Why I'm In Favor Of Religion…

Recently someone I respect re-posted what I can only call a rant on her Facebook page. After commenting on the ways the religion he grew up in taught him that he was not okay, the author ended with this:

"This is why I am so outspoken about religion.  It's not enough to say I'm and atheist and that I simply don't believe; I am anti-religion and what it does to peoples' lives.  Life is about us, we make our own choices, and this time on Earth is OURS.  Make the most of it."

I would like to offer something of a rebuttal. Or, at least, an alternative perspective. I would like to speak for all those people — including me — for whom religion has been a source of comfort, strength, and inspiration.

The religion I know, or what I think of as religion, tells us that we are worthy, we are loved, and that we are part of something huge and miraculous. Yes, it also tells us that we are "sinners," but by this it only means that we are fallible, that we make mistakes, we make wrong choices, and that we do things, and think things, the block us from manifesting our deepest and truest selves.

I know that some people would insert God here. They would say that we do things, and think things, that block us from our union with God. I happen to find that that language makes sense to me. Yet I don't believe it is necessary for the fundamental truth to still be true. However you phrase it, the reality for most of us is that most of the time we are not "all we can be." We are untrue to ourselves, and who we really are. Most of us, most of the time, do not live up to our own ideals much less the ideals of anything we might call "God."

But that doesn't mean we should feel shame. After all, if this is true of everyone why is it shameful for it to be true of us as well? This is not some kind of condemnation or curse, it is simply a description. It's like saying "we breathe air." "We make mistakes." "We are sinners." "We do not live true to our most authentic selves most of the time." Can anyone really argue with that?

And let's talk about "god" for a minute. As I've heard it said, when the Buddha was asked if there is a God, he said, "this is a question that does not tend towards edification." In essence his argument was this: if there is a God, how should we live our lives? We should do as much good as we can for others, and strive to do the best we can for ourselves, in order to please this God.

And if there is no God, how shall we live? We should do as much good as we can for others, and strive to do the best we can for ourselves, because this is the only life we have.

The question, then, is not, "is there God"? The real question is, "how do we live a good life"? Religion, at its best, strives to help us answer that question. And I think it's always important to remember that "religion" is not a monolithic concept. It is not synonymous with "Christianity."there are all kinds of religions — from Atheism to Zoroastrianism.

That's right. I classify Atheism as a religion.  I do so because -- as I understand the term, at least -- "religion" does not have to do with any particular theological statements (or lack thereof).  The term "religion" comes to us from the Latin relegare which means "to bind together."  Religion, then, is that which helps us make sense of life, which helps us to order our own existence, which connects us to others.  By this definition, then, that poster's "Anti-Religion" is, in an ironic twist, his religion -- it helps him to make sense of the world and his place in it; it helps to order his thoughts and actions.  That's what religion does.

I will readily concede that a whole lot of truly horrible things have been done in the name of religion -- both to individuals and to whole groups.  No question about it.  There's no way to rationally deny it.  But here's an analogy:  say that someone of about my build got into my house one day and stole some of my clothes, and then stole my car.  Say this person then went on to commit a series of robberies and was caught on some grainy security video.  The police, quite naturally, might come to my house, since the robber was wearing my clothes, was about my weight and height, and was seen to be driving my car.  Their mistake would be quite understandable, but what if they decided to prosecute me anyway?

I would argue that there has been a lot of horrible things done in the name of religion, but that that's not the fault of what for want of a better term I'll call "true religion."  That was the doing of "impostor religion."  "True religion" inspired and strengthened Nelson Mandella, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  "True religion inspired the Beregan brothers.  "True religion" inspired Rumi and Hafiz.  Look at virtually every movement for social change and you'll find religion there, often leading the charge.

I am deeply offended by what "religion" has done.  I am compelled by what I know religion can do.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Thinking About My Words

One of my new favorite bloggers is Pastor Jonathan Martin of Renovatus: A Church for People Under Rennivation ("Liars, dreamers, and mystics" they call themselves.). He recently wrote about words, saying:

I look around and see all these words falling—crashing out of orbit around my head.  I have loved these words lustily, but I have not been greedy with them.  They are all I have, since I cannot make anything with my hands like a useful person.  I cannot build anything with brick and stone that can outlive me.  I cannot make anything tactile anyone can hold or feel, anything rough or smooth or with any texture at all. 

Yet, I distribute these words like a street vendor to anyone who will take them.  I have rarely sold them. They are cheap and they are easy to shape.  I give them forms like balloon animals, some in the shape of sermons, some in the shape of books, in the shape of small talk, in the shape of 140 characters or less.  I spit on them, sweat on them, bleed on them, cry on them.  I give some away too recklessly and some far too cautiously. 

I like this because I, too, work with words. My parents instilled in all their children a deep love of them, and "when I grow up" I want to be a writer. 

I already was thinking about words this morning as it turns out, before Brother Martin's words about words tumbled into my lap. I was thinking, in particular about all the words on FaceBook, and my tendency to add to them, almost without thought. 

That's really what I was thinking about -- how often I speak, write, post, tweet, blog without thinking. I found myself wondering what it'd be like if I didn't.  Or, I guess, if I did -- think first, that is. 

Can you imagine only posting to FaceBook if it really mattered?  Not just to ... well ... you, but actually mattered? Made a difference?  Could you imagine that?  

It's been said that the purpose of ministry is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." So what if that was the measure by which we judged our posts and tweets?  

Will this picture of my new puppy comfort anyone? Challenge them? Change the quality of their lived experience in anyway? Maybe so; maybe not. But isn't that a good question to ask myself before I posted?

Will my profound ruminations on what I had for breakfast make a difference in anyone else's life? If not, why should I take up airspace with it?

I would never want to suggest that there is a cut and dried, set in stone, bifurcation of what can and cannot be posted. Some breakfasts are indeed encounters with the holy. And sometimes, someone's picture of their cat, or of someone else's cat, has given me great joy and comfort when I needed them both most. Yet I do wonder if such a question — does this really matter? — Is a good question for me, and maybe you, to ask ourselves more often. 

Pax Tecum ,

RevWik

A Time to Mourn

Fred Phelps, the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church — you know, the one that said "God hates fags!"and made a name for itself picketing so many funerals — died today. Many of my friends and colleagues are discussing whether or not they feel compelled to forgive, or to mourn and his passing. Some say they hope he will rot in the hell he seem to so enjoy sending others too. Some say that hate should not be met with hate, and that the loss of any human being is a loss.

I find myself having a different response. I find that I greet the news of his death with a certain amount of relief — from here on out, Westburrough Baptist Church will not have Phelps' leadership to push it to ever greater depths. (It seems as though they don't really need his leadership, though, since they have even managed to find inspiration to vilify their leader in death. Apparently in his latter days he called for members of the congregation to at least treat one another more kindly. Even that expression of humanity, however small minded, seems to be too much for this "church" to bear.)

Yet I do find myself wanting to mourn. I mourn, not his death, but his life. I mourn the hatred he expressed, and the hatred he inspired. I mourn his example of a humanity so small, so scared, so unable, or so unwilling, to see the beauty of the whole. I mourn, too, the possibilities of a preacher who could so powerfully move people — what if he'd been preaching inclusive love rather than exclusive hate?

In Westboro's theology, God didn't just "hate fags." Several years ago, they produced a video in which they sang to the tune of "We Are The World" "a song that went "God Hates The World." (One of the scariest and sickest things I have ever seen, to be honest.)  I morn all those who had their theology, and their worldview, warped and twisted by this man's so-called teachings.

And of course, most of all, I mourn for all those whose lives were made that much more difficult, that much more painful, and filled with that much more fear, because of this man and his "ministry."

And so, today, I mourn. But I do not mourn Fred Phelps' death.  I mourn his life.

Pax Tecum,

RevWik

My Bondage and My Freedom

On Sunday, March 16th I preached the following sermon at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church - Unitarian Universalist.  In my mind it is part of what I call our Jefferson's Legacies Initiative, programs and efforts recognizing that our name gives us much to champion, but also an imperative to work for the eradication of the racism and oppression that can be directly linked to the system of enslavement in which he participated. 

 If you want to hear this sermon, it will be podcast on our website.

“Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds—faithfully relying upon the power of truth, love, and justice, for success in my humble efforts—and solemnly pledging myself anew to the sacred cause,—I subscribe myself, Frederick Douglass. Lynn, Mass., April 28, 1845”

Seven years before the 1852 publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential anti-slavery novelUncle Tom’s Cabin, and the publication the next year of Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, Frederick Douglass published his first autobiography, Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.  Ten years later, in 1855, he published his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, which gives this sermon its title.

I don’t generally give what in some circles are appropriately called “book report sermons.”  I don’t subscribe to the “lecture and concert” theory of Unitarian Universalist worship.  But I’ve got to tell you – while I knew Douglass’ name, of course, what I’ve learned about his story while preparing for this morning has astounded me.  I’m hoping it will astound you, too.

The man who came to be known as Frederick Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, sometime during 1818, most likely in February.  At the beginning of his Narrative Life he said, "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it."  He had no clear memory of his mother, either, because it was the custom in the part of Maryland he was from to separate a mother and her children as soon as possible.  He said he never even saw her “by the light of day” because while she would lay down with him to help him to sleep she would be long gone by the time he woke up.

He was moved from one “owner” to the next – and I put “owner” in quotes because, of course, no human can actually own another, no matter what some have thought.  When he was twelve he had been given to a man named Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia.  An appropriate name, actually, because Sophia taught Douglass the alphabet, even though it was illegal to teach enslaved people to read or write.  When her husband discovered what she’d been doing he strongly disapproved, and offered what Douglass later referred to as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he’d ever heard – he said that if a slave were to learn to read he would become discontented with his situation in life and begin to long for freedom.  Truer words were never spoken, and it was in this encounter, perhaps, that set in place Douglass’ life-long belief that, as he put it, “knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.”  It is known that on his own Douglass learned to read and to write from watching white children and the men with whom he worked.

When he was hired out to a man named William Freeland – a rather ironic name this time – he began to teach the other enslaved people on the plantation to read and write.  The enslaved on other plantations heard of these lessons and would come to the Sunday School Douglass had begun, as many as 40 at a time.  While his own so-called owner didn’t seem to mind what was happening in the Sunday School, other plantation owners did, and one day they burst in on the assembly with clubs and stones.  Shortly thereafter, he was moved to the farm of a man named Edward Covey, whom Douglass described as, “first rate hand at breaking young negroes."

Now bear in mind – all this happened before Douglass was sixteen years old!  And it was this young man’s youthful and rebellious spirit that Covey tried to break.  Douglass endured countless beatings and whippings at Covey’s hand, but eventually he fought back.  He literally fought back, fighting both Covey and his cousin for over two hours before finally emerging victorious.  Covey never beat him again after that.

Douglass had tried to escape when he was with William Freeland, and he tried again when he was with Edward Covey, but he was never successful.  In 1836 – when he was eighteen years old – Douglass met a free Black woman named Anna Murray.  She had seven older brothers and sisters who’d been born into slavery, but her mother had been manumitted just before Anna’s birth, so she and her four younger siblings were born free.  She and Douglass fell in love, and she helped him, finally, to escape the enslavement.  (Their daughter Rosetta would later remind people who idolized her father that his was a story, “made possible by the unswerving loyalty of Anna Murray.”)

Of his newfound freedom, Douglass would write, 'I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions.  Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.”  He sent for Anna, and the two were married just eleven days after he’d arrived in New York – it was September 15, 1838. 

September 15^th – that’s the day my son Theo was born, 163 years later.  A lot has changed in that time, yet not as much as we – and especially we white folk – would like to believe.  As recently as this past week a man named Jim Brown, who was running for Congress in Arizona’s 2^nd District, wrote on his FaceBook page,

“Back in the day of slavery, slaves were kept in slavery by denying them education and opportunity while providing them with their basic needs … Not by beating them and starving them.  (Although there were isolated cases of course.)  Basically slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves and livestock and this kept business rolling along.”

I don’t know what infuriates me more, his assertion that “slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves,” or his casual equivalence of “slaves” and “livestock,” or that he’s still out there on the campaign trail and might still have the opportunity of serving this country in Congress.  How much has changed, really?

I recently read, too, about a teacher in Ohio – who was, thankfully, suspended after this incident – who allegedly responded to one of his African American students who had expressed the desire to one day be President, “We do not need another black President.”  The teacher denies the allegations, of course, but can we deny that such things are being said, are being thought, around the country.  When President Obama recently sat down for a mock, comedy interview on the internet showBetween Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis as a way of promoting the Affordable Care Act to a demographic unreached by the usual media, one the host’s classically inappropriate and uncomfortable questions was, “So … what’s it like being the last Black President?”  (To which Mr. Obama replied, “What’s it like for this to be the last time you talk with a President?”)  But you know people are thinking it.  You know people are wishing it.  You know that people are actively organizing and working to ensure that there never will be another person of color in the White House.  You know it.  How far have we come, really?

Back to Douglass – he became fervent speaker on the Abolitionist circuit.  William Lloyd Garrison became both an inspiration and an ardent supporter. Yet when his first autobiography, Narrative Life was published people were skeptical that a black man could write such an eloquent book.  (It reminds me of all the commentators who fell over themselves in 2008 to say how eloquent then candidate Obama was.  Remember that?)

As his reputation grew there were those who feared that Douglass’ so-called “owner” would try to get his “property” back, and so he was encouraged to go abroad and speak in Ireland and England as other free African Americans had so successfully done.  Of this experience, Douglass wrote:

"Eleven days and a half gone and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle [Ireland]. I breathe, and lo! the chattel [slave] becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same parlour—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended... I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, 'We don't allow niggers in here!'" 

I want to be clear that I’ve intentionally chosen to retain Douglass’ own language there not only for historical accuracy but because I want this to be uncomfortable.  I want it to be painful.  It can be so easy to hear all of this history in an abstract way, in a distant way, in a disconnected way.  And that, perhaps, is often the lecturer’s way.  But I’m a preacher, and this is a sanctuary, and we’re here for a sermon.  So all of this background, all of this history, is to bring us to this point – whether it’s the story of Frederick Douglass, or Solomon Northup, or Harriet Tubman, or Sojourner Truth, or (closer to home) Isaac Jefferson, or Sally Hemings (of whom there is no known image, although this may be one of her daughters), these are stories that need to be told, and retold, and engraved in our memories and on our hearts because unless we do we are really all still enslaved to them, whether we know it or not.

Michelle Alexander’s powerful book The New Jim Crow makes an extremely strong case that there is a clear progression from the oppressions and dehumanization of slavery, to the Jim Crow laws that followed on the heels of slavery’s nominal end, to the current system of mass incarceration which overwhelmingly and, she argues, quite intentionally targets people of color.  Slavery kept Black Americans out of public life, as did Jim Crow, and today an African American woman or man who has served time as a result of “America’s War on Drugs” can find themselves legally stripped of the right to vote, can be denied housing and public assistance, and can find it nearly impossible to get a foot in the door in the job market because of that one question on most application forms – have you ever been convicted of a felony?

We need to hear these stories, and tell these stories because it is so important that we remember – when we are in our own private despair or lose strength for the struggles that still need to be waged – we need to remember that despite the most oppressive of beginnings a person likeFrederick Douglass, or Malcolm X, can rise to accomplish astonishing things. 

I thought of Malcolm X while I was reading about Douglass and tried to imagine the conversations they might have.  I was struck by their mutual insistence that education was the key to freedom, and then about how much history, and truth, has been lost and denied as a result of oppression and suppression.  And it’s not as if racism stands alone.  Racism, Classism, Ableism, Sexism, Heterosexism, and so many other “isms” beside, are all ways that some of us keep others of us in perpetual second class status, keep others of us as always being “other.”

Douglas knew this.   Back in the 1800s he was saying things like, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”  He fought for the rights, for the equality of African Americans, women, Native Americans, and recent immigrants.  He was even nominated, without his approval apparently, to be the first African American to run for Vice President as the running mate of Victoria Woodhull on Equal Rights Party ticket of 1872.  (And Woodhull’s an amazing story in her own right, but that’ll have to wait for another day.)

Here’s a cool fact – in 1848, at the Seneca Falls Convention at which Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the delegates to pass a resolution asking for women’s suffrage, the convention was far from unified.  And then a 30-year old Frederick Douglass, the only African American in attendance, rose and spoke.  He said that he could not accept the right to vote as a Black man if women were denied that same right.  He said, “In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.”  The resolution passed.

These are stories that need to be told, and retold, and engraved in our memories and on our hearts because unless we do we are really all still enslaved to them, whether we know it or not.  In the words of Emma Lazarus, who also composed the poem that stands at the base of the Statue of Liberty, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” She said this a few years after the time we’ve been talking about, and it’s a refrain lifted up again by President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. fifty years ago, and they are still true today. We must always remember.  We must never forget.  And we must ever keep moving.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Of Moses and Me ...

I must confess ... sometimes the sermon I write turns out to be the wrong sermon.  That happened with the one I worked on for this past Sunday -- "Go Down, Moses!"  I worked hard on it; thought about it; developed it.  And then, when I'd committed most of it to paper I realized that it wasn't the right message for the service.  And rather than change the service, I changed the sermon.  I wrote another one.  But I still had the original idea(s) floating around my head -- and saved in DropBox -- so I decided to turn it into a blog post.  This blog post, in fact.  And, so, here is the sermon I didn't preach on the subject of Moses and the Exodus:

First, a little backstory.  It was Joseph, son of Abraham, who really got this story started.  Or maybe it was his brothers.  But you may recall that Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and decided to do what older brothers often want to do – they decided to kill him.  At the last minute, though, the come to their senses and “merely” sell him into slavery.  And that brings Joseph to Egypt.

Joseph’s story is filled with as many plot twists as an episode of Scandal, but suffice it to say that he eventually becomes the right-hand man to the Pharaoh himself.  And when, thanks to Joseph, Egypt has weathered an economic collapse (aka, a famine) much better than any of the surrounding nations, people from all over flood in for aid.  Including Joseph’s family.  And that’s what brings the nascent Hebrew people to Egypt.

Over time the Israelites do well for themselves and they become quite numerous.  And as long as Joseph is at the right-hand of the Pharaoh, or as long as Joseph is remembered by the Pharaoh’s successors, things are okay.  But eventually there comes a day, as the Bible tells us, in which a new Pharaoh does not remember Joseph, and everything goes to hell pretty quickly.

The exodus story proper begins with this Pharaoh wanting control over all these now undesirable “others.” He condemns them to slavery.  And then he increases the brutality of their enslavement.  Yet apparently even that wasn’t enough for him, so he orders that the midwives who attend to Hebrew women should kill every male child as it was being born.  And then there’s one of the great acts of civil disobedience on record – the midwives refuse to do this, and explain their failure to follow the Pharaoh’s edict by saying that the Hebrew women were too strong and too healthy and were always giving birth too quickly for the midwives to get there on time. 

But this doesn’t stop Pharaoh.  He just changed his decree, and now ordered that every newborn Hebrew male be thrown into the Nile to drown.  When Moses was born his mother had a different idea, so she threw her son into the Nile … in a basket so that he might live.  (It’s worth noting, I think, that many, many years later another King – Herod – orders that all Jewish boys be killed and that another savior – namely Jesus – was himself saved from such a fate by his parents.  Not only that, but there’s the irony that Jesus’ family go to Egypt to ensure their safety!)

The plan worked.   Moses lived.  And he was found by the Pharaoh’s daughter who took him in, ensuring not only that Moses survive but that he would thrive in a life of privilege.  He grew up a member of the Pharaoh’s household – you might say that he had the opportunity to “pass.”  While his people suffered in slavery he experienced endless freedoms. 

But one day he witnesses and Egyptian overseer mistreating a Hebrew slave, and Moses couldn’t take it.  He intervened on behalf of the outcast, the oppressed; he intervened and killed the Egyptian, burying his body in the desert so that no one would know.  The next day, however, when he saw to Hebrew men arguing he tried to mediate, but they looked at him and said, “What?  Are you going to kill us now?”

So Moses took off.  He ran away.  Oh his own, by himself, of his own accord he’d tried to do something to ameliorate the suffering he saw around him, tried to do something to redress the wrongs the oppressor had done to the oppressed, but it was too much for him to take on.  He flinched.  He hightailed it out of Dodge and tried to put the whole thing behind him.

Jump ahead a bit.  Moses is in a comfy situation in the nearby state of Midian.  He’s married.  He’s got a family.  He’s got a good job with his father-in-law, and he’s doing pretty well for himself.  He’s become a man of substance, a success.  And while it’s not the luxury he knew in the Pharaoh’s palace, at least out here he could forget about all that injustice in his homeland.

But one day …  and that’s a motif, really, throughout the Bible’s stories.  Things are going along normally, life seems solid and stable, “but one day” …

One day Moses was out tending the sheep of his father-in-law when he decided to take them to a new grazing area.  And then he saw it – a bush that appeared to be on fire but wasn’t being consumed by it.  And even if you didn’t know any of that other stuff you probably know this – out of the fire the voice of God spoke to Moses by name and called him to go back to Egypt and free the Hebrew people.

So let this sink in for a minute.  Imagine yourself in Moses’ sandals.  You were raised in a life of privilege and freedom.  You’ve taken this life for granted.  It’s all you know, yet all around you there is untold suffering.  And then one day – there is that motif again – one day you realize that you really have more in common with the oppressed than with the oppressor with whom you have identified for so long.

It would take some serious soul searching, wouldn’t it, before you’d know how to respond, right?  It’d take some serious shuffling of perspectives and assumptions.  It’d take a radical reconstruction of the way you see the world, right?

As I began writing this I was well aware of the way(s) in which the story of the exodus of the Hebrew people from their bondage in Egypt was a powerful story for the enslaved people in early America.  It’s not for nothing that famed Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman come to be called, “the female Moses.”  This story had profound resonance for African Americans in those days.

And when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr spoke about having “been to the mountaintop” yet perhaps not being able to “get there” with his people, he was making a clear reference to the exodus tale, as Moses also viewed the Promised Land from a mountaintop yet was never to set foot within its borders.

So, as I said, as I began writing I was well aware of the many ways this story was evoked, and how it provoked, the causes of African American freedom and equality throughout our nation’s history.  What I hadn’t realized until I reached this point, is that Moses can be a powerful model for Euro-Americans who are doing – or want to be doing – anti-racism/anti-oppression work.

As we’ve seen, Moses was raised in luxury and privilege.  And because of his status he no doubt never really questioned it – the way his life was was the way life should be.  He was aware, certainly, of the plight of the enslaved Jews, and poor Egyptians as well, yet it seems reasonable to assume that if he thought about it much at all he’d have thought that his lifestyle and life-experiences were the norm and that these “others” were aberrations.

Isn’t this very much like what has been learned about the state of White Americans?  Speaking as one, haven’t we been raised in (at least relative if not outright) luxury and privilege.  Yes, of course, poor White Americans still suffer from poverty, and there are some extremely successful Black Americans.  Yet it is also true that if you compare poor Whites and poor Blacks, and wealthy Whites and wealthy Blacks, the lives of these Black Americans are generally more difficult than their White counterparts.  And, so, White Americans can understand Moses’ mindset as the story begins to unfold.  We know (to some extent and, again, at least relatively) what it’s like to live in Pharaoh’s house.

And then there comes that moment when Moses sees the Egyptian overseer beating the enslaved Hebrews, and it is no longer possible for him to ignore the injustice.  He has to act.  And at least among Euro-Americans who are working for racial equality, wasn’t there usually such moment?  Wasn’t there usually some encounter, some discussion, some acquaintance, some event that made action all but inevitable?  So we can relate to Moses here, as well.

And then … Moses runs away.  Rather than try to do something about the injustice he has now seen, he turns his back on it.  Pretends it doesn’t exist.  His freedom included the freedom to ignore the enslavement of the Hebrews, to close his eyes to their oppression.   Which is what a lot of well-meaning White folk do as well. This pattern is so pervasive that it led Dr. King to say, “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

But then there’s Moses’ fateful encounter at that Burning Bush.  For him it was the voice of his God, for us White Americans it could be so many different things, but many of us, too, know the experience of something that changes us.  Changes the way we look at ourselves and look at the world.  Changes us so that we not only oppose the oppression of others but that we come to identify with the oppressed.  That we see, as Moses did, that the enslavement, the oppression of “others” but of “our people,” for we are one human family, after all.

And then we, too, if we’re brave enough, go back to Pharaoh, whom we know so well because we grew up in the Pharaoh’s household, and demand that he free those whom he has enslaved.  We acknowledge the role that we, ourselves, have played in “their” oppression, and we declare our decision to stand with “them” until there is only “us.”

Two more thoughts here.  First, it’s worth noting that Moses responds to God’s call by arguing that he’s not the right guy for the job.  He says that it’d take an eloquent orator and that he stutters.  He says that his brother would really be a better fit.  He says, “Really, God – couldn’t you find someone better than me?”  

The answer, of course, is, “no,” and that’s the answer we will receive when we wonder aloud (or to ourselves) whether someone else might be better suited to the task of undoing racism and ending oppression.  Nope.  It’s up to you; it’s up to me.  Again, speaking as and to White Americans, we’re the ones who are going to have to do this.  Only a member of Pharaoh’s own household will have access to Pharaoh, and only one who has herself or himself experienced the privilege of the oppressor can demand the release of the oppressed.

The second thought is this – it took ten times, for Moses to convince Pharaoh to let the Hebrew people go.  And in between each attempt there were some awful plagues that came upon Egypt, and yet the Pharaoh refused to budge until it got really personal.  In the story it was the plague of the death of every firstborn child and animal in Egypt that tipped the scales.  In the United States in the early 60s it was the images from the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, or of the rubble of the 16^th Street Baptist Church that broke open the hardened hearts of most of White America.  (And, of course, there are some hearts and minds still walled off, which is why there’s still work to do.)

This work is not easy.  It is not comfortable.  Change will not happen overnight – nor can we say it has already come.  Some, yes, but far from all that is needed.  And it will never come if we who’ve lived in Pharaoh’s house are unwilling to step out of that house so that we are both insiders and outsiders.  Yet the promise of the exodus story is that change will come eventually.  Freedom cannot be stopped up forever.


Let’s commit to doing what we can to help that day come sooner.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Giving Up Ourselves ...

I think I'm finally beginning to get the hang of this "social media" thing.  I've had FaceBook down for a while now, and I've been learning the benefits of Twitter.  And while I've been writing this blog on and off for a while now, it's only recently that I've begun to really regularly read other people's blogs.  (Thank you Feedly!)

One that I've been enjoying is John Shore's.  His tagline is "Christianity With Humanity," although I really enjoyed his earlier tag which was something like, "Trying God's patience since 1958"  (That's what really hooked me when I first came across his posts.)

The other day he posted a lovely and, to me at least, powerful piece about Lent:  "Giving Myself Up For Lent."  He wrote:

"Along with meat and alcohol, this year for Lent I’m going to give up something else. Insofar as I can, I’m going to give up myself.

I’m going to give up my ego. My self-identification. My drive to make something of myself, to be someone, to matter. I’m going to try to give up the whole idea of myself as a separate, independent being in the world—as a person who has any real existence at all outside of the awesomely fearful sacrifice made by Jesus Christ on behalf of all mankind (including, even, me)."

I know that that last line is one that'll give some UUs pause.  After all, not all of us are Christians, and not even all those who identify with Yeshua ben Miriam put much emphasis on "the awesomely fearful sacrifice made by Jesus Christ on behalf of all mankind."  But I'm going to encourage you to put that resistance on hold for a moment.

Whatever you feel about "God," whatever you believe about whether there is or is not some "sacred something," can we agree that there is a dimension that is bigger, greater, larger than our own small ego-self?  Don't think "deity" -- or, at least, don't let such thoughts get in your way right now.  Don't think Grand High Poobah.  Ask yourself if you are the center of all that is, if you are the be-all and end-all of existence.  If you think so, then you really have to ready John's piece and try to let it sink in.  As my colleague Barbara Merritt once put it, "Whether or not we believe in God, we must realize that we ourselves are not God."  (That's in her chapter on "Adversity" in the excellent Skinner House anthology Everyday Spiritual Practice: simple pathways for enriching your life.")

Yet even if you don't think you're God -- or, as I once put it in a sermon, "think you're at least applying for the job" -- John's primary point is worth pondering.  Is your "self-identification," your "drive to make something of [yourself], to be someone, to matter" helping you or hindering you in your efforts to live fully a life of peace and authenticity?  Does your "idea of [yourself] as a separate, independent being in the world" get in the way of your making deep connection with everything else in the world?  Does it make it more or less difficult to really see yourself as "a part" of the "interconnected web of being"?

One of the reasons so many of us find it so difficult to be open to "The Other" (whatever that "Other" might be for us) is because we are so bound by our perception of our own selves and the value (overvalue) we put on them.  As our Christian kin mark the Lenten season, perhaps we, too, can make of it an opportunity to "give up ourselves."

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Your Story ...

In Kurt Vonnegut's book Breakfast of Champions there is a scene near the end in which he, Vonnegut, puts himself into the story and has a conversation with one of his most famous recurring characters, Kilgore Trout.  It's not often that the author of a book is a character in the on-going story of the book she or he is writing at that moment.  More often than not the author "speaks" through one or more of the characters, or is present in a story about her or his own past.  But the present presence of the author?  An author who explicitly and self-consciously rewrites the action of the book because of the action of the book?  Well, that's a little unusual.  Maybe only Vonnegut could pull that off.

I've recently been listening to a CD of Dr. Brené Brown.  She's the social scientist whose TED talk on vulnerability took the internet by storm.  In the material I'm listening to she's talking about shame -- what it is and how to become more "shame resilient."  She's saying a lot of fascinating things, and this morning this phrase jumped out at me:

"When you own your story you get to write the ending."

Let that sink in for a minute.  Let that sink in for a minute and see both if that makes sense, and whether or not you're living like that.

I'm not.  At least, not a lot of the time.  A lot of the time -- maybe even most of the time -- I live as if I'm a character in a story and things are happening to me.  The choices I make seem almost inevitable or, at least, severely limited by the circumstances around me.  "I would do this, if only that were different ..."  "If only this situation changed I could do ..."  Sound at all familiar?

And yet, when I meet with people for Pastoral Counseling I am clear that they are not bound by a story

someone/something else is composing.  I often say to people that the events of their lives are like chapters in a book, and a book that's part of an ongoing series.  This particular thing that they are dealing with is not the end of the story -- the end of a chapter, perhaps; the end of one of the books, maybe; but the story goes on and we have no idea how it will end up.  There are lots of times that things look pretty grim for Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen, but the next chapter, or the next book, can make things look very different.

And so ... "when you own your story you get to write the ending."  We are more like Vonnegut than Trout.  To me, that's good news.

So it goes ...

RevWik

Change ...

I've been listening to the news out of Egypt lately with such sadness.  I can remember the excitement, the hope, the optimism generated by the initial revolution.  Such possibilities!  And so hard to believe that dreams too dear to dream were apparently on the verge of coming true.

But they haven't.  Some have said that the current chaos is worse even then what was before.  Of course, it's said that the Israelites told Moses that they'd rather go back to their bondage than remain in the discomfort of their freedom.  Change is hard.  And messy.

Yesterday, while listening to the news I found myself remembering the excitement, the hope, the optimism generated by Barack Obama's initial run for the Presidency.  Here, too, was the apparent actualization of dreams many had dared not utter.   And here, too, reality has not actualized the hype.

In their book Changing for Good:  a revolutionary six-stage program for overcoming bad habits and moving your life positively forward, Ph.D.s James O. Prochaska, John C. Norcross, and Carlo C. DiClemente describe six stages through which we must move if change is going to be real and lasting.

1. First, there's Precontemplation.  This is the stage in which you still think the people or situations
   
   around you are to blame.  You recognize that there's some kind of problem, but you see the cause outside of yourself.
2. Then there's Contemplation.  Here you've begun to recognize that the cause of your problem is something you're doing or not doing, yet you're not quite ready to do something concrete about it yet.
3. Next comes Preparation.  First you recognized that things weren't right, but it was someone else's fault.  Then you began to realize your own accountability, yet weren't ready yet to take the steps necessary to change things.  Now, while you're still not ready to make the change, you're finally ready to get ready to make it.
4. Obviously, Action would come next.  You begin to put into action the plan you developed during the preparation phase.  (And which you might have begun thinking about during the stage of contemplation.)
5. Then there comes Maintenance.  Here the struggle of changes becomes the struggle to keep from sliding back.
6. Finally, there is Termination.  At this point the change has so rooted itself in you that it's no longer new, it's no longer even really change.  It is, to use a bit of cliche, "the new normal."

Changing for Good does an excellent job of explaining these stages -- including their challenges -- and helping the reader to discern where she or he is in the cycle and how to move forward.  One person, one vote, we Spring of Action is not enough.  Lasting change is a process -- whether for an individual, a society, or the world.

In Gassho,

RevWk

What's Up With The Tree Thing?

I am, you might say, some have said, obsessed with the shapes of bare-branched trees.  My FaceBook photo album "Trees & Clouds" has over 200 images in it, and that isn't the entirety of my bare-branched oeuvre.  It is, I suppose, not an unreasonable question to ask, "Why?"

I will confess that I'm not entirely sure why.  (That may be true of most people's obsessions, I don't know.)  I have a few theories, though.

The twists and turns of a trees branches is such a universal pattern.  You can see it in the dried riverbed along the Colorado river.  You can see it in a living bay (this one's the Chesapeake).  It's recognizable in a bolt of lighting, and the blood vessels in a human lung.  It's even been found on the surface of Mars!

It's universality is certainly intriguing yet I am equally captivated, and perhaps even more so, by the seemingly infinite variety of its particular manifestations.  Just take a walk around a tree looking up into it's branches.  It's sinuous shapes morph and move with just about each step you take.  No two vantage point provide the same view.  And even if you were to stay in one place, looking at exactly the same spot on the same tree, differences in lighting throughout the day and the ever-changing background of sky would give you a never repeating display.  Not only do a tree's branches resemble the snaking of a river, its every changing presentation echoes the river's flow.

There's something else, too, I think.  Within some of the Buddhist traditions there is an image used to explain the concept of our interconnectedness.  Look at the waves on the water.  Each wave appears to be separate, distinct, and each wave breaks on the shore in turn, alone and individual, if you will.  Yet each of the waves, all of the waves, are also nothing but ocean.

I look at a tree.  The single trunk branches off into big limbs, which become medium-sized branches, which become little twigs.  Eventually there will be seemingly individual leaves and fruit.  Yet where does the trunk cease and the leaf begin?  As much as the separation and individuality is obvious and, in some ways, a useful perspective, isn't the whole thing just, "tree"?

The great 17th century Christian mystic Brother Lawrence reported that it was seeing a barren tree in wintertime that sparked his spiritual awakening.  Here's how his biographer describes the experience:

"... in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time, the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of GOD, which has never since been effaced from his soul."

Lawrence was 18 years old at this time, and he continued his monastic (and mystic) existence until he was in his late 80s.  It wasn't this encounter with a bare tree alone that sustained him all that time, of course, but it is clear that neither did he ever foret it.

And I've wondered whether the tree could be an image for God.  In contemplating the interconnectedness of twig and trunk I have wondered what the trunk might be.  Or, to be more precise, I've wondered what the "tree-ness" of the tree is, what constitutes its essential being.  The answer, for me, is that this would be a good use of the word "God" -- to borrow a phrase from old Ben Kenobi, God "surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the [universe] together."

So I photograph tree branches.  I could find worse things to obsess about.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

It's Been a While ...

 

There are a whole lot of sayings about the apparently very human propensity to fail to keep up with our commitments:

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

"Never put off until tomorrow what you should have done two weeks ago."

It's even in the Bible:

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do ..."  (Romans 7:15)

My last posting here was on December 10th.  The one before that -- about a week earlier.  And before that?  Almost another month.  This despite my intention to write at least a little something every day.

I'm a busy guy.  Why would I want to write a blog post every day?  Narcissism?  A need to be noticed and affirmed?  Is it, in the words of shame researcher Bréne Brown, "the shame-based fear of being ordinary"?

I don't think so.  At least not entirely.  (I always leave open the possibility -- even the probability -- that I have motivations I'm not aware of and wouldn't like if I were.)  I think that there are some very good reasons for me, as a working pastor, to be a regular blogger, and maybe it'd help me to remind myself of them.

One of my collegial friends, the Rev. Scott Wells, in explaining on his blog -- Boy In The Bands -- why he does it makes reference to an old-time Southern Universalist (he thinks it was John C. Burruss) who "wrote and edited his newspaper because the printed word would go where 'the living evangel' could not go, and it would survive after he was long dead."  (Thanks for this, Scott.)

I am a preacher and a teacher by trade, vocation, and inclination.  Blogging provides a pulpit with a sanctuary that stretches as far and wide as the internet itself.  I know that all those "pews" will never be filled, but that's true in our brick and mortar sanctuaries as well.  And even if I simply look at the specific congregation I currently serve -- the wonderful Thomas Jefferson MemorialChurch - Unitarian Universalist in Charlottesville, Virginia -- I believe that my blogging serves them.  Not all of our members can come to Sunday services each week, and not everyone can attend our faith development programs, or take place in one of our Covenant Groups, yet I dare say that all of us are looking for something to chew on during the week.  To reflect on.  To meditate on.  And, yes, to think about.  I have no delusions that I am some fount of wisdom, yet I know that I have something to say and as a preacher and teacher for this congregation blogging provides a forum for me to reach out to people both more frequently and more effectively.

And why try to post daily?  I once knew a painter who, when she'd finished with a canvass would immediately start to paint a new image over the one she'd just completed.  And when that one was done she'd begin a third.  There were sometimes five or six images beneath whatever she called her "final" piece, the one that would remain on top when she finally set the canvass aside and began on a new one.  I asked her once why she did this and she said, "I have so many images in my head and I just have to get them out."  So, too, the thoughts, reflections, and observations in mine.

At the same time, too, there's the discipline of it.  Besides, or along with, my being a preacher and teacher, I'm a writer.  And writer's write.  The only way -- really, the only way -- to hone one's craft is to write.  A lot.  And many of the writers I most admire have said that that means at least some writing every day.  So yes, I write a sermon most every week, and a bulletin article and a report to the Board each month, but the discipline of daily writing?  That's where the blog can came in.

Will I do this?  Live into this intention to blog each day?  (Or, at least, each week day?)  I don't know.  We'll see.  At least I hope to be back before March.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

On Holidays & Holy Days

At the congregation I serve we have monthly themes that provide a framework for our Faith Development efforts, including our weekly worship.  This month the theme is "Holidays & Holy Days," and one of the questions we've been dancing with is, "what's the difference?  What makes a holiday a holy day?"

On the first Wednesday of the month my creative co-conspirator, Leia Durland-Jones, and I have been facilitating a program around that month's theme.  As part of our Holidays & Holy Days program we each were given the opportunity to journal about what we'd been discussing.  This is what came up for me:

Holidays.  Holy days.
Days of Turning.  Transformation.
Moments -- mountaintops and valleys;
Highs and lows.  Birth and Death. And choices made.
Roads taken.

To mark.  To know I've marked these times.
Interrupt the everyday.  Break the
pattern.
Step off the path.
Sit.
Stand.  Dance.  Weep.  Listen.

We are called by something greater than ourselves . . .
called to something greater.
But it's so damned hard to hear,
so damnably hard to hear,
so god-damned hard to hear.

To hear.
That's what this is about.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

What Do We Offer?

I am finding myself almost daily learning something new about Pope Francis, and each new revelation is surprising and inspiring. 

When he carried his own bags and paid his own hotel bill after the Conclave, I took note.  When he eschewed the gaudiest robes and the special shoes and the fancy "bling" that goes with being Pope, I sat up a bit.  When he washed the feet of prisoners (including women), I found myself leaning forward.  And when he agreed to receive Tim Schmalz's controversial -- but to my mind powerfully evocative -- sculpture, "Jesus the Homeless," my smile shone in my eyes.

But when I heard that he has been known to sneak out at night to minister to the homeless?  I wasn't just impressed . . . I was moved.  Could it be, as a friend of mine asked, that we finally have a Christian as Pope?

As I say, I was moved.  I've written before about my encounters with some of the unhoused people I'd met while commuting in and out of Boston during my days at UUHQ.  And Charlottesville, like virtually everywhere else, has a homeless population, a few of whom I have gotten to know a bit.  And the church that I serve is part of the town's PACEM program that provides housing during the coldest months of the year, so working with the homeless and to end homelessness is one of our ministries already.  One to which I'm particularly drawn.

After hearing about Pope Francis I found myself thinking about how I spend my time.  Could I make a practice of going out to the Downtown Mall and spending some time there, getting to know the guys who pass their days there?  Could I make time to volunteer at the Haven?  And I started fantasizing about saying to them as we get to know each other, "You should come by our church some Sunday," and having TJMC become a community where homeless men and women and professors from UVa rub shoulders as members of the same family.

But then I thought, "would what we're doing here matter?"  Would the things we say and do on Sundays matter to people who don't have a roof over their heads and who don't know where their next meal is coming from?  I know that the "salvific message" of Unitarian Universalism would be relevant.  I believe that our core teaching -- which I sum up as "we are one human family, on one fragile planet, in one miraculous universe, bound by love" -- is life giving.  But would our Sunday assemblies?

I don't think so.  And I don't know what it would take for the folks who come for food on the first Friday, or our PACEM guests, to feel welcome and at home.  But I know I like the idea.

And for what it's worth, I think the Pope would like it too.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

TJMC 2020: a sermon

The following is the sermon I offered at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church - Unitarian Universalist in Charlottesville, VA on Sunday, November 10th, 2013.  It is possible to hear a podcast if you'd like.  (It should be noted that this was not the sermon "advertised" -- "Families Together" -- but, rather, a response to the challenges offered by the situation the church finds itself in at this time.)

 

When I was doing my internship in our congregation in Concord, Massachusetts, the Senior Minister there, my friend and mentor Gary Smith, started off one sermon in a way I’ve never forgotten.  He had a knack for that.  Usually ended them well, too.  On this occasion he looked out at the congregation and said, and I paraphrase because it was nearly twenty years ago now:

The dinner party was a success.  Everyone had a great time.  The guests have gone home.  We’ve cleaned up the table.  The dishes are done.  We’ve turned the porch light off.  And it’s just us.  It’s just us, just family, sitting around the kitchen table, and we’ve got to talk.

What followed was a sermon challenging that congregation to step up to the plate in a way it hadn’t recently.  Their pledge drive had just come in seriously short, and it was time for some serious conversation around that kitchen table.  Just family.

Now it’s our turn.

In the first congregation I served, up in Yarmouth Maine, we created a term for it – “it” being the fairly constant state of not quite getting enough money from our pledge campaigns to fund the budgets we wanted to.  We called it, “muddling through,” and I can remember one memorable year when our treasurer presented to the congregation both our “dream budget” and our “muddling through again budget.”  That’s what we actually called them that year.

I was ordained nearly twenty years ago, and in that time I’ve served three of our congregations.  In my training I also had experience at both a student ministry site and an internship site.  So that’s five congregations I know pretty well.  Then there was my first UU church, my home church, The First Parish in Waltham Universalist Unitarian Unitarian Universalist Church, so that’s six.  And then, of course, during my years on the UUA staff I got to see quite a number of our congregations both up close and from a distance.  And then, as you can imagine, when we clergy folks get together we like to kvetch (and gloat) a bit, so I’ve heard about . . . well . . . countless others.

And what I can say, from the vantage point of all of this experience, is that just about every congregation struggles with money at least some of the time.  In fact, I once read a book on church finances that said one of the ways you can tell the health of a congregation is whether or not it sees its money troubles as a crisis or as just one of the realities of being a church.

Well friends, we’re looking at the “reality of being a church” . . . big time.  Last spring the Board brought to the congregational meeting a budget of a little over $600,000.  That was roughly a $63,000 increase over the actual results of last year – a 12% increase, give or take.  And that increase, believe it or not, was not because we were proposing to do some grand, new, exciting things; it wasn’t because we were revolutionizing the way we’re doing church in Charlottesville.  It was largely because in the previous year we’d added some staff  and we’d realized that we really ought to be compensating all of our staff fairly – salaries and benefits.  There were also some minor increases here and there, and we wanted to add a ten-hour-a-week youth coordinator position and increase our Church Secretary’s hours a bit.  But that was it.  It’s important to realize that that wasn’t some kind of “Dream Budget.”  It was, in fact, despite the increase, really a kind of “muddle through budget.”

Where there was a real jump was in the area of pledging.  We had hoped to be able to increase our pledge revenues by about $90,000, but this was really because we knew we were going to have to compensate for the loss of rental income from the Molly Michie Preschool, which has rented our basement but is moving out, and from U-House, which we were hoping soon to sell (and, as you heard earlier, we just have).  Since the largest percentage of our revenue is from the pledges of members – both formal and informal – that’s where we looked to make up this difference.  And we were so confident that the increase in energy and satisfaction we’ve been feeling these days would generate this kind of enthusiastic generosity that we decided to run a low-key campaign.

A mistake, as it turned out.  Yet even now, after we’ve literally spent months trying to contact each and every person who had not pledged during the campaign, we are still looking at less pledge income this year than last.  The revised budget that was presented for a vote at that congregational meeting a couple of weeks back is actually smaller than last year’s, and even with that there’s the possibility that the Board may need to tap our reserve funds, and your staff was directed to come up with some $20,000 in additional cuts should the need arise.  As of right now, it looks like they well may be needed, and those cuts include reductions in compensation – a quarter of it will be coming out of my package – and may eventually include hours as well.  Already we did away with plans for that much needed youth coordinator and we’re keeping the Church Secretary at the hours she currently has.

Now I’m pretty far into this sermon this morning and I’ll bet that many, if not most (if not all, actually) of you are expecting me to start asking anyone for money.  “Increase your pledge if you can!  Pledge if you haven’t!”  Right?  Well, I’m not going to do that.  I’m really, really not.  Some of you have already given generously, some “sacrificially,” as we call it.  You’ve done your part and I’m not, absolutely not, asking you to do more.  And some of you have not given anything, and I trust that you have your reasons.  There has been more than enough time for you to be swayed if swaying were possible.  So I’m not asking you to do anything more, either.

So what am I asking?  I’m asking us to realize that all of this means something.  I’m asking us to realize that all of this means something, and that we – you and me and all of us together – really need to figure out what it means.

It means something that one quarter of our members – fully one-out-of-every-four members – makes no pledge of record.  Nothing.  I know that some people donate their time and talent instead of money, and I in no way want to discount that.  Oh for our volunteers.  Bless you.  We need you.  But for there to be no pledge of record – not even $1 a week, not even $1 a month, not even $1 a year! – to have no pledge of record from  25% of our members?  Well, that means something.  I don’t know what it means, but we, as a community, need to figure it out.  It might mean that the economy’s changing, and money’s tight.  It may mean that some folks think that a small pledge won’t matter much.  It might mean that people figure someone else will take care of the money stuff or, maybe, that we’re doing okay and don’t really need the support.  (You know, the way a lot of people feel about NPR.)  It may mean that some folks are displeased about this or that and want to send a message by withholding their pledges.  It may mean that we don’t have a culture here – yet! – in which people realize that their pledge is only partially about paying bills but is really about being connected.  I don’t know what it means, but when I checked in with the UUA staff about pledging trends around the country every one of the consultants who responded said that having a quarter of your membership without a pledge of record should be cause for at least some serious reflection.  Friends, we need to figure it out.

And it means something when our church leaders personally call folks who pledged last year but not this year and don’t ever get a call back.  Even after several tries.  It means something.  Again, I don’t know what, but we need to figure it out.  Because when someone chooses not to return a call from another member of their church family, well, it’s not about possibly lost revenue at that point.  It’s about lost connections.  When a leader repeatedly calls a member (and I’m actually talking about 30 or 40 members) and hears nothing back it’s a sure sign that something’s broken, but, of course, we can’t tell for sure what because, after all, the calls aren’t being returned.  We need to figure this out.

You know, as Adam and I talked about this service this week he made a really good point.  Some of you know that Adam’s not only one of our new Worship Weavers but that for several years he led our canvass efforts, so he’s given this a lot of thought.  And Adam suggested that I honestly and openly tell everyone a bottom line truth.  You see, there is a figure that’s absolutely necessary if we want to have a church.  And that figure is $0.

That’s right.  We can have a church on no money at all.  It’ll look a lot different than TJMC does right now, but we could do it.  There’s a great story, probably apocryphal, that’s making the rounds on the Internet right now.  I won’t go into all of the details, but it ends with a preacher looking out at the congregation and saying, “I look out and see a group of people, but not a church.”  He’s supposed to have dismissed them to go home and think about it until the next week.  Well, we can have a church with a budget of $0, but we can’t have one if we don’t have committed, engaged, involved, and connected people. 

And that’s what I’m asking for this morning.  Not more contributions, but more commitment.  Not more pledge envelopes, but more people engaged.   And by this I don’t mean busier people.  Some of you out to have a bunk installed you’re here so often.  A lot of people are doing a whole lot of things, so that’s not the commitment I’m talking about.  But when it comes to “owning” the mission of the church?  When it comes to even knowing, clearly and with certainty, the mission of the church and making sure we stay true to it?  Who’s committed to that?   The financial situation we find ourselves in right now is, in and of itself, not such a big deal.  The budget will work itself out, or it won’t, but either way no doubt the universe will keep unfolding as it should.  But the financial situation we find ourselves in right now means something, and we really need to figure out what.

What kind of church do we want to be?  What kind of church are we, actually, now?

It turns out that this is a perfect time to be asking ourselves these questions, because we’re starting our Strategic Planning Process and it’s designed to investigate two fundamental question – what kind of church do we want to be in five, ten, twenty years and how do we want to get there?  The foundation for all of that, of course, is knowing what kind of congregation we actually are right now.

TJMC prides itself on being a growing, vibrant church.  We know that our space is too tight, we’re bursting at the seams, and many of us are imagining expanded space, new buildings, increased professional staff, more real engagement in justice work in our community.  Our Staffing Task Force of a year or so ago discovered that we are actually currently understaffed for this sized congregation, and that if we really want to grow we need to not only catch up to where we should be, where we need to be to support what we have, but need to be thinking about “staffing for growth.”  And if we’re to grow we really, really need more space.  Many of us are really excited by the possibilities in all of this.

And yet, this year’s budget is currently less than last year’s, and for the past several years our budgets have been essentially flat.  Stagnant.  By that measure, at least, we are not vibrant and growing.  We’re not even really “muddling through.”  We’re treading water.  And some folks think that we’re showing signs of getting tired.

Now, this may surprise you to hear, but it’s not the worst thing in the world for a congregation to stop growing – in numbers and in budget.  There are other kinds of growth.  Pruning back a wild and scraggly bush is not a sign of defeatism, but rather an excellent strategy for promoting greater health.  We are currently a roughly 450 member congregation.  That means that roughly 450 people have taken the step of formalizing their membership and have “signed the book.”  Some of those are not particularly active, and there are lots of active folks who haven’t taken that step, so this is not necessarily a very useful number, but we are currently a roughly 450 member church.

Another, and many think more useful, number is the average Sunday attendance – this we’d get by literally counting every person, of whatever age, is in any part of our church on a Sunday morning.  Do this for a year and then divide that number by 52.  We’ve never done this to my knowledge, but I’d wager that the figure would put us squarely in what’s called the “Program Sized Church.”  This is a congregation with an average Sunday attendance of between 150 and 350 people.  It’s worth noting that only one-in-six UU congregations is in this category.  Only one in six.

It’s worth noting, too, that the transition from “Pastoral Church,” the next size down, and “Program Church” is notorious for floundering congregations.  It doesn’t just happen.  It takes intentionality and courage; it takes faith and trust; it takes will.  And for the vast majority of congregations trying to make that step it takes time – years can be spent caught on that hump, stuck on that plateau, hoist on that petard, stranded on that sandbar.  Just as we’ve been for the past several years.  Just as we are, apparently, right now.

I want to reiterate – I am not asking anyone to pony up more money so that we can make that leap.  That would presuppose that we really want to, and that all it’d take would be money to make it happen.  As Adam said to me this week, “we don’t really need any more money.  Before we ask people for more money we need to really decide if we want it, and we need to decide what we want to do with it.”

I can honestly say that out of all those congregations I’ve known over these last two decades, none has been a better congregation than this.  None has had more promise that this congregation has; none more possibilities.  Think about the testimonials you hear on a pretty regular basis during the time of Joys and Sorrows – people saying how much this church community means to them.  Think of the energy you feel in this sanctuary on at least most Sunday mornings, and the excited hum you hear from the rooms where our RE program is taking place here and at Summit.  Think of the growing throng of students from UVA, and the parents, and the grandparents, and the great-grandparents, and all the kids who call this place “home,” who find here “family.” Some in ways they’ve never known before . . . have never known were even possible.  And think of all the good work that TJMC is involved in – in Charlottesville and in the wider world – making a real and positive difference.

We have been entrusted with an incredibly powerful resource, and it is up to us to decide how best to utilize it.  Those who have come before us are trusting us to hand this community of faith on to those who have not come yet.  I can say with complete certainty that it is not more money that we need.  It is greater clarity of vision and greater clarity of purpose.  And that we can only get by coming together and making it so.  We have a year ahead of us in which to do just that.  May we do that, and may our future be bright.

Pax tecum,

RevWik