March 14, 2010

Our Glowing Coal - Celebration Sunday

The Rev. Mark Ward, Minister
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville

Asheville, NC

SERMON 

Some years ago after retiring from the University of Chicago, where he was a celebrated professor, the process theologian Bernard Loomer settled in Berkeley, California. Not long after arriving, after a life spent largely outside of organized religion, he joined the local Unitarian Universalist church. In a statement he gave at the time, Loomer said that he was drawn to the church because it was a place where he was reminded, in his words, “that we are all members of the web of life, that no one is an island (living) outside the context of that web.” It was sentiment very much in tune with his theology. But even more, Loomer said, “church is an important agency by which great traditions become living presences within the community.”

It seems to me that Bernard Loomer here hit precisely on the power of being part of a church community. It is the vehicle by which the aspirations of a great tradition and the values and hopes that live deep within each of us are realized in ourselves and in the world.

This is especially true in a tradition like ours that claims no fixed and final truth. Our churches are not temples to a unitary perspective on the world – a single saving prophet or text. Rather, like our symbol, the flaming chalice, they represent a container of sorts, safe space intentionally left open where we might each bring the fire of our own searching minds and questing hearts.

And yet, there is also something more. We are more than a collection of questioning souls. Something gathers us. In the words of the hymn, something unites our single fires to kindle one flame. It is hard to name, for it is not something outside of us. Instead, it emerges within and among us as we gather, as we share our lives, as we sort out what seems true and struggle to name that which is dearest.

Being freely associating people – nothing and no one compels us to gather – it begins the only way it can: as a promise. Seeking the company of other seekers we create space where we might join in common endeavor, and by our promises we create the parameters of that space – affirmative promises, things we agree to do, and limiting promises, things we agree not to do. Being freely associating people we also agree to equal status in this space as well as mutual care and respect.

All this, then, is wrapped up in a larger promise that describes how these people are joined as a community. In our tradition we call this a covenant. It is in how it frames and lives its covenant that each community discovers its own authentic identity. As the Unitarian Universalist minister Kim Beach puts it, in creating their covenants churches “render human freedom serious.” That is, they give it purpose, power and intent.

Similarly, it is in our promises individually that we each declare who we are, what we care about, and where our loyalties lie. In our promise-making we take our first step beyond ourselves. We make a connection and offer the first tendril of trust to another. Trust builds on trust and we learn something about ourselves. We enjoy the fruits of that trust, and even if on occasion our trust is disappointed we still reflect on the experience we had. Even in our wariness we are on the look-out for it once again. For we have touched something that we recognize as precious.

It is not just the pleasant experience of being with another in a positive or rewarding way; it is also the experience of touching something larger than ourselves, a quality that exists not so much in one person or another, as between them. Touching that quality gives us an expansive feeling, a feeling of being at home, at one, connected and deeply a part of things. But it also gives intimations of a deeper way of being in the world.

In it is the hint of a transcending understanding that finds in each person a being of incalculable, inherent worth and the seeds for the call to justice. In our churches, the safe space we create that encourages us to know our full selves also invites us to trust, and in trusting to begin the journey to a deeper understanding of our links to each other and the world. It is a journey of faith in that it invites us to see in the hopeful path of promise making and trust a way to wholeness for ourselves and peace for the world.

I have taken us on this little theological jaunt on this, our Commitment Sunday, as a way of trying to get at a point that I’ve been puzzling over for a while. I mentioned in a newsletter column last November that when I applying to be minister of this congregation I received a packet of material from the Search Committee that included responses to a prepared form. Among the things that form asked was whether the committee felt that the congregation had some sense of mission in the world. What was the glowing coal at its center?

The committee replied that when this question was raised in focus groups, no collective “coal” emerged. And yet, they said, “there is a spirit, an energy, a hope evidenced by a deep sense of caring that connects us and opens our hearts to the world around us.” Perhaps this, they said, is the “essence of who we are.”

I have to say that I don’t recall how other congregations to which I applied responded to that question. It would make an interesting study to look over what churches do with it. I’d be willing to bet, though, that many of them struggled with it, too. And that’s understandable. In communities of free-thinking sorts with a broad diversity of theological perspectives, such as ours tend to be, there’s some reluctance to claim a point of view or perspective for all on such a central question. And yet, I also believe that for our churches to thrive and endure we need to work to clarify for ourselves what it is that brings us together.

The “glowing coal” question really is not about theological fine points. It is the challenge to name the center of warmth and light that gathers that community. What brings people to it? What keeps them there? What answers their hopes? What challenges them to grow? We may struggle with the words, but I can tell you that this congregation would not be nearing its 60th anniversary with a worshipping community of some 750 members and friends and 250 children if it didn’t have a glowing coal of warmth and light at its center.

That coal is here week after week in this beautiful, light-filled sanctuary when you gather on Sunday, stepping out of the circumstances of your everyday lives and entering this community of memory and hope, where in our promise-making to each other, to this community, to the spirit of compassion and hope that lives within us, we weave the connections that widen our vision, open our hearts and embolden our dreams.

It moves in strong currents through the rooms in our lower level and in Jefferson House, where we engage in the joyous work of inviting our children into the journey of religious discovery, where we stimulate their thought, invite their wonder, and affirm that center of integrity and love that lies within each of them.

We carry it into our covenant groups where we build the trust to share our journeys and to engage in the deep and sometimes difficult work of religious inquiry and spiritual growth, and it lives in us when we are with each other in crisis and illness.

It is present outside these walls when we swing hammers, serve meals, counsel the prisoner, or advocate for the dispossessed, when the hope in our hearts fuels the work of justice. It touches every gathering among us and every moment in our lives when we live fully in that promise-making spirit that is both within us and greater than us, that buoys us, that challenges us, that lifts us up and settles us down.

Robert Fulghum in the story you heard earlier posited the question that at one time or another nags at every religious seeker: this talk of a journey of faith, is it all just a lot of nonsense?

I expect that, like Fulghum, most of us have had the experience of observing some exotic or unfamiliar religious practice and shaking our heads. In the scheme of things, paying little girls to free small birds that they have caged is certainly among the more harmless examples, and certainly there are others that are less so.

Indeed, one of the sad lessons of life is that any human venture can be a vehicle for abuse and depredation, and this is as true of religion as others. So, it is easy to cultivate a cynical view, to see in any claim of faith delusion or devious aims. In doing so we may shelter ourselves from disappointment, but we also miss the chance to open ourselves to a deeper way of living: in Fulghum’s story, to improve how we digest our breakfast.

And yet, presented finally with the right occasion, a way of thinking that resonates with us, we start asking questions, we sort through the answers, and at some point we acknowledge, “OK. I get it.”

Then what? “Once you get a handle on the infinite cycle of the restless existence of all things,” Fulghum asks, “do you despair, or do you willingly take your place in the circle?” Do you give something over and stand with others gathered in purpose, power and intent?

I want to argue today that at the center of our tradition is an understanding that emerges in the simple act of promise-making, that in that promise-making we touch something true and hopeful in ourselves and the world at large, a glowing coal that warms us and lights our way, that connects us deeply with each other, indeed with all things.

So, my question for you today is, won’t you take your place in the circle gathered to celebrate, affirm and uphold that glowing center? On this, our Celebration Sunday, that is the question before us all. For, having affirmed the way of this freely gathered people, it is in how we act to support this community that we show that we get it. It is the toast we carry around to the back side of the temple.

We cannot know all the ways in which our gifts will matter, just that without them our community will founder and that there is no one but us to give them. On behalf of this community, I am grateful for the gifts that you have brought to us today, for the commitment you have made to the endurance and success of this enterprise. Our congregation glows all the brighter for them.

And while I can’t assure that it will add to your achievement of merit, I think that Fulghum had it right when he said that in giving it shall be given unto you, since in the interconnected web in which we live “gifts go around and back again.”