I preached for the second time in my new church home yesterday. This is what I said:
A
story (adapted from a story by Eli
Wiesel):
A long time ago a devastating
calamity befell a small Jewish village.
The people turned to their rabbi, known for his great spiritual gifts,
and begged for help. The rabbi went to a
special place in the forest. He built a
fire, laying the wood in a particular intricate pattern. And then he uttered a sacred prayer. And the calamity was averted.
Generations passed, and once again
extremely hard times fell upon the village.
Once again, the people went to their rabbi. And this rabbi, too, went out to that special
place in the forest. But over time the
secret of how to build the intricate fire had been lost. “I am here,” the rabbi said, “and I still
know the prayer. This must be
enough.” And it was enough. The village was saved.
Generations passed. Once more the hard times; one more the
request of the rabbi. This rabbi went to
the special place in the woods. “I do
not know how to build the fire,” the rabbi said. “And I no longer know the sacred prayer. But I am here, and this must be enough.” And it was enough. Once again, the people were safe.
In recent times this village once
again knew great fear and tribulation.
Once more the people went to their rabbi, as their ancestors and their
ancestors had before them. But this
rabbi did not go into the woods. She
went into her study. And there she lit a
candle and said, “Generations ago we forgot how to build the intricate
fire. And the words of the sacred prayer
have long been lost. I no longer even
know where the special place in the woods is.
But I do know the story, and that must be enough.” And it was enough.
It was enough because, as it’s been
said, “God made humankind because God loves stories.”
Stories. Legends.
Myths. Life.
Our
life – yours and mine. They’re
stories. Stories. And as the great mythologist Joseph Campbell
taught so many back in the late ‘80s and early 90’s, they’re not just
independent stories, not just ours and ours alone, but the stories of our lives
are stories within Stories. There’s the
hero’s journey. And the exodus story of
movement from bondage to freedom. And
there’s death and resurrection. And the
embrace of the “Other” within community.
These Grand Stories are our stories, and our stories are these Stories.
In the Introduction to the
companion volume for the PBS series The
Power of Myth, Bill Moyers wrote:
“One of my colleagues had been asked by a friend about our
collaboration with Campbell: “Why do you need the mythology?” She held the familiar, modern opinion that “all these Greek gods and stuff” are irrelevant to the
human condition today. What she did not
know – what most do not know – is that the remnants of all that “stuff” line
the walls of our interior system of belief, like shards of broken pottery in an
archeological site. But as we are
organic beings, there is energy in all that “stuff.”
Stories. Stuff.
The Stuff of Life. The Staff of
Life. The Spirit of Life. Our life – yours and mine. You can feel it, sometimes, when you
encounter a really well-told tale; you can feel that this story is yours,
too. And there are times when you’re
going through whatever it is that you’re going through at the time and you
realize – you can see it and feel it – the Tragedy or the Comedy of it all.
The
majority of the world’s religions that we humans have developed have made
explicit use of this mutual identification.
Each holds up a story, or a
connected canon of stories, and encourages their adherents to align the story
of their own lives with these overarching narrative arcs.
As an
example, in the vast majority of Christian churches – of most types – the
worship life of the congregation is woven on the framework of the lectionary. The Christian lectionary is a (usually)
three-year cycle of readings that works its way systematically from the
beginning of Genesis through the end of Revelations. Sunday after Sunday, week after week, month
after month, the texts are laid out in such a way that the whole of the Christian
Story is made relevant to the lived experience of the congregants and so that
the congregants are returned, again and again, to their normative Story.
I
know, I can tell, some of you are saying, “That’s
what was happening in my last church?”
Yeah, well, some do it better than others, but that’s at least the theory behind the lectionary. In a regular, repeated, and systematic way
people are taken step by step through the Bible with the intention of bringing
those sacred texts to bear on the lives of the people and the people’s lived experience
to bear on the texts.
Now
we Unitarian Universalist have taken a different tack. Some time ago we eschewed any one overarching narrative; we stopped
seeing any one Story as normative for
us. Like Joseph Campbell, perhaps, we
began to see the relationships and interconnectedness among the world’s Great
Stories. We came to recognize their
relativity.
And,
so, you might say that we went through our own exodus, freeing ourselves from
the bondage to a text and the
structure of a lectionary. We ceased to
engage in lectionary worship and began to engage, instead, in thematic
worship. Clergy and lay worship leaders
were now free each week to explore the themes which they felt most relevant. And in many ways this has been a good and
enriching thing for us.
And,
yet, as any good Story will have already told you, with every blessing comes
with a curse; for every mountaintop there is a valley.
You
see, I think that there is a reason that the majority of the world’s religions
we humans have created have explicitly held up a story, or a connected canon of stories, and encouraged their
adherents to align the story of their own lives with these overarching
narrative arcs. The reason is because we
human beings are by nature both meaning seekers and storytellers. If it can be truly said that God created
humans because God loves stories, the reverse is true as well – we human beings
so love stories that we have created gods and goddesses and heroes and villains
and journeys and quests and epic love and all that other “stuff” we know from
the Grand Old Tales. And, as Bill Moyers
noted, there is energy in that stuff – real, potent, needed energy – and when
we Unitarian Universalists divorced ourselves from the Story – because, in the
end, of course, all of those stories really are just One Story – we separated
ourselves from something that gives meaning, and clarity, and vitality to life.
I
think this is why, in part, there’s the perception that Unitarian Universalism
is not a real religion, that our worship is “dry as dust” or, as our own St.
Ralph once called it, “corpse cold.”
It’s why so many have experience worship in our sanctuaries as
interesting lectures and lovely concerts.
It’s why so many people, who love our Principles and our ideals and our
stance on issues of justice and the freedom we offer one another, look around
after they’ve been in one of our congregations for a while and ask, “but isn’t
there anything . . . more?”
A
growing number of our congregations – and some of our growing congregations at that
– have begun to experiment with a return to the lectionary. But not the Christian lectionary. Not a text-based lectionary at all. Instead, these communities have been working
on the creation of theme-based lectionaries – a (usually) three-year cycle of
themes that are explored a month at a time, over and over again, going ever
deeper, moving the congregation over time through a journey that reflects and
is reflected in their own journeys.
Those
congregations that have experimented with doing this have found, besides a
greater feeling of coherence among the services from week to week, a real sense
of that . . . “more.” The Lifespan Faith
Development Program – religious education for children, youth, and adults – can
be more intimately tied to the thematic focus of the worship. Supplemental materials can be developed so
that individuals and families can explore the themes of worship more deeply at
home on their own. And because the
thematic focus from week to week is based on a two- or three-year cycle, it’s
possible for those who plan worship to have at least a general idea of what’ll
be explored not just a week or two in advance, but a year or two. Can you imagine the kind of creative
collaborations this could make possible?
The kind of breadth and depth that this could engender?
You
can probably tell that I’m pretty excited by this development in our
movement. It’s one of the things I
studied from my vantage point as the Director of the Office of Worship and
Music Resources at our Association’s headquarters in Boston.
Getting the chance to be part of this experiment is one of the reasons I
was excited to get back into the parish.
And when I met Leia during my pre-candidating weekend, one of the things
that excited me about TJMC was that she’d been hankering to try it out
too. And so, over the summer, before I
was even on the payroll, I set up a wiki site on the Internet so that Leia, I,
and the Worship Associates could explore what this might mean for us here over
the next year, and what themes we thought we should begin with.
I
will say that for me, one of the failings of this “theme-based ministry”
approach (as it’s been developed so far) is that the monthly themes don’t
always seem to me to express any kind of connection among themselves. There’s no “narrative flow” to the year, and
this, it seems to me, is one of the key features of the traditional lectionary
model, and one of its most important gifts.
So this is something we’ll be experimenting with here: what is the narrative, what is the Story,
that will most help us – UUs living in 21st century Charlottesville, Virginia
– to make sense of our lives?
For
right now, the coming year looks something like this:
In the Fall, we gather together once again, take a
bit of a collective in-breath, and tend to begin looking inward as we prepare
for winter. We remember those who have
died, remember our interconnectedness, and give thanks. For the months of September, October, and
November our themes will be Hospitality, Atonement, and Gratitude.
In the Winter,
shorter days and longer nights encourage us to light those festival fires,
snuggle up with one another, celebrate hearth and home, kith and kin. Yet it has also been seen by many as,
perhaps, the most realistic of the seasons, a time to look at things squarely
and without flinching. And so December,
January, and February will see us exploring Incarnation, Death, and Justice.
Spring is a time during which
the earth awakens and so do we. It’s a
time to celebrate freedom from all kinds of bondage, to remember those who have
sacrificed, to honor the re-birthing earth, the re-birthing spirit, and the
spirit of community. In March, April,
and May our themes will be Grace, Creation, and Faith.
And then there’s Summer – life is vibrant, full, and
lush, and even for those who must keep up the daily grind there’s still a sense
of openness and possibility. For June,
July, and August we will explore Letting Go, Freedom, and Peace.
Hospitality, Atonement, Gratitude, Incarnation,
Death, Justice, Grace, Creation, Faith, Letting Go, Freedom, and
Peace – twelve of the great themes of our human experience tied to the movement
of the seasons, which reflect and are a reflection of the movement of our own
lives.
Someone asked me the other day what I was going to be
preaching about this Sunday and, after I told him, he said, “Oh . . . so it’s
going to be an institutional sermon.
When are you going to start telling us about what you believe?”
Okay . . . I believe this:
what we do here matters.
Life can be hard. It
can be scary. It can be confusing. It can be unfair. Siddhartha Buddha said, “life is suffering,”
and while that might not seem like the way to sum up your every waking minute,
there’s no doubt that it can be rough.
And even when it’s going well there can be the fear that that’s soon
going to come to an end, or we know someone somewhere for whom it is hard, and
we feel for them and with them.
And there is no secret place in the woods, and no matter
how intricately you build your fire it’ll still be just a fire, and there are
no magic formula to make everything “okay” for all times and all peoples.
But we do have the stories.
And I believe that the stories are enough. Or, rather, I believe that the stories are
enough if we’re willing to learn from them and then put what we learn into
practice. It isn’t easy, but no one said
it would be (at least, not in the stories I liked best). But it is possible. All of the stories agree on that. It is possible. If we join with others on our journey, and
follow the signs and the guides, we will get there.
[The Order of
Service tells you that we’re going to be singing, “When I Am Frightened,” now,
but I’m thinking that we ought to turn instead to the song written by the
Ghanaian drummer Sol Amarifio, #1020 in the teal hymnal, “Woyaya.”]
NOTE: You can find the podcast of this sermon on the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church's website.
