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| Congregants celebrate with raised arms |
5002 Sunday Worship
Sponsor: Office of the President, UUA
Speakers: Rev. William Sinkford, Rev. Gail Geisenhainer,
Rev. Jane Rzepka,
Beth Norton
Welcome and introduction to the Offering
Morning has come, Sunday has come, and on behalf of Unitarian Universalist congregations everywhere, I welcome you.
If you are new to Unitarian Universalism and are visiting with us this morning, a special welcome. Please know that whoever you are, we are glad you are here—it's as simple as that.
Most of the rest of you came a long way to get here last week, and you have made it right on through to Sunday. So not only do I welcome you, I congratulate you!
You are not alone in your determination to get here and to be here in St. Louis in the service of our religion: Abby Adams Cranch Eliot made her own trip to St. Louis to further the movement—20 years old, a new bride, wife to the new Unitarian minister. The year was 1837. She writes in her journal that she was nearly shaken to pieces on the new steam railroad, which got her from Washington to Philadelphia . On to the Erie Canal, Buffalo, another steamer to Cleveland . Another canal—the way was blocked—so into a broken-down stage coach (nine people packed into it in the rain and the dark). All night long to Cincinnati in time to catch a boat for St. Louis . They are two weeks on the river what with the water so low and the sand bars, and they run out of food, but for the stale crackers. You get the picture. Weeks after setting out she finally arrives—she arrives to find a warm welcome here in St. Louis . And for the next 71 years she pitches in to support the people of this town. She lives her religion.
And that's what we'll do too. Our journey was easier than Abby Eliot's, and for most of us, the stay far shorter. But, like her, we can live our religion during our time here. And so our morning offering will benefit St. Louis 's "Lift for Life" program that supports athletics for inner city youth. You can make checks out to Lift for Life.
With that opportunity I welcome you to worship in the ways of Unitarian Universalism, in our sure knowledge that wherever we are, we feel a connection. We are one.
(To be followed by the Choir singing "We Are One" by Brian Tate)
1st reading
Written by Lewis B. Fisher, Universalist minister, Dean of Ryder Divinity School, author of Which Way? A Study of Universalist and Universalism, Boston, 1921, 9-11.
Universalists, [writes LB Fisher in 1921,] Universalists are often asked to tell where they stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all, we move. Or we are asked to state our position. Again we can only answer that we are on the march.
We do not stand still, nor do we defend any immovable positions, theologically speaking. We grow and we march, as all living things forever must do. The main questions with Universalists are not where we stand but which way we are moving, not what positions we defend but which way we are marching. Our main interest is to perceive what is true progress, and to keep our movements in line with that, and not to allow ourselves to move round and round in circles, like a squirrel in its cage.
[Religious] words and phrases take on new meanings, and therefore need new definitions, in each succeeding age. Nothing is clearer than the fact that the old definitions do not meet the needs of the new day, or that the old theologies do not function for the new occasions. Our worn phrases are always losing their old meanings, and must forever be finding new meanings in the light of new experiences.
What may probably be more disturbing to minds that tend to inertia, which are dreading changes, and stoutly demanding final and authoritative statements and definitions, is that they will never get what they want in this or in any other possible world. No human word has ever reached or ever will reach finality of meaning. Each living age always has defined religion in the light of its own experiences, and all ages to come will do the same.
[We are often asked to tell where [we] stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all, we move.
Ernest Cassara, Universalism in America, pp. 253-4
2nd reading
From Anne Lamott's Plan B
p. 316-319
We had shown up [at the Peace March], writes Anne Lamott, not knowing what else to do, and without much hope. This was like going on a huge picnic at the edge of the fog, hoping you would walk through to something warmer. The mantra you could hear in our voices and our footsteps was "I have a good feeling!" The undermutter was silent, spoken with a sort of shrug — "What good will it do to do nothing?"
The barricades were broken down for once, between races, colors, ages, sexes, classes, nations. There are so few opportunities for this to happen — uou're shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people, a massive crowd gathered once again on sacred ground. The energy and signs and faces of the crowd were an intoxicating balm, and by some marvelous yogic stretch, we all stopped trying to figure out whom and what we agreed with, and who the bad elements were. You just had to let go, because Market Street was wide enough for us all, and we began to march, each a small part of one big body, fascinatingly out of control, like protoplasm bobbing along.
The sea of people looked like a great heartbroken circus, wild living art, motley and stylish, old and young, people from unions and churches and temples, aging hippies and veterans strewn together on the asphalt lawn of Market Street. We took small shuffle steps. It was like being on a conveyer belt, over-whelming and scary. It's disturbing to not walk with your usual gait, to move at once so slowly and with such purpose. I felt I was trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time.
The "I" turned into "we." You shuffled along with your friends, moving at the pace of the whole organization, moving to the heartbeat of the percussion. You saw people you knew, and hung out awhile, and then they moved away, and new people fell in step beside you, and offered you comments and gum. Whoever came along came along. The goodwill gave you a feeling of safety in this mob, a fizzy euphoria despite the grim reality of these times.
There was a lot of volition; you were swept along, but the crowd had a self-correcting mechanism—it kept letting go of what wasn't quite right, the more raw, angry elements, the strident and divisive. It was a Golden Rule parade with goodness, and tender respect, and this held the peace. I saw only friendliness, sorrow, goodness, and great theater.
You rub shoulders, smell the bodies and the babies and everyone's streaming past, including you. For once, you're part of the stream, and in that, in being part of it, you smell the pungent green shoots of hope. The feeling may be only for the moment. But it's a quantum moment: it might happen again, and spread and spread and spread; and for a moment and then another, there's no judgment, no figuring out, just an ebullient trudge, step, step, step.
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