The Promise & The Practice of Our Faith

Image for a Chalice Tattoo by Sheilakh

Yesterday, Sunday February 4th, the congregation I serve engaged in an Association-wide project titled, "The Promise & The Practice of Our Faith."  It was designed to give our overwhelmingly white congregations an unfortunately rare -- if not entirely unique -- experience of centering the voices of People of Color.  A packet of resources was created from which congregations could craft their service.  Undoubtedly no two services were entirely alike, and yet the experience of white Unitarian Universalists hearing, unfiltered, the experiences of UUs of color was shared by all the congregations that participated.  The members of the congregation I serve spoke to me about how powerfully painfully -- and painfully powerful -- it was.

I want to express my deepest gratitude to the black UU religious professionals who contributed their time and talent in creating the materials which made this service possible.  I especially appreciate their willingness to share their stories in such honest, direct, and vulnerable ways, and to give those who create and facilitate worship in our congregations permission to share them.   So ... thank you:

Viola Abbitt, Rev. Carol Thomas Cissel, DeReau Farrar, Adrian Graham, Rev. Kimberly Quinn Johnson, Rayla Mattson, Rev. Rebekah Montgomery, Dr. Glen Thomas Rideout, Jae Pema-la Scott, Erica Shadowsong, Connie Simon, and Thomas.  (Thanks, too, to Rev. Erika Hewitt, the Minister of Worship Arts at the UUA, who does a fabulous job of curating the creative contributions which enrich our movement's worship.)

Even more so than usual this service embodied my belief that when we do this thing called "worship" correctly, the sermon consists of the entire service, and not just the words of the preacher.  With that in mind, these are all of the words that were heard in our sanctuary yesterday morning.

PREPARATION …

SOUNDING THE CHIME

GREETING & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Good morning, and welcome to this convivial community.  This is a Unitarian Universalist congregation that strives to welcome all who would see this be a world in which all are welcome.  That welcome is not just generic, but personal – you, specifically and particularly, are welcome, whether you have been coming for decades or just walked through the door this morning.  It takes all of us, and each of us, to create this community, so thank you for being part of this moment.

That welcome includes inviting you to do what it is that you need to do to feel authentically present – close your eyes, take notes, knit.  Yet do be mindful that the people around you have their own needs which might differ from yours.  One thing we all need is to make sure that ours is not the cell phone that goes off during the service, so please take yours out and make sure that it is set to “silent.”  You don’t need to turn it off – some people need to be able to text or tweet to really be here – but do check that it is set to “silent.”

This is a lively congregation, and what happens here in the sanctuary, and next door in Children’s Worship and in our Religious Education programs, are just one part of what we’re about.  I encourage you to peruse the insert in your Order of Service to see what else is happening that you might want to be a part of.  (You can also go to our website – www.uucharlottesville.org – to find out even more.)  There are a few things I would like to lift up for added attention:

<various announcements>

One last thing – some words about this morning’s service.  Congregations across the country are engaging in worship services this morning which draw on the resources created by a number of UU Religious Professionals of Color.  The effort is being called “The Promise & The Practice of our Faith, and asks the question, “What would it be like if our congregations – which are all predominantly white – were to experience worship through the voices and the perspectives of UUs of Color?  What would those of us who identify as white hear that we hadn’t before?  What would those of us who identify as People of Color hear lifted up that had never been lifted up in our usual white culture centric worship?”  The creators of the packet of resources we are using this morning described it this way:

“Our worship service this morning is uniquely prophetic: it calls to us who identify as white to listen, humbly and perhaps with some discomfort, to the lived reality of black Unitarian Universalists in our midst. This discomfort is both a gesture of hospitality to voices that have not been heard enough, and a sign that we’re growing in the right direction.

If you’re joining us today as a guest, know that you are witnessing this Unitarian Universalist congregation doing sacred work: collectively, we will wrestle with what it means to be a majority-white faith whose anti-racist intentions have not always been borne out. We invite you to witness this moment of transparency and vision, and to join us on future Sundays for a more traditional worship service.

When we are at our best, we who are Unitarian Universalists choose to make ourselves uncomfortable in the service of our meaning-making. We recognize our discomfort as evidence that we’re growing. Today, if you feel discomfort arise within you – especially if you’re white – we invite you to practice being curious, and to allow your discomfort to lead you to new learning.”

With these words of “official” welcome, these announcements, and that preparation offered, our worship can begin.  I’ll say again, it is good that you are here; it is good that we can be together.

WORDS OF WELCOME   

May we join together in saying the words we say each week through which we try to express the depth of our welcome:   

Whoever you are, Whomever you love,
However you express your identity;
Whatever your situation in life,
Whatever your experience of the holy,
Your presence here is a gift.
Whether you are filled with sadness,
Overflowing with joy,
Needing to be alone with yourself,
Or eager to engage with others,
You have a place here. 
We all have a place here.
We all are welcome here.                                      

PRELUDE

LIGHTING THE CHALICE 

The words of our chalice lighting were written by the Rev. Rebekah Savage, who serves full time as the Associate Minister at the UU Congregation of Rockville, MD, and serves in the US Army Reserve.  She is completing a Doctorate in Ministry at Wesley Seminary in Washington, DC.  The words in your Order of Service are the last stanza. 

We light our flaming chalice as a beloved people
united in love
and thirsting for restorative justice.

May it melt away the tethers that uphold whiteness in our midst.
May it spark in us a spirit of humility.
May it ignite in us radical love that transforms our energy into purposeful action.

This a chalice of audacious hope.
This chalice shines a light on our shared past,
signaling our intention to listen deeply, reflect wisely,
and move boldly toward our highest ideals
~ Rev. Rebekah Savage

ENTERING IN ….

OPENING WORDS:  “Missing Voices” by Connie Simon

Our Opening Words were written by Connie Simon, who is serving as Intern Minister at the Unitarian Society of Germantown, and Contract Chaplain at Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. Following graduation from Meadville Lombard Theological School in 2018, she intends to pursue parish ministry.  She has offered for her words to be used in this service, even knowing that they will most likely be read by someone who identifies as white.  Her piece is titled, “Missing Voices”:

When I started attending a UU church, I was excited by the promise of worship that would draw from the arts, science, nature, literature and a multitude of voices. Indeed, some of the voices that Unitarian Universalists hear in worship each week belong to Thoreau, Emerson, Ballou, and others. Their words are beautiful, but they come from a culture and experience that’s foreign to me. When do I get to hear voices from my culture? I quickly learned that, other than the same few quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. and Howard Thurman’s “The Work of Christmas,” it wasn’t gonna happen. I sit attentively and listen with my head to “their” voices while my heart longs to hear more of “our” voices.  

I am a Black Woman. When I look around on Sunday morning, I don’t see many people who look like me. In most of the congregations I visit, I don’t see anybody who looks like me. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I don’t hear voices of people who share my experience. But it still hurts. I want to hear voices that tell the struggle of living under the weight of oppression in this culture of White Supremacy. I want to hear stories of trying to stay afloat in the water we swim in. I want to hear voices of Living While Black in America.

I don’t hear those voices in UU churches so I have to supplement my worship by reading black theologians like Anthony Pinn and Monica Coleman. I read Maya Angelou, James Baldwin and my favorite poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Though not a Unitarian or a Universalist, Dunbar chronicled the African American experience in the years following the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved Africans — a time of opportunities for blacks as we migrated north in droves seeking employment and education but also a time of continuing segregation, racism and oppression.

Dunbar acknowledged this tension in his writing. We hear him long for joy and prosperity while at the same time knowing that the system would conspire to keep true happiness just beyond his grasp. “A pint of joy to a peck of trouble and never a laugh but the moans come double; and that is life!” Still, he was a champion of social justice, believing that God has sympathy for the plight of the oppressed and that his grace will be bestowed not on those “who soar, but they who plod their rugged way, unhelped to God.”
For Dunbar, the struggle was real. One hundred years later, hearing Dunbar express his frustration and give voice to the contradictions of our existence as African Americans encourages me and nourishes my soul. His voice speaks to my heart. He knows my pain and understands my sadness, my fear and my rage. He understands the tears I cry as I pray for strength to get through another day in this world. He gives voice to my deep faith that real change is coming someday. He didn’t see it in his lifetime and I might not see it in mine, but I have to keep believing it’s possible.  

That’s the message many African Americans long to hear in church. I know that’s what I need to hear every now and then. Will it ever happen? Or will we always have to go “outside” to hear our voices? If that’s the case, maybe there’s no place for us in Unitarian Universalism. The thought of leaving is painful — but so is being in a faith that ignores our voices.  

OPENING HYMN  #1007, “There’s a River Flowing in My Soul”

FIRST REFLECTION:  “The Healing is Not Done” by Rev. Rebekah Savage.

Our first reflection is a sermon written by the Rev. Rebekah Savage, who wrote our Chalice Lighting.  Although these are not my words, nor my experience, Rev. Savage invited us to hear her words and her experience.  So let us all open our minds, and our hearts.  The sermon is titled, “The Healing Is Not Done.”

I play this moment over and over again in my head: the day I heard of the Thomas Jefferson Ball, hosted by Unitarian Universalists in 1993. As a person of color, raised in a UU congregation, I felt a shiver down my spine as I learned something new and unsettling about the faith that I call home.

You may be wondering why this gathering of UUs in 1993 struck me as a profoundly memorable and painful moment. Beloveds, this is why: attendees were encouraged to wear period clothes to the Ball to celebrate Thomas Jefferson, who attended Unitarian churches. In the spirit of welcome, those who conceived of this social gathering did not take into account the centering of whiteness by asking people to attend in period dress. The organizers forgot or ignored the fact that in Jefferson’s time, we black and brown UUs would have been slaves: property to traded and sold, brutalized and subjected.

The matter was taken up at General Assembly when delegates challenged the appropriateness of holding this event. During a plenary session, delegates voiced their concerns by reading a statement of protest. In response, the organizers and other leaders gathered to consider how to proceed and came to a decision: the Thomas Jefferson Ball would proceed ahead as planned.

I ask myself: What would I wear? Would I be a house slave, favored for my lighter skin and “good hair”? My skin is a light brown that my daughter refers to as cinnamon, a product of a beautiful multi-racial family history. Would I catch the eye of a white man who could leverage any opportunity to take my body as his property?

What would I wear? Would I have had shoes on my work worn feet? Would I have stretch marks across my belly from babies that were taken from me to sell to other plantations? Would I sing to myself faithful, mournful songs of liberation, dreaming for the day when I can taste freedom for myself and my family?

What would I wear? Would I be allowed to come through the front entrance or directed to the back, to enter through the kitchen with the other slaves and servants? Would I be allowed to drink from the same punch bowl, eat from the same platters? Would I sit with the other people of color, in a separate room or at the back of the gathering? Would I be permitted to look a white person in the eye or even speak their name?

What would I wear, dear beloved UU’s? Tell me: what I would have worn to attend this ball? What period clothes would represent who I would have been in Thomas Jefferson’s time?

OUCH.
When we feel something deeply and are still finding the words: OUCH.
Seriously, OUCH.

Why do I raise this deeply wounding moment in our shared UU history?

Because this isn’t just a reflection about my lived experience as a person of color in a majority-white denomination. This is also part of the story of how people of color experience sharing worship and community within our faith. It’s a chapter in the story of who we are as a people, living in this country, swimming in the waters of white supremacy and centering whiteness, supported by centuries of indoctrinations and institutional structures.

I grieve for the hurts that this time in our history caused. I grieve for those who left our communities because of how this event was handled, which broke their trust in finding spacious rest in our congregations from the pervasive, violent racism in our country. I grieve for those who, at the time, were unable to traverse the gaps in their spiritual understanding of justice and belonging. I grieve that it has taken this long to have this level of conversation about centering people of color.  

This Ball was conceived by well-meaning people, beloved kin of mine and yours, who were able to identify welcome only through the eyes of white privilege. That is the insidious nature of centering whiteness: it denies personhood and the God given right for all to be fully accounted.

To put primacy on whiteness as the default setting in how we see and experience our world means that we are being theologically inconsistent. We covenant to affirm and promote the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, and yet we have devalued the full inclusion of too many.

In small ways, this trend emerges when music and readings for worship draw primarily from Anglo-European composers and writers and the paintings that hang in our congregations disproportionately represent our white foremothers and forefathers. We see this trend when congregational leadership is cultivated without honoring the diversity in our midst as a rich source of inspiration and prophetic messaging. We see this in considering that people of color have been a part of our living tradition for centuries — but our voices have been overlooked, silenced, or outright rejected with hostility.

I ignite my flame of justice and shine a light on this scar because the healing is not done. The healing is not done because we are still called to do the work of dismantling white supremacy culture and decentering whiteness from our bones: from our congregations, from the ways in which we interact and support each other. We are called to fulfill the promises once made in the name of faith and proclaiming Beloved Community. We are called to match our words with our actions, to bring the holy into our midst by truly and without fear honoring the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

This is a beautiful time of opportunity, Beloveds, born of truly listening to people of color and beginning to repair the fabric of community that has been torn. Ripped asunder by years of broken and empty promises: words of good intention, unmatched by purposeful action.

I love being a Unitarian Universalist. I was birthed into this world with the calling of service on my heart; I was shaped and molded in our congregations. I also know that, as Dr. Cornell West shared with us in his 2015 Ware Lecture at General Assembly, if I have white supremacy in my heart because I was raised in this country, so do we all.

While I grieve, I also have much reason to claim hope. I celebrate where we are as a people of faith because we are bravely facing the devastation and illness of “othering” people. We are looking at ourselves in the mirror and seeking a new way. I celebrate that we have the moral and spiritual courage to listen deeply to voices that have been marginalized. I celebrate that beloveds are choosing to move back humbly, to make space for an evolution in leadership and consciousness. The spark of working towards the greatest good is seen in every moment of insight as so many are waking up to our participation in centering whiteness.

Beloveds, now is our time to lead with love and make right the ways our denomination has fallen short of our shared principles. We are a powerful, aspirational covenanted people and we are being called to account for our historic moral and spiritual failings, in order to move into authentic Beloved Community.

Now is our time to harness our ability to reflect inward in order to reemerge with a power greater than ourselves that gives rise to a new day. Beloveds, with love and peace in our hearts, may it be so.

OFFERING

At a future service during the week of our 75^th Anniversary we will be taking a special collection, and asking for even more generosity, to support the organization Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (or BLUU).  As the UUA President has said, “Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism is one of the most exciting ways our faith is answering [the call to be the whole community we strive to become]. As a national ministry for and by black-identified Unitarian Universalists, BLUU embodies a liberating community of all ages. A community that lifts up the lives, and stories and the leadership of those who have been marginalized and silenced. A community that brings hope, when hope is hard to find. And a community that calls us to wrestle with the gap between our theology and our practice in the world.

This morning the offering we collect will go to serve our work, here, to become a different kind of community working to build a different kind of world.  It will support us in further our dream of becoming, as it has been said, “a powerhouse for racial justice.”  If you believe in the promise and the practice of our Unitarian Universalist faith, and in the work of this congregation as a manifestation of that faith, then I encourage you to be particularly generous with your financial support.  The ushers will now collect the offering.

DEDICATION OF THE OFFERING

If the ushers will come forward we can, together, dedicate the offering with the words in the Order of Service:

We accept these gifts with gratitude.
May we use them wisely and for the highest good.

GOING DEEPER …

SECOND REFLECTION:

Our second reflection is a sermon written by Rayla D. Mattson serves as the Director of Religious Education for a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Connecticut, where she has been serving for just over 5 years. She is proud that outside of congregational life, she is raising her three beautiful children as a single mom.  Her sermon is titled, “Tired of Being Silent”:

The summer of 2016 began as an exciting one for me: I was finally going to a beloved Unitarian Universalist conference and retreat center. I’d heard many wonderful stories about it, and I couldn’t wait to bring my three children with me. On the drive there, I felt excited about spending a full week in an entirely UU space. After all, it was my UU community that so lovingly embraced me after a very painful divorce and several painful years of church shopping. I needed this week. I needed this healing.  

As UUs descended on the camp and found their rooms, I began to introduce myself to others, and thought I noticed them offering me a cursory hello before making a quick getaway. Maybe, I thought, it was hard for people to speak to me because I had my one-year old in tow. Maybe they were eager to reconnect to old friends.  

There was one other black woman at the camp who I had noticed; I was thankful we both signed up for the same program. I asked her: Was it just me or did she, too, feel a distinct coldness from the others? I wanted to make sure that I was not being paranoid.

But unsettling things continued to happen. There was an issue with my daughter in childcare:  they felt she was a problem and difficult in comparison with the other children—although a very kind person noted that she couldn’t understand how my child was deemed “a problem” when she was doing the same things all the other children were doing. Then a black child the same age as my son—12 years old—came crying to me one night. He was being bullied—but he wasn’t being heard, because the adults around him insisted that they “knew that girl and she would never say those things.” The child trusted that as a black mother, I was the only person at the camp who would listen and believe him. I brought the matter out in the open. The typical excuses followed, like the boy misunderstood what she meant and he was just being too sensitive, and it was just in fun, and nothing was really meant by her comments.

I tuned those excuses out. And I spent a lot of time alone that week. When my daughter and I walked around the conference center, I saw reminders of racism everywhere, from the statues and memorials to the paintings on the walls. It was everywhere; it was clear as day: “Your kind are not welcome here.”

I would end my strolls by going to the dining hall, only to find there was no table for me—not because there weren’t empty chairs, but because I was told that there was no room at the table for me and my toddler. The empty seats were for other people, I was told, and they couldn’t make room for me. The pattern became so distressing that on most days I considered not eating—but I couldn’t let my child starve. If my new friend was there, she always made room for me. And there were the kids.

After the incident with the young black boy, the kids came to me quite a bit to mediate things going on between them. They even took turns giving me a break from my little one. Eventually one of them would see me trying to find a table and no matter how many people were at their table, they would find a way to squeeze me and my little one in. As kind as they were, they ate quickly and were off. And again, I was left alone in the silence. As all the tables around me buzzed with talk and laughter and I sat there alone staring at my one year old.

Then one evening my youngest finally settled down enough for me to attend evening worship. I was so excited; I grabbed my lantern and journeyed to the chapel. The guest speaker spoke so eloquently talking about what he called “the elephant” in the space—how the camp was rooted in racism. His words brought me to the edge of my seat. I was thrilled and excited: I hadn’t been paranoid! This white man saw what I saw. He was naming my hurt, my truth and I was elated.

As we left worship, my heart felt light. In the darkness that surrounded us, the voices started. I heard campers—who couldn’t see me, a black woman, listening—agree that it was one of the worst services they had been to at the camp. And how they couldn’t believe he dared to say those things. And how they, who come to the chapel to be uplifted, did not want to have that kind of mess thrown in their face.

I melted into the darkness that surrounded us. That night I cried myself to sleep.

When I left the camp at the end of the week, the knot that had formed in my stomach started to ease.
Once home, I shared my story—my truth—with multiple people who were connected to the camp and its programs; people who I believed might use my experience to make future conferences and retreats more welcoming. I even offered to teach, to add some diversity to future retreats. I was told by each person that they would pass on my information and have someone contact me so they could get a better idea of what happened and how I felt so it wouldn’t happen to others. That never happened. I sent several emails and responded to all the surveys and asked to be heard. But as usual when I bring up concerns about race, there is only silence in response.

Fast forward nearly a year, and the approach of another summer. My oldest two children chatted excitedly about going back to the camp. Although I had explained that it took two years of funds and planning to go, they were still hopeful that we could make it work for this summer. I felt anxious; I felt guilty; and I could feel the knot creeping back into my stomach. I wanted them to see their friends and go back to a place that they come to love—and yet, I could not see myself stepping foot in that retreat center.

I broke down one day: I shared with my oldest two children my experiences the previous summer. Their father is white and at times I choose not to tell them things that I feel would cast a negative light on white people as to not give them negative feelings towards their family or be torn about their own genetic make-up. But I could be silent no more. And as I shared with them my experiences and my time at the camp, they sat there not saying a word but staring at me with silent tears rolling down their cheeks. They asked me why I didn’t say anything during our week at the camp. Why hadn’t I shared with them sooner?  Like a lot of parents, I answered that I wanted to protect them and not give a negative light to such an enriching experience they had had.

My oldest child then asked me if I often sit in silence and hold in the pain. I answered him truthfully. I answered with a “YES.”

Many times as a black woman, I hold in my pain and my experiences to protect others. To keep and hold up the white fragility that I have been taught, or rather trained, to value more than my own feelings and my own experiences—more, even, than my own needs and self-worth. I have been trained to minimize myself, my light, my voice. To Just grin and bear it. To put up with it because I should know  that they mean well. Or I didn’t want to seem too sensitive or be the “angry” black person in the room.

But I’m tired of being silent. It’s a heavy load to carry day in and day out. Sometimes, I’d like to take off my blackness and pick it up another day; sometimes it’s just too heavy a load. But I can’t, so I press on. So, I ask this question whenever someone will listen, “Who is standing in your dining hall looking for a seat at the table? And can you make room for them too?”

A MUSICAL RESPONSE:  #1031, “Filled With Loving Kindness” 

A MOMENT OF SILENCE

The stories we have heard so far this morning are so radically different that the experiences many, if not most, of us here have had, they paint a picture of a Unitarian Universalism that is almost, if not entirely, unrecognizable.  They are so different as to be almost unbelievable, yet they are part of our shared, whole, Unitarian Universalist reality.  So we’re going to take a moment of silence now, so that we can take into ourselves these truths many of us would rather not have to face and, perhaps, so that they can take root in our spirits.  In this silence, I encourage you to look at any push-back you might be feeling, any resistance, any disbelieve, any pain.

LITANY:  “The Promise That Binds” by Viola Abbitt

This morning we will share a litany written by Viola Abbitt, who is a candidate for the Unitarian Universalist ministry, and a seminarian at Meadville Lombard Theological School. She is currently the ministerial intern at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Greater Springfield in Massachusetts, and a board member at Unirondack.  “The Promise That Binds”

Loving inclusion has been an elusive goal within our congregations.

We are a covenantal people, and the promise of our faith, which was enough to bring us together, should have been enough to bind us together in love.

Many hearts have been, and often continue to be, broken, time and again.

We are a covenantal people, and the promise of our faith, which was enough to bring us together, should have been enough to bind us together in love.

The names of many of those of us who helped to make this denomination great were erased, their existence forgotten.

We are a covenantal people, and the promise of our faith, which was enough to bring us together, should have been enough to bind us together in love.

The pulpits and pews which should have been warm and welcoming, were instead sometimes cold and unforgiving.

We are a covenantal people, and the promise of our faith, which was enough to bring us together, should have been enough to bind us together in love.

People who were considered pillars in their communities, were sometimes considered pariahs within the walls of our congregations.

We are a covenantal people, and the promise of our faith, which was enough to bring us together, should have been enough to bind us together in love.

Many of us straddle two worlds: one of filiation and one of faith.

We are a covenantal people, and the promise of our faith, which was enough to bring us together, should be enough to bind us together in love.

Our beauty is that we are all different, and yet not different from one another.  None of us should be considered exceptions, nor should we be subjected to baseless assumptions.

We are a covenantal people, and the promise of our faith, which was enough to bring us together, should be enough to bind us together in love.

The future of this faith is reliant on and belongs to all who embrace religious liberalism. Let us never forget that…

We are a covenantal people, and the promise of our faith, which was enough to bring us together, is enough to bind us together in love.

MUSICAL MEDITATION 

RETURNING  …

PARTING WORDS

Our Parting Words were written by the Rev. Kimberly Quinn Johnson, who serves as the ordained minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork. She notes that among her specialties are anti-racism and youth ministry.  Her piece, titled “Black Joy,” begins with a poem by Barbara A Holmes:

Joy Unspeakable
is not silent,
it moans, hums, and bends
to the rhythm of a dancing universe….

For our free African ancestors,
joy unspeakable is drum talk…

For enslaved Africans during the
Middle Passage,
joy unspeakable is the surprise
of living one more day…

For Africans in bondage
 in the Americas,
joy unspeakable is the moment of
mystical encounter
when God tiptoes into the hush arbor…

Joy unspeakable is humming
“how I got over”
After swimming safely
to the other shore of a swollen Ohio river
when you know that you can’t swim.

When theologian Barbara A. Holmes talks about “joy unspeakable,” she’s talking specifically about how the contemplative practices of the Black church have sustained Black people in America through suffering and survival. More than referring to a particular church or denomination, this experience is collective and transhistorical. It’s also a different expression of Black religion than I’m expected to exhibit, as a Black woman.

On more than one occasion, I’ve had a particular mode of black worship projected onto me: the more charismatic modes of Black worship that we’re so familiar with—the shout, the stomp, the song. That particular style of Black worship sometimes strikes me as a caricature of joy—a shallow stereotype. I see this in the expectation that more “black” worship will bring more lively singing, more rhythmic clapping, more energetic worship. I see this in the anxiety that more “black” worship will bring more lively singing, more rhythmic clapping, more energetic worship. The shout. The stomp. The song.

But this caricature—this stereotype—is a narrow sliver of the complexity and the richness of black spirituality and black worship.

The modes of black spirituality that are most powerful, nourishing and nurturing for me aren’t the stomp, shout or song. Instead, I think of the rock, the sway, the bend, the moan, the hum. And I think of these things done in community. I marvel that in the midst of sadness and sorrow, in the midst of feeling the effects of generations of trauma wrought by racism and white supremacy, we can still find joy with each other. We are finding joy in each other.

I call it Black Joy because I am Black and it is the joy that I have been familiar with my whole life. It is the joy that I have learned from Black people. It is the joy created through our collective healing — our laying down of burdens, to be picked up and shared by our people, our community. This is not joy in spite of suffering — a mask put on to hide pain, an armor put on to push through pain. This is an embrace, holding and soothing us in our suffering. This Black Joy, is joy created through our being together. This Black Joy reminds me that I am not alone, that trouble don’t last always, that I am held and carried forward by a power beyond what I can comprehend.

I call it Black Joy, but I want to offer it—to the extent that it is mine to offer—to this faith. One of my gifts to Unitarian Universalism is the suggestion that joy is ours. We are the people who commit to justice, equity, and compassion. We are the people who aspire to world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. We are the people who affirm our interdependence with each other and the universe itself. I want to challenge Unitarian Universalism and Unitarian Universalists to claim Joy.

Unitarian Universalist Joy will require a different way of imagining ourselves and a different way of being with each other. Claiming the possibility of Unitarian Universalist joy requires making space for the surprise that Holmes describes. Claiming the possibility of Unitarian Universalist joy requires slowing down to hear the talk of the drum—pausing to move to the rhythms of the drum. Unitarian Universalist joy requires opening to the possibility of the mystical encounter. Unitarian Universalist joy requires embodying this faith differently than many of us are accustomed to.

HYMN OF GOING FORTH #95, “There is More Love Somewhere”

BENEDICTION & EXTINGUISHING THE CHALICE  

The words of our Benediction were written by Kimberly Quinn Johnson.  The repeated, and well-known, words, “We are the ones we have been waiting for” originate with June Jordan, from her work, “Poem for South African Women,” which she presented at the United Nations on August 9, 1978:

We are the ones we have been waiting for.*
We are not perfect, but we are perfectly fitted for this day.
We are not without fault,
but we can be honest to face our past as we chart a new future.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
May we be bold and courageous to chart that new future
May we have faith in a future that is not known
We are the ones we have been waiting for.*

POSTLUDE 

Pax tecum,

RevWik

From Torches to Whispers ...

According to my local paper, The Daily Progress, last night:

"Several dozen torch-wielding protesters gathered in Charlottesville’s Lee Park just after 9 p.m. Saturday, chanting “You will not replace us,” “Russia is our friend” and “Blood and soil.”"  

Lee Park has been in our news a lot lately, since the City Council voted to remove the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee after a hotly heated debate about whether or not to do so.  It was a high school student who got things started after she made a speech about how unwelcoming that gigantic statue made her, and other people of color she knows.  The community quickly divided into factions -- keep the statue (keep our heritage!), remove the statue (recognize that there is more than one heritage to honor!), and those who tried to find some kind of balance.

But let's not lose sight of the headline --  "Several dozen torch-wielding protesters gathered [...] chanting “You will not replace us,” “Russia is our friend” and “Blood and soil.”

While this blatant attempt to intimidate is infuriating on its own, I can help but also see it through the lens of the conversation going on within the denomination -- and congregation -- I serve.  The Unitarian Universtalist Association is embroiled in a heated conversation about participation in, and perpetuation of, systems and structures of racism within our own institutions.  The fact that our institutions are also infected by the cancer or racism that permeates every facet of the dominant culture -- "the water we swim in" -- is not, or should not be, surprising.  

Naturally, good-hearted, well-meaning liberal's as we UUs generally are don't want to think of our institutions as being caught up in the systems and structures that support racism.  Yet even many who recognize that this is simply an undeniable fact are reacting to the words being used to describe this:  white supremacy.  Those "systems and structures that support racism" are being called "systems and structures that support a white supremacist culture," and even many people who recognize the first are rejecting the second.  

"White supremacists," they say, "are folks who wear hoods, or go to the downtowns of quiet little cities like Charlottesville with torches in their hands."  It makes no sense, then, they say, to use those same words to describe something like the Unitarian Universalist Association which has been long dedicated to a vision of an anti-racist, anti-oppression, multicultural Beloved Community.  To paint us with the same brush as members of the KKK is both to unfairly malign us, as well as to unhelpfully dilute the meaning of the term and its power when directed at its proper targets.  I imagine that the events of last night at Lee Park here in Charlottesville will only serve to bolster this argument.

I would actually suggest the opposite.  About a week or so ago I posted, "A Toxic Cesspool by Any Other Name ..." in which I tried to make the case that no matter what we -- especially we who identify as white -- feel about the words "white supremacy," we should not let our reaction to the words deter us from hearing the underlying diagnosis of our infection.  Last weekend we took part -- with well over 600 other Unitarian Universalist congregations and communities -- in an event known as the UU White Supremacy Teach-In.  (Here's a link to the service we did here -- "Listening Even When We Don't Want to Hear" -- in case you'd like to see it.)  And I've shared widely a graphic that's sometimes called the White Supremacy Triangle.  (It's at the bottom of this post.)

You can also think of this image as an iceberg, with the kinds of behaviors and groups that we'd usually think of when hearing the words "white supremacy" above the "water line."  These are overt, one might say explicit, behaviors ... like bringing torches to a park with a statue of a Confederate General and chanting, "blood and soil."  These are instantly recognizable, and I don't think there are any of my well-meaning, good-hearted, liberal, white kin who would disagree that those words -- white supremacy -- apply to those behaviors.

Yet the metaphor of an iceberg is instructive, because just as the "tip of the iceberg" is supported and sustained by the far-greater mass of ice beneath the water, so, too, white supremacy is supported and sustained by the far-greater mass of behaviors that are less visible, less overt, and less obviously troublesome (to many white folks, at least).

Before going further, let me engage in a moment of semantics.  Racism is defined as, "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."  Few would disagree with that.  Yet here's the problem with this definition, it doesn't specific which race is being considered "superior."  It speaks about this "prejudice, discrimination, [and] antagonism" in general, almost neutral terms.  And yet it has also been accepted for decades is that "racism = prejudice + power."  And in the United States -- historically and presently -- it is white people who have the power.  

Lots of people talk about "reverse racism," yet the definition of racism as "prejudice + power" argues that there really is no such thing.  (Although the comedian Aamer Rahman has a brilliant routine in which he suggests that reverse racism could well be possible if ...)  People of color can be prejudiced, but they have no, nor do they have now, the institutional and structural power necessary to make that prejudice "racism."   Yet defining racism as "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior" is generic enough to blur this distinction.

"White supremacy," on the other hand, is defined as "the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society."  This is certainly a more harsh definition, yet it is also more particular and specific -- the scourge we face as a nation is not "prejudice, discrimination, [and] antagonism" against any old race, by any old race believing its own race is "superior."  It is, specifically, a culture that promotes the notion of white superiority which generates "prejudice, discrimination, [and] antagonism" toward People of Color.  Racism is not generic; it is specific.  The phrase "white supremacy" captures and reveals that specificity with greater clarity.

"But I don't believe that 'white people are superior to those of all other races'!," some might say.  "My beloved UUA doesn't believe that white people should 'dominate society!"  That is no doubt true, and yet, simply put, the dominant culture in which we live -- "the water we swim in" -- does.  I could give a million examples of the ways in which the dominant culture of the United States prioritizes, and elevates as superior, white perceptions, which perspectives, and white experience, but here are three:

• We need a "Black History Month" because the history that's been taught the other 11 months of the year is so white.
• We seem to feel the need to identify a Person of Color as such in articles, let's say, yet can safely assume that if we don't identify race, the person is white.
• As we read the previous two examples we assumed that the "we" refers to "everyone" when, in fact, it refers to primarily people who identify or are identified as white.  It is white people, by and large, who believe that when we say "we" we mean to include everyone; People of Color know all too well that they aren't.

So no, good-hearted, well-meaning liberal (white) folks are not engaging the same kinds of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as those who bring torches to a "candlelight march."  And yet, that oh so obvious behavior is supported by all the ways -- overt and covert, above the water line and below it, visible and easily recognizable and not -- that we all -- truly all -- who swim in the water of the white supremacy culture participate in and perpetuate that culture.  It's not just the torches, but the whispers that have a role to play.  To fail to recognize and understand that is to make it virtually -- if not entirely -- impossible to cure what ails us.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

What's Needed is Transformation (and not just change)

This is the text of my newsletter column -- "Words of Wikstrom" -- from the April edition of the monthly bulletin of the congregation I serve.

This month’s theme is “transformation,” and as I sat to write I found myself curious about the difference between change and transformation.  The word change means, “to make or become different,” and it comes from the Old French changier, which means essentially the same thing.  Transformation is defined as, “a thorough or dramatic change,” and comes from the Latin word transformare, which refers to changing the form or shape of something.  An illustration of the difference might be that a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly; it doesn’t change into a better caterpillar.  Leadership experts sometimes say that “Changes fix the past.  Transformations create the future.”

As many of you know, the Unitarian Universalist Association is being forced to take a look at some difficult truths about itself.  Long committed to the work of racial justice, UUA staff is nonetheless overwhelmingly, and disturbingly, white (and cis-male ordained folk, but let’s save that for another time).  The Association breakers down its workforce into six categories, from Executives to Service Workers.  84% of Service Workers – the “lowest rung,” if you will – are people of color, as compared with only 17% who are white.  In none of the other five categories do people of color make up more than 11%, while in no other category do whites make up less than 75%.

Such a glaring disparity is not a coincidence, any more than the predominance of cis-males in positions of authority in our culture is a coincidence. Both reflect the working of systems of domination and oppression.  That’s the way such systems work.  That’s why systemic racism often is called “white supremacy” now, because it makes brutally clear that the intent of racism is to keep whites “supreme,” as in, “superior to all others, strongest, most important, or most powerful.” 

There is a difference between saying that an institution is infected by and perpetuating white supremacy, and saying that it is a “white supremacist” institution.  This distinction often gets lost on whites when an institution they are involved with is called out for its embodiment of white supremacy.  “What do you mean?” these good-hearted, well-meaning people will say.  “It’s not like we’re the KKK or anything.”  And that’s true.  Yet it can also be true – and usually is – that the institution is nonetheless complicit in perpetuating systems of oppression.  In our culture, an individual or an organization can barely help it – racism is the air we breath, it has seeped into our DNA, and it blinds us to its presence at every turn.

I began with differentiating between change and transformation, because nearly all attempts to “undo racism” really are efforts at changing things.  Some sensitivity trainings and workshops on cultural competency are offered, perhaps even mandated.  Statements of commitment are made.  If that commitment is real, there might be a change or two made to, for instance, hiring practices, but ultimately what results is a better caterpillar instead of the needed butterfly.  Another metaphor that makes the point is “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

At the cluster event we hosted last month, “Showing Up: a racial justice conference,” I was introduced to a new (to me) term – prefigurative politics.  The idea is that an organization that’s working for change should be organized to reflect the desired change.  (In other words, “be the change you want to see.”)  The UUA is not organized – in philosophy or practicalities – like the anti-racist, multi-cultural, anti-oppression world we want to see.  And the sad truth is that as long as it is organized the way it is, the best we can hope for is change.  True transformation will elude us, and nothing short of transformation is what we need.

So here’s what a scientist might call a thought experiment: What would our Association look like if the experiences, perspectives, learnings, and expertise of people of color were at the center of things, rather than on the periphery?  What would the UUA be like if it were disbanded, and then recreated by, and primarily for, people of color?  I believe we’d see the caterpillar of white supremacy transformed into the butterfly of mutual liberation.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

PS – TJMC is an institution as well.  Just sayin’

This "White Supremacy Triangle" has been useful in helping people to visualize the breadth and depth of the term white supremacy.  Think of it as an iceberg.  Above the waterline are examples of overt white supremacist behavior, groups, etc.  Below the waterline are examples of behaviors which serve to reinforce and perpetuate systems and structures that maintain a "supreme" position for people who identify as, or are identified as, white.  Because of the dominant culture in which we live, whites "live and move and have their being," as it were, as part of a culture of white supremacy, whether or not they, themselves, are white supremacists.

Can You Be Anybody You Want to Be?

This is the text of the sermon I delivered on Sunday, February 19, 2017 with the congregation I serve, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian Universalist.  As always, you can listen to the podcast, but it should be noted that there were differences between the two services.  This, the sermon I preached at the second service, benefited from feedback I received after the first -- feedback which helped me to see that I had originally expressed my thoughts in a way which was less clear than I'd thought and, so, was easy to misinterpret my intent.  (Thank God for editors!)

We’ve been saying the same words of welcome to and with one another for several years now.  “Whoever you are, whomever you love, however you express your identity … you have a place here.  We all have a place here.  We all are welcome here.” 

At the end of this morning’s service we’re going to sing together Fred Small’s beautifully moving song, “Everything Possible”:

You can be anybody you want to be,
You can love whomever you will
You can travel any country where your heart leads
And know I will love you still

This song – which never fails to bring a whole lot of us to tears whenever we hear it – and our welcoming words express the sentiment that so many of us believe is the beating heart of our Unitarian Universalist faith – ours is a tradition in which everybody, anybody, is welcome.  All are welcome here.

But is that true?  Is everybody welcome here?  The classic challenge to this idea is asking whether a card-carrying, sheet-wearing member of the KKK would be truly welcomed into this community.  Just this past Friday night one of our members was talking to me about this very thing – he raised the question of whether someone who was wearing, with no sense of irony, a “Make America Great” tee shirt would find a warm welcome here. 

Just as our tradition is often incorrectly described as one in which, “you can believe anything you want to,” the idea that “everyone is welcome here,” is equally lovely sounding, and equally untrue.  I’ll come back in a moment to ask if we’d actually want it to be true, but first I want to look at some of the reasons it might be said so often.

The Unitarian and Universalist traditions – the “parents,” if you will, that gave birth to our modern Unitarian Universalist faith – have a long history of valuing and reaching out to traditionally marginalized communities.

One of the founders, in 1784, of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery was the Universalist Benjamin Rush, and in 1785, one of the signers of the founding compact of the first Universalist congregation in the United States – then called the Independent Christian Church and now known as the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church – was an African American man named Gloster Dalton.  Although our history also includes the Unitarian President Millard Fillmore, who in 1850 signed into law the odious “Fugitive Slave Act,” it also includes the Unitarian clergyman John Haynes Holmes, who was a founding member of NAACP.

Universalists Lydia Ann Jenkins and Olympia Brown were the first two ordained women in the United States whose ordination was recognized by a full denominational authority (in 1858 and 1863, respectively).   Suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are part of our Unitarian heritage, and although their focus on women’s rights came at the cost of attention to, and support of, the liberation of people of color, we also are descendants of people who understood the connections, such as Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Stone, and the Rev. Theodore Parker, a radical on women's rights and slavery, who often wrote his sermons with a handgun on his desk, ready if necessary to defend the lives of the runaway slaves who were staying that night in his cellar on their way to Canada and freedom.

Dorothea Dix, who was an early, and tireless, advocate for the rights of people with mental illness; Octavia Hill, who, was a pioneer in the areas of housing and education reform for the working class; and Lydia Maria Child who, among other things, was a proponent of Native American rights – they were all led to their convictions and their activism for social justice by their Unitarian faith.

In this century, the first ordained minister of a major religious group in the U.S. or Canada to come out as gay was UU Minister James Stoll in 1969.  (Although, to be completely transparent, after coming out he never again was called to serve a congregation.)  Unitarian Universalism was the first denomination to accept openly transgender people as full members with eligibility to become clergy, and in 1988 it was a Unitarian Universalist congregation that ordained the first openly transgender person in the United States.

Although our faith tradition, and those that preceded it, do not have a 100% sterling history, we have often been in the forefront of advocating for people who were marginalized and rejected by other faith communities, and by the wider US society.  Our Universalist ancestors avowed their belief in, “the supreme worth of every human personality,” a way of looking at and understanding the world which lives on, today, in the UUA’s first principle, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.”  The French fashion designer and oft-quoted figure Coco Channel famously said, “A girl should be two things:  who and what she wants.”  Our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors, and our present Unitarian Universalist tradition, would only disagree with the gender limitation in her sentiment.

“Whoever you are, whomever you love, however you express your identity … your presence here is a gift … we all are welcome here.”  “You can be anybody you want to be … and know I will love you still.”

This is one of the great gifts of our faith to the world.  I remember the day, going on twenty years ago now, that I received a call from a woman who wanted to know if I would officiate her wedding.  She wasn’t a member of our congregation, she wasn’t even a Unitarian Universalist, but she had been calling churches all morning to find one where she could be married to the love of her life.  As soon as they found out that the love of her life was also a woman, though, church after church hung up on her.  One even laughed before doing so.  When I told her that I’d be honored to celebrate their love, she wept.

It has been, and is still, often virtually impossible to simply, and freely, and openly be “who and what [you] want.”  Often it’s not even a matter of who you want to be.  Our multiple and intersecting identities are most often not a matter of choice – it’s who we are.  The only choice is whether or not to be open and out about it, and too often that’s not really all that much of a choice, either.  Simply put, it simply isn’t safe to simply be who we are in so many places.  We know, we’ve been taught, we’re reminded in ways both large and small, both implicit and explicit, that we can’t be both who and what we are, if who and what we are deviates in any way from the straight, white, cis-male, well-educated norm.

So it is, I believe, one of our missions in the world, as Unitarian Universalists, to create safe haven for those who have found themselves unsafe in so many other places.  If South African Archbishop Desmund Tutu is right that the religious community should be “an audio visual aid for the sake of the world,” showing the world how it could be, then it is one of our missions as a religious tradition to show the world that each and every “human personality,” each and every person is born with worth and dignity – whoever we are, whomever we love, however we express our identity.  The way the world should be is one in which each and every one of us is welcomed, and celebrated, for who we are … who we really and truly are.

And here’s the rub:  we can’t really be this welcoming place if “everybody’s welcome here.”  It is an paradox inherent within much liberal thought that “liberal” implies an expansiveness which includes everything.  If we’re really a liberal community, then everybody should be welcome here, right?  Even that non-ironic wearer of the Donald Trump tee shirt.  Right?

Well … no.  Not right.  At least, not necessarily.

I’ll bet some of you may be feeling your stomach knot up a bit when you heard me say that.  Maybe your heart’s beating a little more quickly, this is such a challenge to our usual self-understanding. Others may be feeling a sense of relief that we don’t have to wrestle with how to be welcoming to people that are hateful or those who are actively trying to hurt others.

You might be feeling all sorts of things, but check in with what you’re feeling when you hear me say that we absolutely should not even try to welcome everyone.  That we should, in fact, intentionally exclude some people.

One of the things that can be hard about being who and what you really are, is that it means being clear about who and what you’re not.  To really and truly, fully authentically be ourselves we have to resist the temptation to try to be everything to everyone.  This is true for individuals, it’s true for communities, it’s true for nations.

Look at our congregation and you can see how hard it is.  We want to be welcoming.  We think that means we should strive to be welcoming to everyone … no matter what.  But we can’t.  We shouldn’t even try.  We shouldn’t even want to.  Because there’s a reason not every place feels safe and welcoming to people who have traditionally been marginalized – because many places are full of the very people who have perpetuated and protected that marginalization. 

Do such people have “inherent worth and dignity?”  Of course.  They, too, descend from the stars and are intimately interrelated with all that is.  And there is a difference between a person and their behavior … their actions.  We could make this distinction to say that every one is welcome here, but not every kind of behavior is.

Still some people have so bonded their beliefs and their actions that they are indistinguishable.  With some people you can’t separate the to, and those people are not welcome here; those people should not be welcome here.  Because if we do extend our welcome to them, we’ll be closing it off to others.  (Or won’t feel themselves to be welcome, which is really the same thing.)

I know longer say, “all are welcome here.”  Instead, just about every Sunday I say, “We are a Unitarian Universalist congregation that welcomes all who welcome all.”  Semantics?  Perhaps.  But words matter, and thinking carefully about what you say and the impact your words may have is, itself, a step toward greater justice.  If we are to be true to our Unitarian Universalist principles and values, then we need to be a congregation that is sure enough about who we are what we stand for, that we can be equally clear about who we are not, and what we will not stand for.  Not everyone should be welcome here, because not every kind of behavior should be welcome here, and sometimes you just can’t discern a difference.  You can’t be anybody you want to be here, because there are some ways of being that are anathema to who we are, because we’re committed to being a safe and nurturing place for those for whom there are so few, a place where we can sing that song that for far too long was rarely sung, and rarely very loudly. 

If you have felt unwelcome because of who you are, whom you love, how you express your identity, your situation in life … if you wish to make this a community that strives to invite the uninvited … then we have a place here.  Ours is, ours needs to be, a community that welcomes all who welcome all.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

The Prophetic Role

This is the text of the sermon I delivered at the congregation I serve -- Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian Universalist.  As always, you can listen to it if you'd prefer.

“After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history.”  This description of a then still upcoming television program was published in a Scottish newspaper last week.  It continues, “Sci-fi writers have dabbled often with alternative history stories – among the most common is the ‘What If The Nazis Had Won The Second World War’ setting – but this huge interactive virtual reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press, and on Twitter over the next four years, sets out to build an ongoing alternative present. The story begins in a nightmarish version of 2017 in which huge sections of the US electorate have somehow been duped into voting to make Donald Trump president. It sounds far-fetched, and it is, but as it goes on it becomes more and more chillingly plausible. Today’s feature-length opener concentrates on the gaudy inauguration of President Trump, and the stirrings of protest and despair surrounding the ceremony, while pundits speculate gravely on what lies ahead. It’s a flawed piece, but a disturbing glimpse of the horrors we could stumble into, if we’re not careful.”

I checked it out.  This was actually published in Scotland’s Sunday Herald as its description of Friday’s coverage of the Inauguration.  “The story begins in a nightmarish version of 2017 …”

It was quite the weekend in DC, wasn’t it?  About a quarter of a million people gathered on the Washington Mall on Friday to see Donald J. Trump sworn in as the nation’s 45^th President.  On Saturday, an estimated half of a million women, children, and men – but mostly women – descended on DC to make their presence and their voices seen, heard, and felt.  Throughout the country, it’s been estimated that roughly 3-4 million people gathered in solidarity with what was once called “the Million Woman March.”  And initial, rough estimates says that nearly 30,000 people gathered in the more than 670 sister demonstrations around the world.  That … well … that’s a lot of people wanting to “speak truth to power,” a phrase that’s often identified as being of old Quaker origin but which seems to have actually been coined by civil rights leader Bayard Rustin.

We’ve been exploring this month what it means to be “a people of prophecy,” and, perhaps more specifically, what it would mean to say that our Unitarian Universalist faith calls on us – as congregations and as individuals – calls on us to be “a people of prophecy.”  The two busloads from our congregation who joined that gathered throng in DC, and the thousands of other UUs around the country, were living examples of at least part of the answer.

One way of understanding the word “prophecy,” of course, is to think about soothsayers and oracles, fortunetellers and clairvoyants.  That’s not how I’m using the word this morning.  Instead, I’m talking about “prophecy” as that thing those well-known prophets of the Jewish tradition were all about.  I’m talking about “prophecy” as, “speaking truth to power.”

The Talmud teaches that during the Biblical period there were hundreds of thousands of prophets: at least twice as many as the 600,000 who were said to have left Egypt.  For a variety of reasons, however, Jewish scripture only identifies 55 of them.  The majority, but not all of those remembered, were men – there are stories of seven female prophets.  And while that certainly isn’t it a lot, it’s worth noting that the Talmud reports that the prophetic ability of at least one of them, Sarah, was superior to that of her husband, Abraham.  God told Abraham to listen to his wife and to do whatever she told him to, and said that he did not “ennoble” her, but that she “ennobled” him.  Sarah would have brought Abraham to the March.

Gender identity aside, the prophets all spoke out for justice and against the injustices they saw in the society around them.  Amos, for instance, cried out because he saw that the wealthy and the powerful oppressed the poor and dispossessed while, at the same time, pretending to be religiously observant.  He said that the way those who had power treated those who did not was the measuring stick by which God would judge the whole nation.  “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; I take no delight in your assemblies. … But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

Hosea preached that the primary focus of God’s judgement was on the religious and secular leadership who willfully ignored God and deliberately abused those under their control.  And while both the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah were to pay the price for this, the people themselves, if they repented, would feel God’s mercy.  “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings"

Micah rebuked Israel because of dishonesty in the marketplace and corruption in government, and warned that when a nation’s leadership fails to set the right example for their society, the society will crumble.  “He has shown you, O human, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Over and over again the men and women the Jewish tradition remembers as prophets bravely lifted their voices to warn, to rebuke, to challenge.  They said, in essence, “the way things are is not the way things are supposed to be, and if things don’t change, there’s going to be hell to pay.” 

Cypress did some research for this morning, and came across the book What Manner of Man is the Prophet? written in by the Polish-born American rabbi Abraham Heschel.  Heschel was one of the leading Jewish theologians and philosophers of the 20th century, as well as a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.  In his book, Heschel identifies a number of characteristics of the Hebrew prophets.  Here are a few:

In and through the prophet’s words, the invisible God becomes audible.  The Hebrew word for prophet – navi – comes from the term niv sefatayim, which means “fruit of the lips.”  In his initiatory vision, the prophet Isaiah sees a seraphim take a live coal from the altar in the Temple and place it, burning, on his lips.  The prophet speaks for God – you could say that through the prophet the people heard God’s words in a human voice. 

It doesn’t really matter what word you use to describe this thing the Hebrew Scriptures call “God.”  Call it, “The Good,” or “Truth;” call it, “Justice,” or “Love,” or “Spirit of Life.”  The point here is that the prophet speaks for – and from – something larger than themselves.  It isn’t just an individual noting her or his preferences or personal biases.  When the prophet speaks, something larger is speaking.  When Ai-jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance; or Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of NETWORK Lobby; or Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother; or Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcolm X's Daughter; or Gloria Steinem; or Angela Davis – when these women spoke yesterday, it was not simply their voices that were heard.  Each of them – and all of the other speakers on the dais in DC, and those at rallies and marches around the country and the world – spoke for and from something larger than themselves.  The spoke on behalf of the three million women, children, and men who had gathered, of course, and the hundreds of thousands more who were there in spirit, yet they spoke on behalf of something even more than that.  Call it “Love,” call it “Justice,” call it “God” … call it what you will, but it was speaking in and through those human lips.

And like the prophets of old, these modern-day prophets challenged the whole country, not just those individuals or groups that might seem most at fault.  That’s another one of Heschel’s observations about the prophets of the Jewish tradition – they never said that society’s problems were simply the fault of “those other guys.”  You never heard a prophet in the Hebrew Scriptures warn of God’s judgement only on the “one percenters,” or the “fat cats on Wall Street.,”  or “the crooked media.”  Oh, they had no problem calling out the politically powerful and the wealthy elite for their behavior, or misbehavior.  Yet they were equally clear that when things got really bad – as they inevitably would – it was going to be everyone’s head.  Heschel says that the message of the prophets was that while “few are guilty; all are responsible.”  While few are guilty, all are responsible.

Drawing again on the rallies yesterday, no one was intended to take away the idea that “those people,” over there, the ones who voted for Trump, let’s say, or the ones who were, and are now, actively working with him, no one was saying that “those people” need to change their ways while the rest of us just go only living as we always have.  On the contrary, the hard truth of the prophetic imperative is that each of us is going to have to make some fundamental, and unvaryingly unwelcome, changes in the way we live.  We, together, all of us, have to change, have to do things differently, have to be different.  Heschel says that “the purpose of prophesy is to conquer callousness, to change the inner person as well as to revolutionize history.”  It’s not just “them,” it’s “us” too.  Because, of course, ultimately there is no “us” and “them.”  “We” is all there really is.

There is one other aspect which Heschel says is common to all of the Biblical prophets – besides the fact that it seems like an awful job – is that while their message begins with a message of doom, but ends with a message of hope.  “the way things are is not the way things are supposed to be, and if things don’t change, there’s going to be hell to pay.”  That’s how it begins.  Invariably, though, the prophet then says, “but things can change.  Things don’t have to continue being the way things are right now.  Instead of descending into hell, we can, together, create heaven on earth.”

Those 3 million women, children, and men – cis, trans, and other – did not gather in cities and towns from Abaline to Zebulon did not come together to declare, “We give up.  We’ve lost.  We have been overcome.”  Quite the contrary.  They said, “We’re not gonna take it.  We will not be silenced.  We will not be cowed.  We will change the way things are into the way they should be.”

To say that we Unitarian Universalists are called to be “a people of prophecy” is to say that it is our faith’s mission to affirm and promote, to advocate for, to work for the principles we hold so dear:

·         The Inherent worth and dignity of every person;

·         Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

·         Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

·         [The] free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

·         The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

·         The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

·         Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

As “a people of prophecy” we add our voices to all those prophetic voices – past, present, and into the future – who will not stop until justice rolls on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream.

Pax tecum,

RevWik