September 10, 2006 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
Have you had a chance yet to take in the photographs in the Atrium? We are so pleased to have Bonnie Woods with us today, and to be able to share for the first time in the United States her photographs of New York City after the destruction of the World Trade Center. I encourage you to linger with these photographs. Don’t just glance and move on to the next. Most of us on the West Coast were present to New York City during those awful days only by television and newspaper images. Now, five years later, take your time. Look into faces. Pay attention to the thoughts and feelings stirred in you.
At times you may want to look away. What’s that all about?
Moving from one image to another I was struck by how ordinary all the people and many of the sights seem. This could have been anywhere. These could be any of us. The response of these ordinary people was to do what I hope any of us would have done in extraordinary circumstances. They reached out their hands. Despite, or perhaps empowered by, their grief, they walked right into the unknown, day after day.
That’s hospitality taken to the utmost. That’s living for the other as much as living for oneself. That’s believing in the worth and dignity of others and knowing that we are part of a fragile and indispensable human community.
Five years ago today I stood in this pulpit remembering the pilgrimage earlier that summer eleven of us from this congregation had made to Transylvania, to the birthplaces of Unitarianism in the sixteenth century. Little did any of us know then that two days later the shape of our national identity would be changed forever?
We in America are going through an identity change — and it’s not easy. It’s an identity change whose outcome will be determined by the strength of the pull on each side of the tension between dominance and interdependence, between force and invitation, between gamesmanship and goodwill. It is a tension whose resolution holds the key to human transformation from violence to peacefulness.
I don’t know about you, but for the last five years, in the wake of the destruction of the Twin Towers, the assault on the Pentagon, and the deaths of almost 3000 people on September 11th, 2001, I’ve been in a deep funk. It’s not that I haven’t been able to function. I’ve paid attention to what’s been going on. I’ve preached about our mistaken war in Iraq. I’ve named the ineffective, inhumane, and racist lack of federal response to Hurricane Katrina. I’ve sent emails to my elected leaders…but I’ve been gloomy.
On some level I have been resigned to all that’s going on. My expectations of America have been tainted, as the powerful forces controlling our government have seemed insurmountable. I’ve felt an inability, no matter what I’ve tried, to produce any change.
I want to believe it’s beginning to shift. I want to believe the actions of ordinary people doing ordinary things in extraordinary circumstances are making the difference.
On this day when we remember the violence of five years ago, and when we remember the violence of the five years since then, we Unitarian Universalists do well to offer to the world another vision. It comes from the deep roots of our religious understanding. It comes from the evolution of religion in Europe in the sixteenth century.
On our pilgrimage to Transylvania five summers ago, we visited the cathedral at Torda, the place, in 1568, where John Sigismund, our only Unitarian King, issued his Declaration of Religious Toleration. No king had ever before made such a declaration. Within this realm there will be religious tolerance, “no one shall be reviled for his religion by anyone.” This message rings through the ages.
More than two hundred years later, some of the same people who were shaping early Unitarianism and Universalism were also shaping this nation. The first Congress of the United States adopted the Bill of Rights guaranteeing that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
And a hundred and fifty years later, in 1945, the revolutionary ripples of tolerance were enshrined in the United Nations Charter as it declared “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”
Deep in our Unitarian roots is the belief that there is a greater truth beyond any particular human understanding of truth. By remaining open to the possibility of new truth we are able to grow, to evolve, and this is the greatest gift of being. This is how we participate in creativity, the essence of the cosmos.
Our vision is not a tolerance that stops at “live and let live.” It goes beyond, calling us to action, to open ourselves, to stretch into new understandings of reality.
This commitment to the larger truth of the possibility of our own unfolding has led us Unitarian Universalists to occupy unusual ground on the religious landscape of our time. Do you know of another religious people whose vision proclaims as sources wisdom from all the world’s religions — and science, and literature, and poetry, and direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder?
This vision holds in its heart the spirit of toleration of King John Sigismund, and it opens to offer our tumultuous, troubled, terrorized world a method out of our madness.
In its most simple and profound form it is the notion of religious hospitality. It is the embodiment by ordinary people of the spirit of a gracious, generous gratitude that welcomes the new, even the unusual, as a gift for growing.
It is a spirit which honors each person, and seeks inclusive ways to support all of us on our journey of unfolding. It is a spirit that prays “that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other,” and “practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.” [from the reading/prayer of Thich Nhat Hahn]
I believe we are more likely in extraordinary times to act from a place of gracious hospitality if we practice, practice, practice every day, the rituals of caring. As Tich Nhat Hahn prays, “Each day let us practice filling our hearts with our own compassion — towards ourselves and towards all living beings.”
This church is here to help you do so, and to remind you of how important it is. You can change the world. As part of humankind, increasingly marked by alienation and violence, with daily reminders of how we fall short of our ideals, we need to learn the skills of community and practice them. This church has so much to offer you. I urge you to take advantage of these opportunities:
Participate in our small group ministry program, Chalice Circles. Our facilitators were trained yesterday. They are wonderful, fun and dedicated folks. The Circles will be forming in October, and meeting through the spring. They are small groups focused on helping us each evolve as compassionate, caring beings. Chalice Circles are a community spiritual practice.
The Chalice Circle experience is given shape by the creation of a group covenant, a decision on the part of those participating about how we will regard and interact with one another. Many groups within this church are creating covenants. Our Covenanting Project Team will present a workshop here at the church in two weeks after the service, on Sunday, September 24th. If you want to develop your spiritual practice of sharing with others in a supportive and compassionate way, participate in this workshop.
There is so much we can do. There are so many daily actions of kindness and compassion of which we are capable. There are so many ways to express our gratitude. There are so many joyful ways to participate in being the change we want to see in the world.
Over and over again new members tell me “This church saved me.” They don’t mean salvation in the other-worldly sense. They mean this is a place where they have been able to connect with other people, to clarify their values and beliefs, to grow spiritually, and to find ways to change the world to be a better place.
This is a church that can change your life. And we believe the world would be a better place if the values of Unitarian Universalism were lived by more people. These are two reasons we have designated next Sunday as Bring A Friend Sunday. I invite you to exercise your religious hospitality. Reach out your hand. Offer an invitation. Tell your friend what time you’ll pick them up for church next Sunday.
I feel a need to tell you a story. Almost thirty years ago a small church I was serving in Texas decided to have a Bring a Friend Sunday. We planned a great service with special music. There were greeters galore. The coffee hour had real cream — and tasty refreshments, and lots of information about the congregation. I’m sure the sermon must have been wonderful.
The problem was, we were so focused on making the event hospitable, no one invited a friend to come to church with them. Have you ever given a party and had no one show up?
This congregation might very well change the life of your friends. Here they might connect with other people, clarify their values and beliefs, grow spiritually, and find ways to change the world to be a better place.
So, please, give them the gift of your hospitality. Be bold. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Help to change the world.
We Unitarian Universalists rarely convert anyone. Most often the experience of people new to us is, “I never knew there was a church like this, where I could be my whole self.” Often new members tell me, “This is like coming home, home to myself, home to who I am, home to whom I have become.” Let us open the doors of this home to the world.
We Unitarian Universalists have a mission. Building on our long tradition of compassion and concern we can make this world more loving and just. It takes us, ordinary people, doing ordinary things, in these extraordinary times. It takes us practicing hospitality in all the actions of our lives.
As we remember the events of September 11th five years ago, let us ask “What are the simple things I can do that will change me into a purveyor of peace, at home, in my communities, and in the world? What can I do to cast my lot toward community building, toward love and justice?
If you ask them, I believe you will hear answers to these questions. I believe they will come from that place of deep gratitude within you. You will be like a fist unfolding, like a rose blossoming, like a stream rolling down the mountain. Answers will pour forth from you in expressions of compassion, in invitations to deep connection. Answers will grow from tender touches in times of transition to requests for reconciliation to persistent pleadings for peace.
I believe the answers of hospitality will pour forth from deep within you, and chase away our gloom, for I know that in this very room there is quite enough hope, and joy, and power, and love for all the world.
Can I have a big “Ahh?” Amen! ♦