Putting Ourselves In The Story

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 21^st 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.

Open Source Church: a sermon

One of my absolutely favorite things in my house when I was growing up . . . was my family’s set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. We had the whole thing – A-Z, plus the Indexes, plus a couple of annual supplements – all in a wonderful little bookcase that my father had built specifically for them. They were right in the living room, down low, at easy kid level, and always available whenever anyone – most often me – would ask some kind of question. Why does . . .? What was the first . . .? How big is . . .? No matter what, it was the same: “Let’s go look it up.”

I remember once declaring that I was going to read through the entire Encyclopedia – cover to cover, volume by volume. I think I stayed at it for a week or something like that. But I remember the feeling that everything I could ever want to know was contained within those volumes.

When my father died back in 2003 the Encyclopedia was up for grabs. I thought about taking it, about how I could lay on the floor with my kids exploring the vastness of what there is to learn. But then I realized that if I did this, my kids would learn that dinosaurs were all a kind of grayish-greenish color, and that the one with the large body and really long neck is called a Brontosaurus. They’d learn that there are nine planets in the solar system and that Saturn is the only one with a ring. They’d learn that the smallest computer can fit inside a single room and, of course, they’d learn that Richard Milhous Nixon is President of the United States.

Now I don’t particularly want my kids learning any of that. In the years since I lay on the floor thinking that I could read my way through “the sum of all human knowledge,” as the Britannica billed itself, a lot has changed. Pluto has been demoted, and Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter all got rings. Computers? Well, most of you probably have one in your pocket that could out process that room-sized behemoth without breaking a sweat. We’ve learned that dinosaurs came in all kinds of colors, and my old pal the Brontosaurus is now known as Apatosaurus. And Barack Hussein Obama is in the White House. Things have changed.

When I thought about bringing the Encyclopedia into my house for my kids to use I realized that my perspective – that these volumes contained everything I could ever want to know – had changed subtlety over the years. I now see that such volumes contained the knowledge within them; it was, both literally and figuratively, bound in them. And we don’t live in that kind of world anymore.

How many of you have in your pocket right now a smart phone or, at least, relatively intelligent one? How many have some kind of computer at home that you use to connect with the internet? We live today in a world of interactive interconnectedness. We’ve come to assume it.

And we assume its instantaneousness. The other day I was waiting an incredibly long time for a computer here at church to connect to the internet. Really, an unacceptably long time. I couldn’t believe how slow this machine was being. And then I looked at the clock and noticed that only a minute had passed. It would have easily taken me two or three times that long to go to the living room, find the right volume, and look up the article I was interested in, and back then I was used to it. But now? Infuriating and unforgiveable.

And if it’s like this for me – and I can assume from your reaction that you know what I’m talking about – then I have to say that it’s even more so for what now, I’m afraid, I have no choice but to call “the younger generation.” Some of these folks have no memory of a time when you couldn’t get the idea to go out to a new place for dinner, look up your options, read a couple of reviews, get directions, and invite a bunch of your friends to join you there all within the span of a couple of minutes and all with a device you can hold in one hand. Whether we all want to recognize it or not, it is a different world today, and it’s getting differenter every minute.

So why have I chosen to talk about this in my first sermon with you?

This summer I’ve been reading what I think is a really exciting and important book by a Presbyterian minister named Landon Whitsitt. The book is called Open Source Church: making room for the wisdom of all, and the author suggests that the open source movement in computing offers us some insights into new ways of “doing” church.

But before I tell you any of his ideas, I’ll bet that there are some folks asking why we need to consider new ways of doing church in the first place. Well, simply, because by nearly every measure the ways we’ve been doing things for a long time just aren’t working so well anymore. Membership, across denominations, is down. Participation, especially by that coveted “younger people” demographic, is down. The perception that the church is a relevant institution in today’s world is way down. And all of this is especially true among the kinds of liberal and progressive folk who either are or who might be interested in becoming Unitarian Universalists. Something’s not working.

Perhaps one thing is that in a lot of ways our churches are kind of like those old Encyclopedia Britannicas – bound volumes that contain the wisdom and transformative power within. Oh, things get updated from time to time – supplements are published – but then, essentially, those get as bound up as the things they’re replacing.

Whitsitt sees as illustrative one of the first serious efforts to update the encyclopedia concept for the Internet Age. Now, many of you have already recognized the image on the cover of our Order of Service and are now assuming that I’m going to talk about Wikipedia. I am, but first I have to tell you the story of Nupedia.

Nupedia was envisioned as a digital counterpart to the traditional, printed encyclopedia – experts would submit articles on topics within their areas of expertise and these articles would then go through a rigorous peer review process. Only after all of these experts had signed off would an article be published to the web. In the first year of its existence, Nupedia published a total of twelve articles.

Recognizing the need to speed the process up a bit, Nupedia’s founders decided to create a wiki as a feeder site, and thus Wikipedia was born. A wiki is a perfect example of an “open source” web site, meaning that anyone can get into it and play around – anyone can become an editor at Wikipedia. Literally.

Now this might sound like an invitation to chaos, and Wikipedia is often seen as anarchistic and, therefore, fundamentally untrustworthy. Yet the reality is actually different than its initial appearance, but it does take a change in perspective, the use of a different lens, a “paradigm shift” (if you will) to see it. Some people may find this too radical. Others will find it refreshing and welcome.

But, as I said, whether we want to recognize it or not the landscape around us is already shifting. More and more of us are living more and more of our time in this new world: we watch TV on demand, essentially creating our own “must see TV” line ups; we download music to our mp3 players, creating, if you’ll excuse the anachronism, our own albums; we are becoming accustomed to having input into nearly everything and being able to actively arrange things (and then easily rearrange them) as we wish. And there is a growing generation that expects this, having known nothing else.

And then folks come to church where a few people – the leaders – with one particular person – the minister (as if there’s only one) – act as “experts” and set forth a vision and an agenda and then invite people to join them in enacting it. There’s a whole committee devoted to helping people find the “slot” on the slate that fits them best. And if you have an idea for something new and exciting there may well be several levels of committees and councils and many, many meetings that you have to go through before you’re told that there isn’t enough money, or there isn’t enough volunteer energy, or that we’ve tried something like that before and it didn’t work.

Is it any wonder that membership, participation, and the perception that the church is a relevant institution in today’s world are all way, way down? Something isn’t working. Something isn’t syncing up quite right. Perhaps it’s time for us to look at another model.

Rather than limit itself to the input of a few “experts,” Wikipedia, instead, relies upon the tremendous pool of knowledge generated by bringing together a group of diverse people. Few of us may be able to call ourselves “experts,” but each of us knows something and, if we’re honest, the vast majority of us know a whole lot about at least a few things. If we were to pool our various areas of knowledge together we would, in essence, create a new kind of expert – a communal expert. And this expert would have access to all of the information that’s in all of our heads.

Of course, mistakes might creep in. As an example, when Sarah Palin recently spoke about Paul Revere warning the British with bells and shots, some tea party supporters went to Wikipedia and edited the article about Paul Revere’s Ride so that it more smoothly coincided with Palin’s description. Yet other folk, from Revolutionary War scholars to armchair historians, were right there to change things back. Over time, Wikipedia proves itself incredibly accurate.

And up to date. As our knowledge base increases, Wikipedia is able to keep up with it in a way that more traditional encyclopedias never could. Remember Nupedia? Twelve articles in the first year? In the first month of its existence Wikipedia generated a thousand articles; nine months in it had ten times that many articles; and over the next three months that number jumped to twenty thousand. Forty thousand before another year had passed.

Now that’s responsiveness. That’s creativity unleashed. Can you imagine that kind of energy in the church?

So what would an Open Source Church look like? One sermon isn’t enough to tell you everything I’d like to, or that you might like to know, but we have years ahead of us to play with these ideas – through sermons and AFD offerings, in discussions on our FaceBook page, and in blogs. In the time I do have left though – roughly three minutes – I’d like to sketch out one piece of the puzzle.

In an Open Source Church we’d organize ourselves around the premise, as Wikipedia does, that everyone who’s here is a member. Everyone. Those who’ve been here since the founding of the church and those who just walked through the door; those who’ve stayed through thick and thin and those who stepped out for a while and are tentatively stepping back in – every single person is already a member of this community because membership in this community is open to everyone. No hoops. No hurdles. No hassles. No haggling.

So, too, everyone who points their browser at Wikipedia is already a member, or to use their terminology an “editor” or “contributor.” No one checks your bona fides at the door to make sure that you understand how they do things. In fact, that’s part of the genius of this – it’s recognized to be a good thing to have the input of people who see things differently, who have different expectations, different backgrounds and perspectives, and, thus, different gifts to offer. So everyone who shows up at the door is instantly an editor – or member – and instantly able to participate. To contribute. To make suggestions. To actively change things.

Now some people want to go a step further. In Wikipedia they’re called “registered users,” and it’s free, it’s easy. Again, no one will check whether or not you’re the right kind of person. Want to step up? Step up.

These folks may have a few more tools in their toolbox than do un-registered users – they can create a new article, for instance. Still, essentially, these registered users are just regular users who’ve taken a stand.

There are “Administrators,” folks who might be akin to the folks we call “Church Leaders.” Two things are worth noting here, I think. First, Wikipedia’s Administrators do not see their role as setting the agenda. They don’t think they’re in charge. In fact, they’ve been known in the vernacular as “janitors,” because their primary function is to clean up after everyone else. It is stressed that these leaders, these Administrators, are fundamentally just users, editors, no different than anyone else. The one difference is that they’ve taken on the task of making sure that everyone else has what they need to do their work.

Notice the difference here? These leaders understand their role as supportive – what, in the church, we might call “servant leadership.” They don’t ask, “Who out there can help us fulfill our agenda?” but, rather, “What can we do to make you successful in what you’re trying to do?” A very different thing.

Of course, there are some “rules” to Wikipedia, there are some norms and expectations, and there is a clear understanding of Wikipedia’s purpose. But beyond the so-called “five pillars” there are no firmly established rules because the open source perspective recognizes, as Whitsitt puts it, “the more you dictate process, the more you strangle creativity and innovation.”

This is a risky approach, a radical embrace of trust, and, to quote Whitsitt again, it “scares the crud” out of most people. Churches are, generally speaking, like most other institutions, incredibly risk adverse. Yet religion – the spirituality at its core – takes risks in stride. Trust is part of the DNA of true spirituality. What if it became core to the way we do church, as well?

Can you imagine a church in which every single person who walked through the door was welcomed as a member, already fully qualified to begin fully participating? Can you imagine a church in which the leaders understood themselves not as “gatekeepers” who serve by making sure things don’t get out of hand but, instead, as facilitators of the unleashing of everyone’s fullest potential? Can you imagine a church based on such radical trust?
I can. I can, and it excites me tremendously. Perhaps it excites you, too. Maybe it scares you. Whatever your reaction, I look forward to exploring this further in the weeks and years ahead.

In Gassho,

RevWik


RESOURCES:

Open Source Church: making room for the wisdom of all, by Landon Whitsitt. © 2011, The Alban Institute

The Metanoia Project (Landon Whitsitt’s blog): http://landonwhitsitt.com/  (See, especially, his online booklet – which forms the first few chapters of his book – “Open Source Gospel” http://landonwhitsitt.com/open-source-gospel/ )

Membership, Openness, and Thinking Outside of the Box

I know I said that I was writing a three-part series on the idea of "the member-less church."  That series, then, should have come to an end with my last post.  I was reminded, though, of one more thought.

What triggered this thought was the memory of a document held with great pride by the people of the First Parish in Concord, Massachussetts.  It is a letter from Henry David Thoreau.  In this letter, Thoreau resigns his membership in First Parish.  (Possibly the only letter from someone who doesn't want to be a member of a church to have such a place of honor!)  Thoreau goes on to say that if he could, he would resign his membership in the human race.

Some people are just not joiners.

Some people are of a mindset that is anti-institution and anti-organization or, at the least, can take them with a grain of salt but most certainly don't want to be tied to any of them.  They hold fiercely to their freedom and independence and, as Thoreau put it, wouldn't even want to be identified as "members" of humanity.

This doesn't mean they don't engage with community.  Value it, even.  They just have a different way of relating to it.

And this "other way" is one of the hallmarks of the so-called "post-modern" mindset which is, for better or worse, the perspective that's in the ascendency.  Post-modern people -- and this is not strickly a generational thing, but they do tend to be younger people -- do not see the world the same way as people with a "modern" orientation -- which, again, while not age limited tend to be older folk. 

If, then, the church is interested in appealing to younger people -- and people with a "younger" orientation -- and is at all concerned about its future, then it needs to learn to attune itself to this "post-modern" orientation.  This is not to say that it should ignore the "moderns" in its midst, but it does mean that it must learn to question and challenge the "modernist's" assumptions and be willing to try new things.

My thinking about "doing away with membership" is one such challenge.  We will always have to have ways of measuring our impact, and people will always want ways to mark their belonging, yet we also need to realize that in today's world, a great deal of the currently un-churched look at the church's focus on membership as a negative.  This may be hard to understand from within the modernist mind-set, yet we must recognize that it is fact.  The post-modern "generation" is looking for ways to engage community without also engaging legalistic categorization -- in other words, they want to find meaningful involvement without having to take on what they see as a meaningless identity.

And a question before the church -- before any church -- is just who it exists to serve.  Some see their focus on the people who already belong, and those most like them.  Others believe that their primary focus should be on those who are not yet there.  Studies show that the former tend to decline, while the latter tend to flourish.  And we who say we draw on "the wisdom of the world's religions" should also note that most of the religious traditions we humans have ever developed have suggested that the primary focus should be on bringing people "into the fold" who are not there already.

This leads to a discussion of evangelism within Unitarian Universalism, and I'll turn to that shortly.  But in the meantime, we should note that a dynamic, inclusive faith such as ours should really be looking beyond its own walls to the difference in can make in the wider world.  To do this we must -- must -- strive not to be caught in doing this as we've always done them, but, rather, as they need to be done.

In Gassho,

RevWik

The Member-less Church, part three

It is my understanding that my Viking ancestors had a two-fold concept of time. That Which Has Been included everything from the beginning of time up until this very moment. That Which Is Yet To Be included everything from this moment until the very end of time. This moment, then, could be viewed as either the culmination of everything that came before, or the jumping off point of everything that is to come. It’s with this later perspective that I began the discussion of “the member-less church.” It’s important to recognize that it is about the church that is and might yet be more than the church that was.

I’m guided by two other thoughts. In the business world there’s a saying that there are really only two questions: “What business are you in?” and “How’s business?” And then, of course, there’s the old aphorism, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Of course, the corollary to that, which usually remains unspoken, is, “If it is broke, do what you can to figure out why and then do whatever is needed to fix it.”

So . . . with that foundation . . . let’s look at the church today. (And by this I mean especially the liberal/progressive church and, perhaps most specifically, Unitarian Universalism.) By virtually every measure you can imagine the church, today, is broke. Attendance is down. Membership is down. Pledging is down. The number of people who say that the church is a major influence in their lives is down. In every major pole the fastest growing religious affiliation is, “none.”

Those of us who care about the church today – both our own individual congregation but also the greater concept of “church” – need to look at The Church Which Has Been and try to see what’s “broken” about it. We also need to imagine The Church Which Is Yet To Be and see what we have to do to get there.

Perhaps those two questions from the business world can help here. What “business” is the church in? Contrary to much of its appearance, the church is not in the “business” of maintaining and growing the church! The church is really in the transformation “business” – the transformation of individual lives and of society as a whole. To be more specific, a Unitarian Universalist church – and the movement writ large – is not in the “business” of building up Unitarian Universalist churches. It’s in the “business” of building up Unitarian Universalists – people who live out a Unitarian Universalist expression of the human impulse. The fact that so few of us have any idea what this means is proof enough that “business” is not all that good.

I’m the first one to admit that I don’t know – in any kind of definitive way – what is “broke” about the church today. I would certainly not claim to have The Answer about how to fix it. This will take, I think, a whole lot of experimentation on the part of actual congregations willing to try some new things, willing to try to behave like The Church Which Is Yet To Be (or how they imagine this church will behave). If enough of us do this, and compare notes on our experiences, we will, together, create this Future Church.

One thing I do believe – based on my own personal and professional experiences and observations – is that the Church Which Has Been is far too focused on institutional things. To be sure, an institution needs to pay some attention to institutional things, but without conscious and intentional choices to the contrary, the default emphasis will over time increasingly be on maintenance and, perhaps also, growth of the institution. If the church were a business, or a non-profit aid agency, or a school of some kind this might be alright. (Although even for these the question of “What is your business . . . really?” would come into play.) But for a church to be too focused on itself is . . . well . . . missing the point of church.

I wrote earlier about how we need to free ourselves from the idea of church as something that we go to to that of church as something that we are. This means that the church is not the institution; rather it is the relationships and activities of the people the institution exists to serve. I think that this is one of the key transitions needed to move from the Church Which Has Been to the Church Which Is Yet To Be.

And part of this transition – I think – will be doing away with the conceptual category of “member.”

What role does this concept of “member” play in the Church Which Has Been? As we’ve seen,

• It allows the congregation to measure its size (which assists in the figuring of its relationship with, and responsibility to, the wider movement);
• It creates clarity on who “owns” the church and, so, is vested with the responsibilities of leadership, voting, etc.;
• It provides a means of demonstrating one’s commitment to the institution.

And for the Church Which Has Been it has fulfilled these roles fairly well. The fact that there is often confusion between “official” members who are uninvolved and highly involved persons who are not members shows that it doesn’t fulfill these roles perfectly. But in the Church Which Is Yet To Be these will not be such important considerations.

This concept of membership begs the question – members of what? The institution! But in the Church Which Is Yet To Be the role of the institution will be much more clearly the support of individuals in community who are transforming their lives and the world. (Rather than the role of the individuals being the support of the institution as it, at least, so often feels today.)

• It won’t really matter how many “members” are in the institution but, rather, how involved people are in its transformative work (so we’ll count attendance and participation rather than “members”);
• It won’t really matter who “owns” the institution but, rather, who is “owned” by its mission (so we’ll rewrite our bylaws to say that decisions will be made by those most involved);
• It won’t really matter who is “in” and who is “out” but, rather, who’s lives are being transformed and who are active in transforming the world (so we’ll find other ways to mark people’s passage into deeper and deeper relationship with one another.)

This last points to one of the great gifts of doing away with “membership” as a category. When “becoming a member” is the ultimate expression of your relationship with the church, what comes next? “Membership” is a static category, unless you create a variety of permutations – “active member,” “inactive member,” “pledging friend,” etc. – and this variety dilutes the very attributes people ascribe to “membership.” If there need to be so many nuanced sub-categories, just what does “membership” mean, anyway? But if we do away with “membership” we are freed to be even more creative in identifying and celebrating the myriad of ways that people can be – and let’s face it, are – in relationship with the community. Each person can be honored for where she or he is, and people are free to move both into more deep and less deep relationship as the realities of their lives dictate. The Church Which Is Yet To Be recognizes and honors this natural ebb and flow in a way that’s just not possible in the Church Which Has Been.

As I’ve said, I don’t believe for a moment that I have all the answers. I don’t even claim with certainty that what I’ve written here is “true,” by which I mean that it will work as I think it will. But I do know that in order to survive the Church Which Has Been must transform into the Church Which Is Yet To Be. To do that will take courage, and creativity, and a willingness to experiment and see what happens. And I do believe that great things can come from this.

In Gassho,

RevWik

The Member-less Church, part two

So . . . I'm playing with this idea of "doing away with membership" in the church.  Let me be clear, though, before going on -- I am only talking about doing away with "membership" as a conceptual category.  I'm not suggesting that we somehow stop caring about whether or not people feel connected to the church, or have a sense of belonging.  I'm not even suggesting that we stop counting folks and trying to keep track of the "size" of the church.  I'm really only talking about how we think about things; the conceptual categories we use to identify and organize things.

That said, I promised on Monday to write today about some of the hurdles that would have to be overcome to move forward with this idea.  (On Friday I'll write about some of what I think would be the positives that would come from doing so.)  Whenever/wherever I've talked or written about this idea, the majority of the responses include one or more of the following objections.  Here's my attempt to address them:

The Unitarian Universalist Association assesses each congregation on a per-member basis when figuring out its "fair share" contribution to the work of the wider movement.  Seriously?  This is the reason that we should have the conceptual concept of "members" in our congregations?  Because the UUA uses this number as the basis of their formual for assesing "fair share" contributions?

How many congregations today play with their membership numbers in order to keep their APF -- that's Annual Program Fund -- contribution affordable?  (More than you'd imagine!)  And how many congregations that are trying to keep accurate records aren't able to pay the full APF amount?  (A lot!)  In essence, that means that they're not paying on a per-member basis anyway!

It has been suggested in the past -- in multiple venues -- that the UUA should move to a percentage-of-budget based formula for figuring APF contributions.  Suppose we asked all congregations to pay 4% of the budget to the UUA as their annual offering.  (Note, as an aside, that I've avoided calling these "dues."  They're not, really, or shouldn't be.  Just as our individual congregant's pledges aren't "dues."  But all of this is another post, I think.)  Or, to be more accurate, what if we asked congregations to figure out what percentage their current APF contribution is of their total budget and then they pay that from now on?  The UUA would still get its funds and we wouldn't be stuck with this "membership" category just so that it's easy on the institution.

Without "membership" even more people would slip throught he cracks than already do!  Again, seriously?  That seems like such an empty arguement.  If we agree that with the concept of membership we lose track of people and others drift away on their own, why do we assume that it'd be any different (better or worse?) without such a concept?  As has been noted elsewhere, in every congregation there are long-time participants who are not "members," and "members" who in no real way participate.  This arguement seems to me to suggest that we should be focusing our attention on "members" -- whether or not they participate -- because it's the "membership" category that matters most.

What if -- and I'm just throwing this out here -- it is the very concept of "members" and "non-members" that leads the institution to allow folks to fall through the cracks?  What if some new way of assessing a person's involvement with the congregation -- and vice versa -- is needed?

How would we know how successful we are?  I've never heard it put exactly this way, I'll admit, but I have heard it wondered how we would measure our growth if we do away with "membership."  I'll say again -- I'm not against keeping track of things, but "membership" is an extremely inefficient category to use for measuring things.  (Note the common experience mentioned above.)  Many congregations are moving to counting attendance at worship.  Some are discovering ways of measuring all involvement in all programs.  Doesn't this seem a more dynamic -- and accurate -- way of measuring the health and vitality of a congregation?

Congregations are legal entities and, so, must be able to show membership to retain their status.  Okay.  I'll buy this.  But I wonder what the minimum requirements are.  Would it be possible, for instance, to so-write your bylaws that anyone who is an officer of the church is, for legal purposes, a "member"?  The category -- which I maintain is truly problematic for a number of reasons I'll get to on Friday -- would be retained purely for legal reasons.  I'd imagine that each congregation would have to look into its own state's requirements, but I'm willing to bet that this seems like more a hurdle than it really is.

If we did away with membership, anyone could vote!  Well, yes.  That's true.  And I suppose that in some situations that might be problematic.  But I'd wager that in the vast majority of congregations the vast majority of the time it wouldn't matter at all.  Except, perhaps, it might increase the percentage of active participants in the community who are also involved in deciding matters related to that community.  Think of it, as it is today, in most of our congregations, only "members" can vote.  And how many of them turn out?  In most of our congregations it's a shamefully low percentage.  And then there are all those people who are active in the congregation but who, for one reason or another, have chosen not to "sign the membership book."  These folks are held inelegible to vote.  Why hold them back?  Really.  (Other than the fact that it's always been this way!) 

I mentioned in Monday's post a congregant in one of the churches I served who had been so deeply embedded in the life of the congregation that the vote for him to be President was unanimous and enthusiastic.  But he'd never joined the church as a "member"!  So he became a "member" for the duration of his term and, then, recinded his "membership" when his term was over.  And before and after this time he was not allowed to vote in congregational meetings while a great many people who had far, far less involvement with the congregation were, technically, permitted to do so.  Does this situation make any sense?

Membership is a reflection of an individual's commitment to the church.  Of all of the reasons I've heard that "we can't do away with membership" this is the only one that isn't instituionally based.  (Think about that for a minute.  Let it sink in.)  I have, myself, used this idea when talking to people about membership.  I've used the analogy of the difference between getting married and "just" living together -- it's an outward and visible symbol of that commitment, and one shared within the context of a community.  I get all that.  But is it the only way to show such commitment?  It is, certainly, the one with which we're most familiar, but as a ritual, as a symbol, does it really do what we think it's doing?  Again, if one can be an active participant in the community and not be a "member" and be a "member" with actively participating, what does "membership" actually mean?  (As opposed to what we think it means or say to one another that it means.)

Some of the Christian traditions use adult baptism as a way of marking a person's movement into deeper commitment and identity.  (Membership is recognized as merely an institutional necessity.)  What if we added adult naming ceremonies -- or some other ritual -- as a way of celebrating someone who wants to say "this is my community"?

I'm sure some of you can come up with other objections to the idea of "doing away with 'membership'," and some can come up with other responses to the objections I've explored here.  Please.  Let's get a conversation started.  I'll be back Friday.

In Gassho,

RevWik

The Member-less Church

I've found myself recently playing around and around in my head with an idea.  It's one that makes immense sense to me, yet I seem to be having a really hard time getting this idea out of my head and into others'! When I talk about it face to face with people -- or write about it here or on FaceBook -- the way people respond seems to me to suggest that I haven't sufficiently communicated the idea as it is in my mind.  Language -- especially when there's no body language or vocal inflection to help -- can be so difficult!!!


I'm looking at the "concept" of membership, the term itself, and noting that many, if not most, of our congregations pay a great deal of attention to it. How many members do we have? How can we get more members? How do we classify our membership (e.g., "members in good standing," and "friends," and "friends who pledge," and . . .)?

Along with this, of course, we all know that there are problems -- some very active, long-time participants in our congregations are not "members" while some "members" are hardly ever, if at all, involved. Some congregations try to keep down the number of "members" they have to keep their dues to the Association affordable. And many of today's post-modern folk are turned off to churches because of what they perceive to be the church's focus on "numbers" (i.e., how many members do we have/can we get?) Etc., etc.

What I'm doing is simply asking us to look at all of this with fresh eyes. What if we did away with the conceptual category of "membership"? Stopped using that word -- and all of the assumptions that go with it.  What if we stop asking "who's a member" and its corollary "who is not"? What if , instead, we focused on "involvement" or "participation"? This might be "only" a semantic or symbolic shift, but I think it'd be quite powerful.

We would now ask people to join our movement and get involved in ministries (to and with one another and the wider world). We would stop asking them to become "members" of a particular church. We'd put our energy into courting transformation, not counting people who've gone through a "new member" course.

What I'm trying to get at here is a shift from emphasizing the preservation and development of the institution to a focus on doing the work the institution was created to do.

Ironically, I think doing this would actually increase that which right now is called "membership."  Because now it wouldn't only be people who had achieved some institutionally sanctioned threshold who could think of themselves as "members."  The people who "only" attend the weekly meditation group could rightly think of themselves as belonging to the community.  (How many "members" attend worship each week?!?!?)  The people who "only" work in one of the social justice programs, or "only" attend Lifespan Faith Development programs could now be counted.  In fact, anyone who was involved in any way -- and this, by the way, could include people who were at a place where all they could do is receive from the church -- and who considered themselves to be part of the community would, indeed, be just that.

This would be different, all right, offering both gifts and challenges.  On Wednesday I'll take a look at some of the challenges.  On Friday I'll take a shot at explaining the gifts.
 
In Gassho,
 
RevWik

It Is Us

The church is not something that we go to;

It is something that we are.

As I wrote on Friday, most people would say that, on a conscious level at least, they realize that "the church" is not the same as "the church building."  There is a song that we used to sing at summer camp -- "I am the church.  You are the church.  We are the church together."  [(c) Avery & Marsh, 1972]  Most people would understand this to mean, "the church is the people," and would agree.

And yet, as I also noted on Friday, every time we say, "I'm going to church" we are unconsciously reinforcing this misunderstanding -- that church is a place to which we go.  Even if we're not actually talking about the building but, instead, the programs that're happening in that building, whenever we talking about "going to church" we reinforce the idea that church is something that we attend.

Yet if, as most people would agree, "the church" is "the people," then it's not something that they are doing and that we are attending.  It's us.  Together.  In community.  Church isn't someplace that we go; it's something that we are.

And it's important to note that it's something that we are.  You cannot be a church in isolation.  It takes community because, simply put, it is community.  A very special kind of community.  It's often called "the beloved community."  South African Archbishop Desmuod Tutu once said that church should be, "an audiovisual aid for the sake of the world,” showing how the world should be.  We are the church together.

And who is it, then, who makes up this church?  Actual institutional congregations often spend a fair amount of time and energy trying to quantify who is, and who is not, a member.  Sometimes this is for doctrinal reasons (they want to keep the heretics out); sometimes its for financial reasons (the denominational headquarters assesses annual dues on a per-person basis); and sometimes its for reasons of pride and self-identity (wanting to know if we're a "large church" or a "mid-sized church" or a "large mid-sized church.").  There may be a committee or even a paid staff person to keep track of the numbers.  There may be new member classes, or a workshop, or a special initiatory worship service.  There's often some kind of "membership book" in which are enscribed the names of the members.

Yet even with all of this attention congregations still wrestle with questions about membership.  Do we count the people who come to worship on (most) Sundays?  How about those who come but don't pledge financial support?  How about those who pledge financial support but don't come?  How about people who serve on lots of committees?  How about people who don't serve on any committees yet who seem to embody the spirit of the community in the way they live their daily lives?

In one of the congregations I served there was a bit of a kerfluffle at one of our annual meetings.  The vote had just been taken on our next president, and it was unanimous -- this guy was deeply embedded in the life of the church, he'd done so much, everyone knew him and respected him, he'd been there for years.  Yet it turned out that he wasn't a member.  He'd never "signed the book" in all of those years of active involvement.

Now, from my perspective, he was much more a true "member" of the church than some of the folks who were on the membership roles yet who rarely (if ever) darkened the door of the building in any way, shape, or form.  And it wasn't just that he came to church; it's that he was church.  His engagement -- it's quality -- was what identified him, signature in the book or not.

So . . . would it be possible for us to stop worrying so much about numbers and "categories of membership" and start focusing on active engagement?  The questions would become, then, instead of "who is a member?" -- who is actively involved in the ministries of our congregation, and who is being touched by them?

I would note, tieing this in to my last post, that it seems to me that the focus on "membership" (as we currently do it) stems from our focus on institutional conservation.  To let go of that would be to open ourselves to risk.  After all, without membership criteria anyone could show up and vote!  (Not really too big a worry when you consider the small percentage of members who actually show up to participate in annual meetings!)

A deeper issue is raised when you put this conversation in juxtaposition with those who want to create higher levels of expectation for members . . . essentially making it more challenging to become "a member" so as to deepen the meaning and significance a person attaches to her or his membership.  Yet if we define "member" as someone who is actively engaged in the ministries of the church -- or, perhaps even, being touched by them -- haven't we already done that?

And, too, there are those who say that we need to identify members so that we can take good care of them and keep track of them (especially as a congregation grows).  Yet again, it seems to me, that this focus on "members" will mean that we're counting some people who hardly belong, really, and not counting (perhaps) many who are deeply involved.  I suggest that we still keep track . . . of the actively involved.  (And I do believe that those who are in a place in which they can only receive are also actively involved -- they're involved in receiving!  That's why, above, I asked, "Who is involved in our ministries and who is being touched by them!"

I believe that if we begin to think this way we'll soon find that our congregations are actually much larger than we currently think they are.  We'll be more attractive to the "post-modern" crowd who are wary of joining things, wary of institutions, and wary, specifically, of the church in part because they think the church is only interested in increasing its members!

I've noted elsewhere that Jesus did not ask people to join his church; he asked them to follow.  An action.  And the early Jesus movement was called, simply, The Way.  Suggesting movement -- again, action.  The predominating view of membership -- conscious or not -- is that it is something that one attains or achieves.  It might well be time, again, for the church to remember that it's about engaging a Way, of being community together in the world, not just signing a book.

I look forward to the conversation that I hope this will engender.

In Gassho,

revWik

"Even Stumbling Steps Do Not Lead Backward"

"Failure is always an option!"

~ The MythBusters Motto

I am, for fairly obvious reasons, thinking a lot these days about what can help a congregation to be fully alive.  (I am, after all, exactly six weeks from starting my new position as the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church -- Unitarian Universalist's ordained clergy person.  We're in Charlottesville, VA for anyone passing through!)

One of the first things -- and this will be the focus on my next post -- is to make sure that everyone knows what the church is and what it's not.  The church is NOT the church building!  While most people would say that at a conscious level they know this, at an unconscious level this misperception is reinforced every time one of us talks about "going to church."  Church is not something we go to; it's something that we are.  (But more about this on Monday.)

Today, though, I want to look at an attitude that, I think, gets in the way of congregations being as rich, as engaging, as fully alive as they can be.  Perhaps, not surprisingly, this same attitude is awfully prevelant in the lives of individuals, often leading to the same sense of "there should be more to my life than this!"  Let's call this attitude -- Conservatism.

Congregational leaders -- at virtually every level -- spend a tremendous amount of time trying to ensure that the good thing they have continues into the future.  They want to protect their assets -- material and spiritual -- and that leads to pretty conservative thinking.  How can we conserve what we have?

This creates a risk-averse culture.  New ideas are talked about, considered, wrestled with, thought over, and processed so as to try to make sure that there will be no negative consequences, so that success (however that is being measured) is virtually assured.  Not everyone raises the dreaded critique, "we've never done it this way," but most everyone wants to know, "should we be doing it this way now?"  And they want the answer to that question before starting.

When I was in seminary I heard a sentence that has stayed with me ever since: 

Ministers need to be better trained to lead memorial services for programs and ideas. 

If you only do things that you are sure are going to succeed, then you're going to do very few new things.  And if you keep doing things because you always have -- whether or not they are still relevant for today -- then you are going to find your energy tremendously bound up.  And if your primary focus is on protecting what is, you will almost certainly miss what could be.

As a fan of the television show MythBusters I have grown to deeply appreciate their motto -- "Failure is always an option."  It reminds me of the Taoist proverb, "even stumbling steps lead not backward."   In both I see a willingess -- and indeed an eagerness -- to try something to find out if it will work!  If it works, great.  If it doesn't, learn from what happened and move on.  In either case, risk, dare, try.

Isn't this, at the level of the individual, one of the keys to a rich and meaningful life?  Isn't this one of the learnings which the most successful business people, artists, athletes, and just plain people cite most often as being key to their success?

Why not apply this to the lives of our congregations, as well.  Dare.  Risk.  Try.  Failure is always an option, but so is the discovery of profound and unimagined treasures.

In Gassho,

RevWik

On Love and Hate

I recently watched the powerful and haunting PBS documentary, American Experience:  Freedom Riders.  I said to someone afterward that it showed us human beings at our best and at our worst -- the hate-filled bullying of the mobs terrified at the prospect of their world changing, and the courageous daring of the riders, putting themselves on the line to ensure that that change did, indeed, come.

And I truly found both groups to be nearly incomprehensible to me, if I'm completely honest.  I'm gad to say that I can't imagine being so blinded by hate and fear that I could be as cruelly violent as were those southern mobs; yet I also have to admit that I don't know if I would have had the kind of courage and commitment shown by those (mostly) kids.  I guess this means I'm somewhere in the middle between our "best" and "worst."

I'd written earlier about my intention to read through the Bible this year using a One Year Bible to guide my readings.  Well . . . the best laid plans and all that.  Let's just say that I'm a little behind.  But I am catching up again.  For the past few days my Gospel readings have been from the end of Matthew.  And as I read about Pilate's soldiers taunting Jesus, and beating him, and being so violently contemputous I found myself flashing on those scenes from Freedom Riders of those mobs in those bus stations in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.  The same kind of malicious hatefulness.

The same kind of fear, then?  The message of radically inclusive community that Jesus offered then was, indeed, something quite dangerous to those bonded to the status quo.  Come to think of it, it was that same message those freedom riders were bringing in that summer of 1961.

It's a message we still need to side with today.

In Gassho,

RevWik

A Sense of Purpose

I strongly encourage you to listen to this tune.  Then listen to it again.  (You might want to have a copy of the lyrics with you so that you can keep up with her . . . this girl can spit!)

Invincible (born Ilana Weaver) is easily one of my favorite rap artisits.  (Although she apparently now considers herself "a multimedia hip-hop artist and activist.")  As it says on her web site:

Her spitfire wordplay has gotten her acclaim from Hip Hop fans all across the world, while her active involvement in progressive social change has taken her music beyond entertainment, and towards actualizing the change she wishes to see.

She's someone worth keeping an eye on and an ear open to.

I was listening to some cuts from her debut album Shapeshifters as I returned to the Cape from my candidating week in Charlottesville, VA.  [Which ended, I'm humbled to say, in a unanimous call to serve the congregation as their next settled pastor!]

I especially love "Shapeshifters" -- the rhythm(s) of it, the complexity of its lyrics, the way it feels almost as if there are three songs going on at once.  I've listened to it a lot.  But recently I've gotten caught up in the story of it -- these radical, musical freedom fighters whose mission is "going door to door ta / Reconnect the cord from the brain to the aorta."  They intend to "Stop nothing short of / Everyone understanding / That all the power's within em to counteract this," the this being, of course, this often times cruel and oppressive world we live in.  There's such a drive, a sense of purpose, of mission (if you will), along with a flexibility, a willingness to "Time travel to the next art form we adapt to."
I've found myself asking this question as I listen to this young woman's art -- what if the church was like this?  What if we, in the church, had this same sense of urgency?  Of direction?  Of focus?

Well, it certainly wouldn't be church-as-we-know it.

Listen to the song again.  (Bring along the lyrics if you want.)  Imagine that instead of talking about hip-hop activists she was talking about the people in your congregation.
I have been, and I'm nearly giddy with excitement.

In Gassho,

RevWik

An Appointment With April

I was recently reminded of the following story about the philosopher George Santayana by a friend's FaceBook posting that he wanted to call in "blissful" from work.

Apparently, while Santayana was still a professor at Harvard, he was giving a lecture when he was stopped mid-sentence by the brilliant yellow of a forsythia blooming outside the window. He stood in silent reverie for several seconds, staring at this yellow. Then he said to his students, “Gentlemen, I very much fear that that last sentence will never be completed. You see, I have an appointment with April.” With that he left the room and never gave regular lectures again. 

Do you ever play hookey from -- or, at least, go in late to --work because the white of the clouds against the blue of the sky was just too perfect to leave outside? 

Do you take off your shoes and walk barefoot in the grass because it just looks too lush and green to be separated from?

Have you ever come home from work and demanded that your family follow you outside because the night sky was too amazing to ignore?

Or have you "grown up"?  Have you left such things for the children in your life?  (Please, please say that at least you have some children in your life!)

Another FaceBook friend posted this line from the Mary Oliver poem What Can I Say?:

"The song you heard singing in the leaf when you

were a child

is singing still."

It is still April, for a few more days.  And then it will be May.  Then June, July, and August.  Then will come the fall, and each month, each season, each moment has its beauty.

You are part of that beauty. 

Have you been forgetting to keep your appointments lately?

In Gassho,

RevWik

Nothing Else Matters

This was the second sermon of my candidating week with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.  (April 17, 2011)  As it turns out, it is also the second sermon of my ministry with these good people!  I am so looking forward to many, many more.

Reading: On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.


~ Annie Dillard, from Teaching a Stone to Talk

Sermon: Nothing Else Matters

Well . . . it’s been quite a month since we were together here last week . . .

Only a week ago, when I stood here and told you all that none of what we do here matters in the least . . . if, that is, this is all we do; if we allow ourselves to settle for living “life that is not life” instead of continually going deeper, and wider, and higher, and discovering for ourselves “life that is life.”

I thought about how I should start this sermon this morning. I considered telling you that I believe firmly that we live in a “both/and” universe. But then I realized that that must also mean that I believe in an “either/or” universe, too, so I figured that wouldn’t really tell you anything.

And then I thought of the words my father used to tell me with some regularity, words he took originally from Walt Whitman who said in his poem Song of Myself, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

I also thought of the last sermon I offered to the good folks of the First Universalist Church of Yarmouth, Maine, after eleven years of being their ordained preacher. I gave the sermon my all time favorite sermon title: “Everything I’ve Said Was Wrong.” In it I looked back over all of the sermons I’d delivered over the years and demonstrated how, viewed from different angles, none of what I’d said would hold water. A humbling experience, to be sure, but a good reminder. We all – this world – contain multitudes.

So if last week I wanted to tell you that none of this matters, today I want to explain my deep conviction that nothing else matters quite so much.

During this week you’ve asked me a lot of questions, given me many opportunities to (as my mother used to say) “exercise my little grey cells.” On Wednesday night, when a group met here to discuss the topics of worship and spirituality, someone asked me just why it’s important for us to be engaged in worship at all. When Active Minds recently discussed this very topic, it was noted there that some people think that there’s no need for us to gather together in a place such as this – that a much more “worshipful” experience could be had by taking a walk in the woods, imbibing the beauty of a park. That’s true. Yet being in community, and being on our own, are two vastly different things.

I want to tell you a story. There was a Christian monk who lived in community, but was known to take long, solitary retreats to the monastery’s hermitage. He would get permission from the Abbot for a retreat, pack his bible and, perhaps, a change of clothes, and then hike down the mountain to the secluded shack the Order used for private retreats. Sometimes he wouldn’t return for a month or more.

One time, though, this monk returned the evening of the day he had set out. This was so unusual that the Abbot called for him and asked him to explain why he was back so early. The monk replied, “Father Abbot. I began my retreat as I always do, opening the Gospels at random to see what God would have me meditate upon. This morning I opened to the story of Christ washing the disciples’ feet. I settled into my meditation yet I kept finding myself disturbed in my prayer by a nagging question, one which has caused me to return to the main house.”

“What was that question?” the Abbot asked. “It was this,” the monk replied: “Whose feet can a hermit wash?’

On Wednesday night, when I was asked why we do this “worship” thing I responded that I think that there are two fundamental realities which are incredibly easy for us to forget. In fact, most of us live our lives most of the time as if they were not true, so, it is imperative for us to come together in religious community to help us to remember. Because remembering is key to living “life that is life.”

The first reality we so often forget is that we are intimately interrelated with all that is. Most of us live most of the time as if we were out here on our own; fundamentally, existentially alone. The truth, though, is that we are connected to everything that is. As I like to point out, this is true if only because we’re literally made of the same stuff – we, and the trees, and the jaguars (both the cats and the cars) are all made out of the same elements, the dust of stars. We don’t live outside of the universe; we are intimately interconnected with it. Part and parcel of it, as our own St. Ralph once said.

The second reality is that we are not the Be All and End All of all things. As one of my colleagues once put it, rather memorably, “Whether or not you believe in God, you need to realize that you, yourself, are not God.” Let me say that once again, “Whether or not you believe in God, you need to realize that you, yourself, are not God.”

These two things – that we are intimately interrelated with all that is and that we, ourselves, are not God – are apparently really difficult to remember with any kind of consistency. Nearly impossible, if we try to do it on our own.

And so we come together to remind one another.

Yet we don’t just remind one another, here, in words. Rather – and this is what I think is most tremendously exciting about all of this – at our best we remind one another because here we enact these truths, we embody these truths, we manifest these truths in how we do what we do.

We come together with others, an expression of our realization of our interconnectedness. We need one another, and here we come together with others – folks who think like us; folks who don’t; folks who inspire us; folks who irritate us; folks we know well; folks we’ve yet to meet. Yet we call one another “one community” just as we are, in fact, one with everything.

This is partly what my friend and colleague Erika Hewitt meant in the words we used for the opening: “You do not have to do anything to earn the love contained within these walls. You do not have to be braver, smarter, stronger, better than you are in this moment to belong here. . . . You only have to bring the gift of your body, no matter how able; your seeking mind, no matter how busy; your animal heart, no matter how broken.”

Isn’t that just what this place has been for many of you? Isn’t it what we all believe it can be? In a world as frustratingly fractious as ours, as foolishly fragmented as ours, could there be anything that matters more than creating beloved community like this? South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said that church should be, “an audiovisual aid for the sake of the world,” showing how the world could be.

And then there’s that other thing, that remembering that we’re not the Grand High Poohbahs of Creation. That can be a tough one. And it’s probably important to be clear that I’m not talking about what a UU high schooler once called, “that buff Santa in a toga” – you know, that bearded, Zeus-like old man in the clouds who gives gifts to all the good people and an eternity of coal to the bad ones. That’s not what I’m talking about, ‘though I might use the word “God” to describe it. Or, perhaps, Spirit of Life. Or, you know, The Force – that “surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.” I like to call it, “The Sacred Something.”

Whatever we call it, we enact it when we come together – because all of us is greater than any one of us. When we come together in community we acknowledge something greater than ourselves, if only the community itself.

If we do it right, of course. That’s where covenants come in – promises, expectations, commitments, responsibilities, accountabilities . . . I know that not everyone is comfortable with the language of “covenant,” yet we are a covenantal people. Our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors did not bind together their communities through mutually shared creeds, as have most other religious traditions. Instead, we have always formed our community through covenant – promises made about how we would be together.

James Luther Adams, one of our movement’s greatest theologians, and a fierce proponent of what he called “the free church tradition” once wrote this:

“I call that church free which enters into covenant with the ultimate source of existence, that sustaining and transforming power not made with human hands. It binds together families and generations, protecting against idolatry of any human claim to absolute authority. This covenant is the charter and responsibility and joy of worship in the face of death as well as life. I call that church free which brings individuals into a caring, trusting fellowship, that protects and nourishes their integrity and spiritual freedom; that yearns to belong to the church universal; it is open to insight and conscience from every source; it bursts through rigid tradition, giving rise to new and living language, to new and broader fellowship. It is a pilgrim church, a servant church, on an adventure of the spirit."

That’s what we’re trying to do here, and what else could possibly matter more than that?

Annie Dillard said, in that reading I love so well, that she thinks of those of us in church as children, “playing on the floor with our chemistry sets mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.” And I said last week that this means she thinks we’re fooling ourselves if we take what we do here seriously. And yet . . .

And yet she affirms a truth, a reality to that power she says “we so blithely invoke.” She reminds us of the “sleeping god,” and the “waking god,” and tells us that what we’re doing—whether we know it or not, whether we understand it or not—is serious business. (“We should be lashed to our pews.”)

Transforming lives – your life; my life. Healing the world—this beautiful, broken, breathtaking world. How could anything else matter as much?

This week you’ve asked me a lot of questions. And many of you have shared with me your hopes, and dreams . . . and fears. This is a beautiful community you have here. And if there’s still work to do, know that that just means that it’s a human community. Know, too, that you have done, and are doing, so much so well.

This afternoon you will engage in one of the most sacred rituals of our faith tradition – the communal discernment of whether or not to call a particular individual into your community to serve in the role of settled minister. In some ways this is a totally insignificant act – you’re voting on one minister among so many. In other ways, you are considering opening a new chapter in the life of this church, a new phase in that “adventure of the spirit.”

It’s been an honor to be among you this week, and I can tell you that it will be an honor, a privilege, and a great pleasure to write that new chapter and chart that new course with you. But that’s for later. Right now I can’t think of anything better to do than sing with you all. (“The Fire of Commitment”)

None Of This Matters

This morning I delivered what might well be the first sermon of my new ministry with the good folks of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church – Unitarian Universalist in Charlottesville, VA.  Here's what I said:

Reading: On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, [and maybe we could say "religious persons generally"] sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ~ Annie Dillard, from Teaching a Stone to Talk

* * *

This . . . is a little weird.

I mean standing here, in this place, at this time, with all of you – it’s a little . . . weird. Don’t you think? I mean, this could be the first sermon of the next chapter of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church’s mutual ministry with its next settled minister. I mean, this could be . . . historic!

Which, of course, leads me to thinking that, in a way, this is a little bit like a job interview. With a few hundred people, ultimately. Kind of intimidating.

So to keep myself grounded as I prepared I focused on the reality that – no matter what else might be going on this week and no matter what the future holds for you and me – today I am a guest preacher who’s been asked to offer a sermon to a congregation of Unitarian Universalists. As such I have two opportunities – this week and next week – (and perhaps only two opportunities) to share with you some thoughts on Life’s Big Questions.

I want to begin by telling you a story, a story of the Sufi holy man Nasreddin Hodja. It is said that the Hodja was once invited to a certain city to share his wisdom. On the appointed day he entered the mosque, ascended to the pulpit, and cried out, “People of Aksehir, do you know the truth?” “No!” the people shouted, eager to hear his wisdom. “Well,” the Hodja replied, “why should I waste my time with such a bunch of ignorant fools?” And with that he left.

The next week the Hodja returned, as did the congregation still eager to hear this famous holy man. Once again the Hodja stepped into the pulpit and surveyed the gathered crowd. “Oh people of Aksehir,” he shouted. “Do you know the truth?” “Yes!” the people responded whole-heartedly, having learned their lesson the week before. The Hodja smiled. “Well then,” he said, “I needn’t tell you what you already know.” And again, he turned and left.

The third week—perhaps this was some kind of extended candidating process, I don’t know—the Hodja once more entered the mosque and once more ascended to the pulpit. Once more he looked out upon the congregation. And once more he cried out, “Oh good people of Aksehir. Do you know the truth?” It is safe to say that by this point the people were more than a little confused. Some of them halfheartedly said, “Yes?” while others called out, “No?” “Well then,” the Hodja boomed, “those of you who know tell the ones who don’t.” And with that he left the pulpit, and the mosque, and the town of Aksehir.

I’m tempted to ask you all a question.

But, really, the question’s already been asked. It’s been asked in our wider culture by the sociological trends that indicate that the fastest growing religious affiliation these days – and “fastest” by far – is “None.” The question’s been asked by leaders of our movement, and in our congregations – even, I’m sure, this congregation – who wonder why it is that we can’t seem to generate greater enthusiasm for pledging to the church (money or time) and why it seems that we can’t quite get to the place of being able to do and be all that we know we’re capable of. The question, asked in greater or lesser amounts of frustration and perplexity, is: Does any of this really matter anymore?

Does any of this – any of the things we do here on Sunday mornings – the words, the music, the space, the silence – does any of it matter? Really matter?

I think that there are probably at least two valid answers to this question, and I plan to – as we learned to say in seminary – “unpack” them both over the next two weeks. Today it’s my intention to assert that, contrary to all of the energy and effort we put into the things we do here week after week, no . . . none of it matters in the least.

And I want to be clear that I don’t say this because we’re Unitarian Universalists. It is true that while we have had a rich and storied history, today we are seen by many as little more than the but of Garrison Keiler’s jokes. You’ve heard it, I’m sure:

• What do you get when a cross a Unitarian Universalist with a Jehovah’s Witness? Some who’ll come knock on your door for no apparent reason.


• Unitarian Universalist churches can be found halfway between the Methodists and the golf course.

This isn’t new. Our opening hymn, written in 1928 by Edwin Henry Wilson, a Unitarian minister and the co-founder of the American Humanist Association, was parodied by the Unitarian Universalist minister Peter Raible in 1968. At the time there was a supplement to the then current hymnal that was called Hymns for the Celebration of Life. Raible called his booklet, Hymns for the Cerebration of Strife, and it contained this gem:

"Where is our holy church? We only wish we knew; it might be those now gathered here, except we are so few.


Where is our holy writ? We really cannot say; it gives us that for which to search, and that for which to pray.


Where is our holy one? Our answer is not clear; we've looked -- and looked -- and looked -- and looked, one must be somewhere near!


Where is our holy land? We cannot answer now; but if we find one, rest assured we'll tell the world somehow.


Why do we sing this song? What answer can we give? Faith and conviction, so we've heard, we all must have to live."

Now, I happen to think a lot more of us and our movement. I do believe that we’d have a reason to knock on doors, and I think that we have a lot more answers than the stereotype of us would suggest. And I think that for however storied our past might be, our future can be even richer.

So I don’t say that “none of this matters” because so many think so little of what we do here. No. I say it because I think that it’s important for us to confront head-on this truth: What we do here week after week and month after month doesn’t really matter.

And, after all, don’t you think that this is part of what Annie Dillard was trying to say to her Christian compatriots when she pronounced that, “outside of the catacombs,” —meaning once the initial period of martyrdom and persecution had come to an end—she finds most of her co-religionists “[in]sufficiently sensible of conditions”? (e.g., unable to deal with things the way they really are.) How else can we understand her image of a bunch of children playing on the floor “to kill a Sunday morning” as her metaphor for worship? She’s saying that we’re fooling ourselves if we think these things we’re doing here really mean anything . . . at least, the way she’s seeing them being done.

Now, if you’re thinking that this is an odd way for a ministerial candidate to greet his potential congregation, if you think that this is a surprising thing for the UUA’s staff person who focuses on worship to be saying, well, to paraphrase the late, great Paul Harvey, you’ll have to listen to “the rest” of the sermon.

You see, what I really want to say this morning is that none of this matters . . . IF . . . this is all that we do.

I can already hear you responding, “This is hardly all that we do around here! There’s Active Minds, and Covenant Groups, and the Labyrinth Ministry. There’s IMPACT and PACEM, and Undoing Racism, and the Green Sanctuary Movement. There’s CareNet, and the Councils, the Christian Fellowship, the Humanists, the Buddhist sanga, and the Pagans. There’s RE teachers and mentors, coffee makers and weed pullers. There’s the UUGuys and those UUpity women. A lot of things happen outside of the Sunday service.” (And I know . . . I left a LOT of things out!)

Yet there is a long-standing critique of the, let’s call them, “institutionally religious” – those folks who go to church (or synagogue or mosque) on Sunday (or Saturday or Friday) but who live the rest of their lives as though they’ve never even heard of Jesus (or Moses or the Prophet – peace be upon him). These folks make a sharp distinction between the sacred and the secular, between their religion and the rest of their lives. These folks take where they are in their spiritual lives pretty much for granted and see their religious community as essentially that – a place for community. Sunday worship is a time for beautiful music and interesting sermons and a chance to be with our friends. But if this is all we do here, then none of what we do matters.

In preparing for this service I got to collaborate with your entire team of Worship Associates – in my previous congregations we came to call them the Worship Weavers Guild. I love this kind of co-equal collaboration. And during our exchanges Thomas mentioned that he says to his 7th graders whenever they complain that something is hard: “Of COURSE this is hard, if math was always easy then you would always be on the same level – THE SEVENTH GRADE level!!” He then asks them to stand up if they want to remain on the Seventh Grade Level for the rest of lives, and then encourages them to give what they’re working on their best shot and see what they can come up with. When I read this I was immediately put in mind of a comment made by a UCC minister friend of mine. He said that everyone in his church was content to be “children of God,” and that that frustrated him no end because he knew that God wanted them to grow up and become “adults of God.”

I’ve recently had the privilege of being able to publish a book that’s being very nicely received within our Association. In it, I suggest that our congregations ought to think of themselves as the spiritual equivalent of total immersion language schools – only for us it’d be the language of spirituality. Everything we do here, I suggest, should be focused on the purpose of helping people to deepen and expand their spiritual lives. This, I suggest, is why we’re here – to deepen, to grow, to expand.

Of course, for some of us this might raise up the question of “just what is spirituality”? I actually have an answer to this now! I was asked this last year at a conference and it suddenly occurred to me that the answer can be found within our own tradition. The great Henry David Thoreau said that he went into the woods around Walden Pond so that he could “live deliberately” and not have to look back from the end of his life to discover that he “had not lived.” This makes me think that he saw a distinction between living “life” and living “not life,” a distinction that I’d argue can be found under one description or another in every religious tradition we humans have ever developed. We are asleep and need to wake up; we are dead and need to be reborn into new life; we are living “life that is not life” and need to find out how to begin living “life that is life.”

And that, I’d contend, is what spirituality is all about – living life that is life. Or learning how to. Or both, really, because both the learning and the living are on-going works-in-progress, and unless we want to remain “children,” or stay at the “seventh grade level” we must continue to deepen and develop our capacity to be truly alive. And that’s what we need to be doing in communities such as this, or else nothing else we do matters.

There’s a great quote from the legendary civil rights leader, author, activist, and theologian, and pastor, Howard Thurman:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and then go do that thing. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.”

“To this house we come bringing our boldest dreams,” we heard at the beginning of the service, “seeking here the inspiration and strength to make them be! . . . Strange place, this house -- here we cry, sing, laugh, hurt, dance, touch, survive, celebrate, grow, search, doubt, hope, rejoice, pray, trust, care, learn, think, wonder, be, become!” And if that becoming isn’t happening, if we allow ourselves to be content to stay where we are without expansion and evolution, then I’m afraid it’s true –none of this matters.

But if we do it, then nothing else matters. (But that’s the sermon for next week.)

Right now I invite us to rise in body or spirit, yet put our whole body and soul into the singing of the civil rights era spiritual, “When The Spirit Says Do.” (1024 in Singing The Journey)



Parting Words: If you are who you were,
and if the person next to you is who he or she was,
if none of us has changed
since the day we came in here—
we have failed.

The purposed of this community—
of any church, temple, zendo, mosque—
is to help its people grow.

We do this through encounters with the unknown—in ourselves,
in one another,
in “The Other”—whoever that might be for us,
however hard that might be—
because these encounters have many gifts to offer.

So may you go forth from here this morning
not who you were,
but who you could be.

So may we all.

~ Erik Walker Wikstrom