken. Seeking healing, never whole.
Likewise, this congregation is always becoming, never there yet. And, likewise, it’s one of many, in the association of Unitarian Universalist congregations, that is also very much still becoming, more like a “movement” than a “denomination.” Certainly, it’s not static.
Unitarian Universalism, with its roots in American liberal Protestantism, traces itself back to the Enlightenment, the Reformation, and, with all of Christendom, back to Judaism. But, today, Unitarian Universalism is a creed-less religion.
It is (we are) much more concerned about life before death than life after death, more interested in the religion of Jesus than the religion about him, unwilling to suspend our reason or stifle our heart’s longings to conform to anyone’s ancient teachings, ready to see the truth in all religions and the meaning in any faith, even as we seek to know what is true in our own experience and plumb life for the depths—and reach for the heights—of meaning we know it holds.
But, we fall short of these lofty ideals! It’s humbling to even speak of them. With all humility, it would be easier to just be saved!
And, so, we make promises, and renew those promises often and regularly, to remind us of our ideals. We call those promises “covenants.” Ours is a covenantal, not a creedal, tradition.
We covenant with one another as members of this congregation, with the words we read or recite aloud each Sunday. We covenant, as a congregation, with other Unitarian Universalist congregations (as is printed on the back of your order of worship), to affirm and promote a set of “principles,” acknowledging the sources from which our tradition draws, and promising each other our mutual trust and support, one congregation to another.
Covenants are agreements, or promises. They are statements of shared, mutual loyalties; they are not statements of belief. It was the view of James Luther Adams, arguably the most effective Unitarian Universalist theologian of the 20th century, that “strong, effective, lively liberal [congregations], sometimes capable of altering positively the direction of their whole society, will be those [congregations] whose lay members can say clearly, individually and collectively, what are their own most important loyalties.” *
What’s important here is not what we get, or even what we give. What’s important is who and what we become, what loyalties become ours, individually and collectively.
Let each of us be on the way to becoming whole. For healing, let us go to the mountain, and take it away with us! Then, let us open up to one another, binding all our wounds. More and more whole, let us be clear about our loyalties. And then let us bless the world with our new-found strength. Because as Rebecca Parker so well said,
The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will, a moving forward into the world, with the intention to do good. It’s an act of recognition, a confession of surprise, a grateful acknowledgment that in the midst of a broken world unspeakable beauty, grace, and mystery abide. There is an embrace of kindness that encompasses all life, even yours. And where there is injustice, anesthetization, or evil there moves a holy disturbance, a benevolent rage, a revolutionary love protesting, urging, insisting that which is sacred will not be defiled. Those who bless the world live their lives as a gesture of thanks for this beauty and this rage.
Amen.
*As quoted by Alice Blair Wesley in her Our Covenant: The 2000-01 Minns Lectures (Chicago: Meadville Lombard Theological School Press, 2002), p. 9.