Recalled to Ministry
Sermon by Steve Edington
September 17, 2006
Last Sunday I offered a very brief recounting of my summer travels, built around the theme of the rivers I passed by, or over, before rejoining with you here on the banks of our own Nashua River. I made a passing reference to a trip to Texas, following the UU General Assembly in St. Louis for a visit with some family I have there. I'll go back to Texas for openers today and tell you about a stop-off I made for a few hours en-route to my sister and brother-in-law's home. After flying from St. Louis to Dallas I got me a car and headed south to Waco and then turned west to the town of Crawford. Crawford is more like a hamlet really - a very small Texas town. It is an amazingly hot place in late June. Several miles-quite a few miles actually-outside of Crawford, as many of you know, is the ranch where President Bush maintains his Texas residence and where he usually spends a few weeks every summer. I can tell you that there's not much to see of the ranch from the little country road that goes by it, other than the seemingly endless open space that is typical of that part of the country.
But I didn't go to Crawford to look at a ranch anyway, be it the President's or anyone else's. I went there to pay a short visit to a very modest little establishment called the Crawford Peace House. Before learning more about this place via its website I had mistakenly thought it had been established in response to the peace vigil Cindy Sheehan held near the Bush Ranch back in the summer of 2005. I was wrong. Although Ms. Sheehan did spend some time there on her way to what she called "Camp Casey" in the summer of '05, the Peace House was purchased clear back in the spring of 2003 when our invasion of Iraq was imminent. At that time some peace activists folks in Austin got enough money together for a down payment on this little non-descript house on a non-descript street in a non-descript Texas town - non-descript except for the fact that the President of the United States has his own not so non-descript place several miles out of town.
Those who purchased the house and then continued to raise the funds needed to fix it up and keep up the payments on it felt it was important to maintain what they call a "moral witness" in the face of the Iraqi war and the powers that be who initiated it. This moral witness clearly has a political angle to it, but it is not one I intend to develop this morning. For those who want to have some conversation with me about this trip I'll be in the Fellowship Room at 7:00 p.m. this evening, complete with a brief slide show of my afternoon in Crawford. I'd like to follow the "picture show" up with a conversation about how to best be an advocate for peace, particularly after some of the events of the past summer. I just have a few more things to add about this visit for now.
I had e-mailed ahead to the people who staff this House on a very limited basis saying when I planned to arrive. But I showed up earlier than I'd planned. So I just sat on the porch for a while, and then braved the heat long enough to walk through a labyrinth with a peace pole at its center in the side yard. Eventually a couple of women did arrive and let me in and showed me around, and told me about some of the activities that are held there from time to time - rallies, concerts, programs, and the like. I was struck by the number of religious and spiritually oriented symbols and sayings on the walls of this house. It had something of the flavor of a religious retreat center, while, as I just said, it also has a decidedly political tone to it.
But the thing that stayed with me as I drove on to my next destination, heading into a Texas sunset as it were, was the overall image I was left with more so than any one thing I'd specifically seen or heard. It was the image of this one little ol' building, this small outpost as it were, just sitting there and making its statement and maintaining its presence a few miles away from what is - at least at times - the center or focus of the greatest assemblage of power and might in the world. And putting all the accompanying political issues on the back burner for a moment - if we can - I also decided that that little house served as a pretty good metaphor for the place and standing of liberal religion in the larger society and culture we inhabit at the present time.
This is not exactly late breaking news, but we are in the midst, and have been for some time, of a very conservative and evangelical religious surge in this country. I don't decry that altogether, incidentally. I've found I have common ground on certain issues and causes with evangelical Christians, attempting to alleviate hunger being one of them. This past Thursday we hosted a dinner in our dining room for the recruiters for the upcoming CROP Walk to help cure, if even in some small way, world hunger. Local faith communities clear across the religious spectrum were represented and I'm happy to make common cause with them on an issue where we have the same sentiments. When I took on the Presidency of the Nashua Area Interfaith Council I knew it would mean working on certain projects with persons whose opinion I did not share on a variety of religious and social issues, but with whom I could find common ground on others. When I agreed to take this office my primary question was not can I work with a wide range of religious opinion and belief - but rather do they really want me; which I guess they did.
But I still find a number of aspects of this right wing religious surge quite troubling, and I'll speak to this in more detail next week when we look at the question of "Are We a Theocracy?" [Short answer: No we're not, but we do tend to behave like one.] So, to get back on track, given the larger religious climate in the country right now I got this image or metaphor, as I left Crawford, of Unitarian Universalism as a little house by the road, sitting there in the looming presence of vastly greater, and ostensibly much more powerful, forms and expressions of religion as it interacts with the culture we're a part of.
I confess to being uneasy with such a metaphor even as I use it. I do not mean to imply by it that we are powerless or insignificant. I do not believe we are. What I mean to say instead is that there is a certain power to be had in simply maintaining a presence, and in keeping faith with the values and principles one holds and shares with like-minded folk - however at variance they may be, or seem to be, with the surrounding climate.
This is the kind of power a physically short-of-stature woman like Rosa Parks demonstrated and unleashed when she simply sat down near the front of a bus. It is the kind of power Nelson Mandela exhibited during those 27 years he sat in a jail cell on Robben Island. It is the kind of power the ordinary and unarmed citizens of East Berlin demonstrated as they stood at the Berlin Wall just before it literally collapsed. In each of these cases the power and presence of an idea, and of those willing to stand for it, overcame seemingly overwhelming odds. I speak then of the power of presence; the power of simply showing up; the power of being; and the power of ideas and ideals. This is the kind of power Mahatma Gandhi spoke about when he told his followers, "All that you do may seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it anyway."
Well, I'm not going to predict that we here are going to be the instigators of such momentous happenings as the ones I've just cited. But I would like us to turn our attention now to some of the things I think it means for us to maintain the presence of an idea, and of liberal religious, Unitarian Universalist, community and congregation in this wider community of Nashua, and in the even larger community that extends beyond it to ultimately encompass the world in which we live and move and interact. I do believe our very presence can carry a power of its own if we keep faith in upholding it. And in this upcoming church year that is now before us I'd like for us to think of our maintaining that presence as our shared ministry.
In our Free Church, and liberal Protestant, tradition ministry is far more than what an ordained member of the clergy does for his or her congregation. To be sure, as your called minister of over 18 years I have my designated responsibilities, which I take quite seriously, and to which I recommit myself as each church year gets underway. But ministry, in its best and deepest sense is what happens in the interplay between the minister and the congregation, as well as in the interplay, in the dance to use some of Ric Masten's language, between and among the members themselves. Ministry is what we do together - for ourselves, for the growth and well-being of our congregation, and for the greater human community beyond our walls. To come together at the onset of another church year is truly to be re-called to ministry.
Here in our own house by the road we are recalled, first of all, to our ministry with one another. One of the questions I'm occasionally asked when I speak to inquirers about, or challengers to, Unitarian Universalism is "well, if you believe that each individual has to seek truth and meaning for themselves then what's the point of even having a religious community where certain beliefs are held in common?" My answer to that is a line from an old "Shoe" comic strip, which I know I've used before, where one of the characters says, "I've been thinking about it for some time and I've decided it's hard to be an individual all by yourself." Or, as the novelist and essayist Kurt Vonnegut once put it, "One human being is no human being."
We are recalled, then, to this place and to this house and home, to be in ministry with one another in our journeys of the spirit, in our searches for greater levels and depths of truth and meaning in our lives, in our pursuit of the holy, the sacred, and the transcendent - however we wish and choose to name it - in each of our lives. Yes, you can do all that on your own. There are times when the only person we need and want to be with is our own singular self. But I am convinced that the spiritual path, and the path of discovery and meaning, takes on more depth, and is also just plain more fun, when it is a shared one.
This fall we have put a series of programs in place - thanks in large measure to the work of Barbara Berrios - called Food for Thought Thursdays. It is an opportunity for all who take part to first share a meal together, and then move into smaller groups that are focused on a variety of topics where in your can share and interact with others. There's more information about this in Coffee Hour. I hope as many of you as can will join us this Thursday evening. Also this week I'll be meeting with the leaders of our Covenant Group program to take stock of who we have taking part in it, and how we can bring in more persons. These are groups that meet monthly to share personal joys and concerns as well as thoughts and ideas around a designated topic. Information about this program and an opportunity to sign up for it is available on our newcomers table.
Another part of our ministry with one another is to care for one another as we attend to the times in our lives that call for celebration - as well as when we need the comfort and compassion of one another in times of loss and sorrow. Our ministry, then, is about how we take care of each other; and I've felt tremendously blessed over my years with you as I've witnessed the many ways in which our members and friends reach out to one another when the need for loving human hands and hearts comes to us, as it so often does.
Another thing that calls us back to our house by the road are the deep yearnings that come from our hearts and minds and souls and spirits. We come needing to be connected to one another and connected to that Larger Reality, that Greater Spirit of Life that enfolds and blesses us all. We come back to our house and home seeking a safe and trustworthy place where lives can be freely shared, where fears can be faced and examined, where our souls are fed and nurtured, and where our lives - in both their wholeness and their brokenness - are affirmed.
We also look to this house and home to be a supportive standpoint from which we may address our concerns and hopes for our larger world; to be a supportive standpoint from which we may be advocates for justice and peace, and for a safe and saner world. Such a standpoint does not require unanimity of opinion as to how these things are to be accomplished, but it does call for a common commitment to work towards their fruition in this ministry in which we share. Looking ahead a bit in this regard, on October 15 I will be sharing this service with some of the members of our Social Justice Committee as together we'll looking at some of the more specific ways we hope, as a congregation, we can continue to advance our second Unitarian Universalist principle of promoting "justice, equity, and compassion in human relations."
I have one more thought for today on the theme of maintaining a presence. On this Sunday five years ago we gathered in this house of worship, as did our fellow citizens in houses of worship across this land, in the aftershock of the attacks on the previous September 11. The events of that terrifying day have been recalled in a number of ways this past week.
I don't generally make a practice of quoting myself, but I want to recall a few of the words I spoke from this pulpit on the Sunday of September 16, 2001: "We know that grief, shock, pain, and bewilderment, especially in the face of horrific loss, in time give way to anger. It would be almost inhuman not to feel anger after such a devastating attack of terrorism. But where do we go with it? This is the challenge before us. It is a challenge unique to any other we as a nation have had to face. As we weep for our dead and for those emotionally scarred by death; as we begin to clear the rubble; as we confront our newly felt sense of vulnerability; where do we go with our anger?"
We've now had five years to answer that question of "Where do we go with our anger?" and five years to face the challenge of we handle what I called on that day "our newly felt sense of vulnerability." From where I stand and observe - and that's all I'm speaking to at this moment - much of that response has been far more troubling, and personally saddening, than it has been hopeful or ennobling. In saying that I take nothing away from the tremendous acts of courage and self-sacrifice that were exhibited five years ago this week - and that are still rightfully recalled and honored.
But we also turned our anger - cynically manipulated anger I would maintain - on a country that, while despotically ruled to be sure, had done us no harm. As a result of this we now find ourselves in a terrible morass half way around the world, and terribly and sadly divided among ourselves here in our part of the world. That newly felt sense of vulnerability - which was and is as real as our very lives - has also, I would maintain, been cynically manipulated placing us a climate of fear and mistrust that we have rarely known and experienced in our history as a nation. I remain convinced that we can take the prudent measures that are required to give us the acceptable degree of security any nation needs in order to be about its civic life without having to fear fear itself. These are subjects for more conversation on other days.
So in these days I continue and strive to be a person of faith - faith in the power of hope and trust over fear, and faith in that long arc of the universe which Martin Luther King spoke of as "bending towards justice."
Most of all, I continue to believe in the power of presence - the idea and theme with which I began these remarks. As we move into this year I ask you to join with me, sharing in this liberal religious ministry, and being a vital presence - a presence for one another, and presence for the values and principles we hold dear.
Let us open our eyes and ears and hearts to one another, and to the peoples of this earth which is our home.
Stephen Edington
September 17, 2006
