April 13, 2008 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
I'm so glad you're here,
so glad for this congregation, this body of people
with all the varieties of our identities,
all of our many stories,
each of us remarkably complex,
beautiful in our commonalities and differences.
How amazing all that we bring to being here.
How amazing to all be here together.
In many ways, we are rich in variety and diversity.
Dr. Martin Luther King kept before people the dream
of a justice-seeking beloved community that is always in the making,
always expanding to include more people.
Such a community is grounded in our theology.
Each and every person has inherent worth, a piece of the truth,
and gifts to bring to the world.
We are all interconnected and interdependent.
Senator Barak Obama in his speech on the country and race
spoke of a More Perfect Union, of perfecting our union.
Can we perfect our religion to become a more beloved community?
The army is the most integrated institution in the United States.
Wouldn't you rather it be congregations?
In January, Chris, Bill and I, attended a conference whose theme
was Now Is the Time to engage in a multiracial, multicultural future.
The conference attracted Unitarian Universalists from all across the country.
The Rev. Jacqui Lewis spoke of successful multiracial, multicultural congregations.
Such congregations have four things in common:
They are explicitly intentional and visible
in naming their mission of being a multiracial, multicultural community.
They have a common purpose that supersedes being multiracial and multicultural,
but being multicultural is necessary in order to live out their faith.
The members are engaged in the larger community with all its multicultural groups.
The congregation is involved in an on-going process of education and reflection.
At the conference Dr. Shakti Butler asked particpants, "Why are you here?"
People called out to learn, to become multiracial and multicultural...
Then Dr. Butler asked us to sit quietly, feet on the floor, aware of our breathing.
After this meditative time she asked, "Why are you here?
Why do you want a multicultural, multiracial community?"
Then people called out: forgiveness, reality, connection, authenticity, hope,
belonging, healing, truth, love, understanding
Dr. Butler asked us the meaning of our names and from where our people came.
If you led a privileged, safe, protected, easy life, she asked,
when did you notice something bigger than your own experience?
Dr. Butler got us telling our stories.
After I graduated from college, I spent a couple of years in the Peace Corps,
living on a small remote outer island in Melanesia in the South Pacfic.
I returned home to the Midwest and became a high school English teacher.
The school was college prep, and the student body was upper middle class and white.
A parent complained that the school was culturally deprived.
She meant that such a homogenous student body offered too narrow a view of the world.
My years in the Peace Corps had given me some experiences
of being in relationships with people who were very different from me.
I knew the parent of my student was right.
My experiences with people on the small remote island enlarged my world. More importantly, real friendships were made.
Beloved community depends upon our being in association and communication
with people within and beyond our own race, ethnicity, and culture
in genuine conversation and meaningful sharing.
We want this for our children.
We must do this ourselves.
Dr. Butler showed us her film "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible,"
a documentary featuring the stories of people who have worked to gain insight
into what it means to challenge racism both in themselves and in institutions.
While we watched the film, we took notes of what stood out for us,
where we experienced a shortening of breath, joy, tension, tears.
After the film, she asked us to write without consulting our notes.
What was staying with us?
What meaning does it have for our own lives?
We met in small groups.
One person spoke while the others offered their silent, open-hearted attention.
After all had spoken, we shared what it was like to speak and what it was like to
listen.
One man told of growing up in a small Southern town.
Things were segregated, but everybody pretty much got along.
He moved to Atlanta. At this time it was illegal
for a black person and a white person to walk down the street holding hands.
In a park, he and a white woman felt an attraction.
He knew that they would have to sneak off if they were to talk.
They could not legally follow their hearts.
That was the turning point.
He committed his life to being a bridge between races.
A woman spoke of being Pilipino, Cambodian, Irish, and Hispanic.
When her family and friends get together they are a beautiful crossroads of cultures.
On Sundays she longs to see faces that look like her family's among her
congregation.
A woman of German and English descent cried.
As a girl she was afraid of being ostracized by the white school girls,
so she turned her back on her closest friend who was Japanese American.
Our human story is a story told in many voices.
To learn more about life means listening to more stories.
Each person is a mirror to show us more of ourselves.
In our congregation how can we engage in a multicultural, multiracial future?
We can be intentional in our welcome.
We can practice being, more of the time, in I/Thou relationships.
Theologian Martin Buber in his book I/Thou held that seeing oneself as divine
and being aware of that same spirit in everyone was the way to counter
the destructive I/It relationships where the other is as an object unlike oneself.
When we see others as its, they are easier to injure or ignore.
We keep practicing to make more and more of our relationships,
each of our encounters I/Thou.
We can be clear in our purpose to participate in envisioning and creating
a just and loving world. This purpose calls us to be inclusive.
We can engage in the larger community.
Last week in the service we learned about some programs
this congregation is involved in Richmond.
The Richmond Children's Foundation works to revitalize
one of the Bay area's poorest and most violent neighborhoods.
The Foundation established the not-for-profit
Richmond College Preparatory Preschool and Elementary School...
where neighborhood children are encouraged to dream big dreams
and given the skills and confidence to achieve them.
Lenny Pitt volunteers at the school, and is with us this morning.
Lenny, please stand so folks can see you.
Lenny dreams of giving these children a view of the world they never have had.
Many of them have never left their neighborhood, never seen the San Francisco Bay.
Lenny coordinates the Junior Explorers program.
You can participate.
On a Saturday you can join with other volunteers.
Each volunteer will drive two students and one parent up into the hills,
where the kids will get a spectacular view of the bay and the bridges.
Then everyone will drive over to the city, maybe to the Mission,
have lunch in a sit-down restaurant -- a first for some kids.
Volunteers fund the day's adventure.
Volunteering gets you into the kids' neighborhood, maybe one you rarely visit.
Volunteering gives you the chance to make a difference in kids' lives and real connections with some children and parents.
Learn more from Lenny after the service.
We can be involved in an on-going process of education and reflection.
Here are some possibilities:
Perhaps next year our chalice circles, our small group ministry programs of 8-10 people,
will choose this topic: What's the meaning of your name?
From where do your people come?
When did you first notice the world was bigger than your own experience?
Conversations on Humanity is a group in our congregation where people share
personal life stories about how race, gender, class, and other human divisions
have affected your spiritual growth and religious faith.
Sharing personal experience and deep listening are central to the gatherings.
All are welcome. The next gathering is Tuesday, April 22, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Conversations on Humanity is a way to involve yourself
in on-going reflection and learning.
Saturday, May 17 we'll show here Dr. Shakti Butler's film
"Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible."
We'll share in that same process of writing responses and sharing in small groups.
We'll meet from 9:30 - 12:00. I hope you are available on Saturday, May 17.
All of this goes right along with one of the goals
named in our annual congregational process of setting priorities.
One priority is to lift and embrace our diversity and humanity,
highlighting and learning from the diversity we already contain
in terms of culture, class, and ethnicity,
increasing our empathy and our cross-cultural expertise,
and participating in community projects beyond our congregation.
Let's share our own experiences and ways we have enlarged our own understandings.
Let's risk learning how we may have unintentionally hurt others
and learning how to heal.
Let's risk opening our hearts.
People who share wounds, hurt, triumphs, hopes can grow
to understand and respect and love one another.
Dr. King's dream is still before us.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu says God has a dream.
God dreams humankind will know we are kin and need one another.
Human differences should not separate us,
but enable us to know more life through one another.
Each person has their gifts. None is self-sufficient.
We were made, Archbishop Tutu says,
to be complimentary and interdependent.
We are one body.
The good in you calls to the good in me.
We depend upon one another more than we know.
A more beloved community is possible.