Sermon Transcript

Your Mission, Should You Chooose to Accept It
November 1 sermon by Rev. Roberta Finkelstein

“Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” Those words, from the Gathering Call back in August, capture the essence of the question before you in this in-between year. They were the first words I heard and sang with you when we began our year of interim ministry together; a year that is already one-quarter finished. Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? In order to thrive, or even just to survive, you will need to know the answers to those questions, the bid idea questions.

Every religion across the globe began, in some sense, with a big idea. it may have come from a charismatic leader like Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed; it may have been expressed first in written form or in oratory. It takes a big idea, or a set of big ideas, to capture the imagination of a group of people who then set out to structure their lives in faith around it. In other words, the mark of a successful, thriving community of faith, in any denomination, is that they in some tangible way incarnate those ideas that looked and sounded so compelling that they transformed the lives of the people who heard them. The incarnation was not a onetime event in one religious tradition. Incarnation is simply the embodiment, in any faith and at any time, of the Big Ideas.

Organizational development experts call these the governing ideas of an organization. Governing ideas answer three basic questions. The first is “What?” As in, “What is the big picture of the future we are trying to arrive at together, what is our vision?” One a meta-level Unitarian Universalists have always had a vision of a radically inclusive, radically free religious community. That vision first emerged during the Radical Reformation and it has carried liberal religion forward and across the globe ever since. Like our theological ancestors, we Unitarian Universalists today structure our lives in faith around what is called a realized vision; that is, instead of projecting our aspirations onto what we hope will happen in the after-life, in another “better” place, we build our faith on the assumption that IT – salvation, ultimacy, call-it-what-you-will – is happening right here and now. In formal theological terms – realized eschatology. Eschatology deals with the end times. A realized eschatology says that the end-time is already here. We are living it. So make the best of it, and live it as rightly as you can.

The second question in our set of governing ideas is “Why?” As in, “Why does this congregation exist? Why bother? What is our reason for being, what larger sense of purpose do we bring to even the most mundane tasks of creating and sustaining our church? What is our mission?” Mission is outward looking; as a people who have affirmed that we believe it is a tenet of our faith to bring about heaven here on earth, we are required to think beyond our own immediate needs and embrace the needs of a hurting world, of people hungry for the good news that right here and right now we can create communities that allow us to find our better selves. What better definition of salvation? A realized eschatology leads inevitably to a sense of mission that impels us to find ways to contribute to the world in a unique way, to make a difference, to bring value to the lives of others. I will come back to mission in a moment.

The third question is “How?” “How do we want to be, to act, what qualities of community do we wish to embody, day to day, as we live out our mission and reach towards our vision? What is our covenant?” Years ago a staffer in the Extension Department of the Unitarian Universalist Association wrote, “Covenant is the central unifying promise or commitment that binds a religious community together in voluntary loyalty. It grows from an affirmation of shared needs, values, purposes, and principles. As such it is rooted in the past, in the tradition of the congregation, and reflects the embodiment of the promise through history. It is a promise made in the present, with implications for the future.”Vision, mission, and covenant, taken together, confer identity. A congregation with a clearly understood and articulated identity is one that enjoys communal health, is able to grow and change and adapt to new circumstances. A well-differentiated identity inoculates a congregation against toxic behavior that might otherwise threaten it. A well-differentiated identity allows the leaders and members of a congregation to articulate expectations of membership, it evokes a sense of commitment rather than entitlement, it is the foundation upon which a healthy path to the future can be built. ”The congregation of the future is one that will recognize the unique ability of the church to radically alter a person’s worldview, and help people realize they are no longer the people they had once been.

Too often we view Unitarian Universalist churches as safe havens, places of comfort that are perceived as a final destination rather than a port of embarkation.” Those words come from Michael Durall’s book – The Almost Church. And they express exactly what I believe the church should be – a place where you come to experience transformation, to grow in mind and spirit, to be challenged. Not to stay the same, not to find ‘like minded people’ who will never disagree with you, not to be complacent. ”Unitarian Universalism has a proud history and tradition,” Durall goes on to say. “One with its saints and martyrs. But what are our churches called to do in this place and time? The primary purpose of the church is to create a community of compassion. All else flows from this. Unitarian Universalist churches should call their members to lead lives of dedication and commitment – lives not just of success, but also of service, and when called upon, sacrifice.” I want to repeat that last phrase. Unitarian Universalist churches should call their members to lead lives of dedication and commitment – lives not just of success, but also of service, and when called upon, sacrifice. And on the very next page, Michael Durall says, Unitarian Universalism should be creating churches that make the world a more just, safe, and equitable place. This goal will not be accomplished if church leaders believe that their primary role is to accommodate the people who are already there. I have made the recommendation to numerous congregations that they discontinue the annual ’satisfaction’ surveys. Our churches should not be in the satisfaction business. More important issues are at stake.” Preach it brother!

So the real identity question then, is not “What can we do for you?” The real question you should be asking yourselves is, “What claim does membership in this church make on each of us? How do we call each other to lives of commitment, dedication, generosity, service, and sacrifice?” (Barry starts theme song from Mission Impossible) Remember Mission Impossible? Not the recent movie, but the old TV show? Every episode started with a taped message from the Director. “Good morning Mr. Phelps. We live in world torn asunder by greed and fear. Every morning in this very community, children go to school hungry because parents working for minimum wage cannot afford to care for their families. Young adolescents recognizing their emerging sexual orientations take their own lives because they cannot bear the scorn of their peers. Men and women lead lives of quiet desperation because they don’t think that there is a faith community that will offer them a place to question the truths that they were told were unquestionable. Creative voices are stilled because they haven’t found a place where their diverse musical or artistic passions can find free expression. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to incarnate the yearnings of all those hurting people. It is to create a community of faith that provides inspiration by empowering our children and youth, honoring mother earth, embracing the music, and sharing our good news. Should any member of your congregation be caught, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.”

Here’s what I want you to know about your mission. Last month you saw the culmination of a year long process of discernment when you voted on your mission priorities. That vote, though the end of one process, was not, or at least it should not be, the end but the beginning. In a sense you could say that vote was akin to Mr. Phelps receiving a new tape. Only the tape, in your case, didn’t come from some mysterious Directorate. It came from you. You sent yourselves the tape that lays out your mission. But you still have to do what Mr. Phelps and his merry band did after they listened. Your mission, it started out, should you choose to accept it. You now have to accept it, you have to take it on as a mandate. Those mission priorities will now make demands on your time and talent and treasure. They will, if you take them seriously enough, shake up your life, drain your coffers, change the way you live your faith lives. If those mission priorities become one more pretty document gathering dust on a shelf, if you choose not to accept the opportunity and the inconvenience and the possible danger they represent, then the Secretary will be very disappointed.

Last week Dick Gilbert posed the oft asked question, “If Unitarian Universalism were against the law, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” You laughed, but behind the laughter lie some very serious questions. “Am I really and truly living out my faith, do I incarnate the principles of UUism? Have I done anything this week that the Secretary would have to avow? Could they throw me to the lions?”  In July of 1847 Henry David Thoreau was arrested for refusing to pay a poll tax, expressing both his opposition to slavery and the Mexican American war. He spent one night in jail. His friend Ralph Waldo Emerson thought he was being silly and when he visited him in jail asked, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” to which Thoreau is reported to have replied, “Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?”Even more pressing from this interim minister’s point of view than the individual question is the corporate question. “Does this congregation really and truly live out your shared faith, do you, together, incarnate those principles? Does central Florida recognize you for the radically inclusive and radically engaged congregation that you envision yourselves to be? And if not, what are you waiting for?”

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“Building the World We Dream About . . . Together” by Rev. Roberta Finkelstein

In 1648 the Puritans of Massachusetts wrote The Cambridge Platform, a document designed to settle differences among the local congregations in the New World.  This document established the principle of congregationalism, the belief that the best and most biblically faithful form of church governance recognizes the sovereignty and importance of the local congregation. It also reaffirmed the importance of the relationship between local congregations. UU historian Conrad Wright, in his book Walking Together, pointed out that “congregationalism meant, and should still mean, not the autonomy of the local church, but the community of autonomous churches.”

The Cambridge Platform named six ways that autonomous congregations could and should be in right relationship to each other.The first is care. As congregations in covenant with each other, we are called to care about each other. What does this mean? When a congregation builds and dedicates a new building others join them in celebration. If a congregation has a need for outside ministerial intervention, you willingly loan your minister without begrudging the time. Care could be as simple an act as reading another church’s newsletter.  It is being aware that other UU congregations are on the path with us – struggling as we sometimes struggle, succeeding as we sometimes succeed, failing as we sometimes fail. Care is inviting the closest UU congregation down the road to a special Thanksgiving Seder, and considering the very sensible proposal that our two congregations could jointly sponsor a Youth Con.

Second on the Puritan list is consultation; an easier concept for us moderns to understand. When one of your leaders posts a question to the UUA leaders list asking for advice or offering suggestions, that is consultation. Consultation simply means sharing experience, good or bad. Of course the Puritans didn’t have the internet, so their consultation was likely to be by horseback. But the process and the results are the same: instead of reinventing wheels, local congregations learn from each other, benefit from sometimes painful lessons learned rather than having to feel the pain themselves, and build on the strengths of others.

Next comes admonition. Here’s a tough one. Back in the 1600’s this was a form of church discipline. If a congregation drifted away from the mutual covenant or found itself embroiled in a conflict, members of a neighboring congregation would get on their horses, ride over, and try to sort things out.  Sometimes they read the erring folks the riot act. They would say, in effect, “What you are doing makes us all look bad. Cut it out!”  I would be so bold as to say that we could benefit from reviving this aspect of the old covenant on occasion. When a UU congregation engages in unhealthy behavior, it does damage to all of us. In the name of congregational polity, we have decreed that every congregation is free to do whatever it wishes – nobody can tell any local congregation what to do. But every once in a while, somebody ought to tell a particular congregation that what they are doing is unhealthy, unwise, and unwelcome. If we got into the habit of admonishing each other in love, if we recognized the need for mutual accountability, we could call each other to order when our internal processes became disorderly.  Years ago at a retreat a former District Executive, Rev. Pat Carol, reminded those gathered colleagues that this admonition function died with the advent of paved roads. Once travel became easy and affordable, a troubled church could bring in an outside expert from far away, rather than depending on a nearby neighbor to hold up the mirror. I think we lost something in that innovation – something in the realm of mutuality and courage and a willingness to remind each other what we really stand for and what really matters to all of us together.

Fourth is participation – which is all about showing up. Showing up at District and Cluster meetings, showing up at ordinations and installations, showing up at fund raisers, at public events such as one congregation sponsoring an outside speaker, a workshop, or some other educational forum. We are certainly hoping for the participation of UU’s other than our own members in the Dick Gilbert workshop on Saturday. Participation is the way we demonstrate our understanding that the UU world is larger than the walls of our beloved local congregation, and that it is beneficial, and even fun, to get out there and sample what other have to offer.

Recommendation is the next on the list; an odd one that perhaps represents an historical artifact. At one time, before there was such a thing as the Ministerial Fellowship Committee and other such gate keepers, the only way for a congregation to know the qualifications of a potential minister was to depend upon the recommendation of another church. Most ministers were sons or daughters of a local congregation, received their call out of their home church, then set off to get whatever education and experience they needed before seeking a settlement. One of their most important credentials was the recommendation of the church that gave them birth. The process required that congregations speak the truth in love.  I wonder if our current system leaves the local congregation too much out of the loop. When somebody feels called to the ministry, who better to recognize and affirm that call than the congregation that has nurtured them?  Congregations need to get back into the business of recommendation – by which I mean paying attention to the people in your ranks who might make good ministers, encouraging them, supporting them in various ways including financial assistance for seminary, and then sending them off to serve. I offered my first sermon in a summer service at the UU Church of Arlington, VA. It was the tradition that in the summertime, committee chairs be given the opportunity to fill the pulpit. I was, at the time, co-chairing along with Barry the Social Concerns committee. My sermon was not about the work of our committee; it was about the theology of caring from the perspective of a nurse, mother, and activist. Afterwards one of the church elders sought me out and said, “Have you ever considered seminary?” It had been a secret thought in the back of my mind, always dismissed as absurd. But when that man asked me about it, he gave me permission to consider it seriously. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The final item from the Cambridge Platform is relief.  Again, this harkens back to a time when churches took their responsibility to each other seriously. But we still have opportunities to offer each other relief. Among ministers, there is an agreement to fill the pulpit of a colleague on sabbatical, on the assumption that when your turn comes, colleagues will do the same for you, thus sparing the church the expense of paying for guest speakers.  When a congregation is in search, nearby churches offer their pulpits on a Sunday morning for a neutral try-out for potential candidates. All of us have received the requests to assist the UU churches in New Orleans still struggling to overcome the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Although some of the language of the Cambridge Platform sounds quaint and outdated, it was still a very wise document, recognizing something that some of us in modern times have lost sight of – that the way of the rugged individualist is not the richest or deepest or healthiest way to carve a religious path. We might use different words – instead of participation or admonishment we might talk about renewal of energy, affirmation, synergy. Those of us who venture out into the larger UU world know that the benefits of these lateral relationships among our local congregations are many. One contemporary benefit to being laterally connected, one that the Puritans probably didn’t think of, came to mind as I read a book by George Rupp. Rupp, a sociologist of religion, says in Commitment and Community, that “the process of interaction among communities may be especially influential as it serves to intensify the self-consciousness of minority or even submerged tendencies in a tradition.” In other words, getting outside your comfort zone may enhance your ability to create a truly diverse and multicultural faith community.

Today is Association Sunday; a day when we celebrate our lateral relationships. You have heard about our partner church in Massachusetts, another congregation experiencing interim ministry after a long and successful settlement. You have heard about our children’s participation with other UU children across Florida in the Florida UU Service Committee Human Rights project. In a few moments I will be asking you to make a tangible contribution to Association Sunday in the form of a financial donation to the special Association Sunday fund.  According to the Unitarian Universalist Association, “The programs that Association Sunday 2009 will fund were determined through a historic collaboration between over 1,000 Unitarian Universalists who responded to an online survey, the Rev. Bill Sinkford, former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and the two then-candidates for the UUA presidency, Rev. Laurel Hallman and Rev. Peter Morales.

As a result, your contributions this morning will help develop spiritual communities that are more effective and welcoming to ALL people by: (1)expanding the Building the World We Dream About curriculum, which enables us to effectively examine and address racism; (2)supporting congregations that are working to create a Unitarian Universalism that is racially, culturally, and economically diverse by providing a DVD of the Multiculturalism track at UU University at GA09 for congregational use, assisting congregations that call a minister or intern of color, offering an annual retreat for religious professionals of color and a monthly supportive conference call for seminarians of color; and (3) enabling UU congregations and districts to minister effectively to youth and young adults who identify as people of color or multiracial, and to their families, in the areas of spiritual development, racial/cultural identity development, and leadership development through organizing regional gatherings for youth of color and chaplaincy training for young adults of color for ministry to youth of color.

“By participating in Association Sunday we make ourselves one with other UU congregations who have made the decision to walk together into a more diverse and multicultural future. In other words, by pooling our resources with those of so many other UU congregations, we are exercising more power than any one congregation could have working alone. James Luther Adams says that congregational polity is a radical dispersion of power. And let’s face it – religious institutions can be powerful shapers of culture and social policy. The Emperor Constantine knew that when he converted to Christianity and created the Holy Roman Empire, a tactical move that worked out quite well for quite a while. Our religious forebears in the left-wing of the Protestant Reformation knew about power also. The Anabaptists developed a radical doctrine of the church, and a radical concept of the relationship of church to state. They proposed a believers church made up of adults gathered voluntarily by their like-minded approach to religion. They insisted that only those who had carefully considered their faith and been touched by their personal and unmediated relationship to God could be part of a pure church. Not only did this threaten the common assumption that the religion of the ruler should be the religion of the ruled, it threatened the assumption that the religion of the father should be the religion of the children.  Radical freedom indeed!

Understand that the freedom all of you enjoy – the right to choose your own faith, to practice it without fear, to be part of an open conversation about a budget, to go to General Assembly and vote for the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, to ordain or call or dismiss a minister – all of this freedom comes from that one simple principle called congregational polity that dispersed the power of Unitarian Universalism so widely. And understand further that people for centuries died in defense of that principle so that we could enjoy it unencumbered.

It is sometimes hard to appreciate what it is you have when you have never done without it. Remember the wonderful picture in Life magazine taken at the first free election in South Africa? A picture of a line four miles long of black South Africans standing and waiting patiently to vote?  Those people understood the cost of that radical exercise of power – and they expressed their gratitude by exercising it, no matter how long it took or how inconvenient it was. Sometimes we forget. We take congregational polity for granted. We forget that it is an act of faith to send delegates to General Assembly and to District meetings. This past year you made a painful decision not to be Fair Share contributors to the UUA and the District. This special Association Sunday collection is an opportunity to redeem yourselves in part. How will we build the world we dream about? By working together, walking together, developing and nurturing lateral relationships among our UU congregations we can come closer to fulfilling our fondest hopes for our movement. We can intentionally create the kinds of relationships that allow us to realize the ideal that was first articulated centuries ago in the Cambridge Platform:  the community of autonomous congregations.

How are we going to take Unitarian Universalism into the new millennium, make us a religious force to be reckoned with, bring ourselves into the mainstream and allow ourselves to reach our full potential?   By walking together – finding strength and wisdom and nourishment in the sharing of our journey.  In order to fulfill our promise in the future, we need only look back to the wisdom of our Puritan forebears, and learn to be what we were meant to be – a community in which each congregation retains its autonomy, but becomes so much more just by being neighborly.

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October 11 Sermon: Your Story Told Back to You

Once upon a time, 104 years ago to be exact, Eleanor Gordon, a Unitarian minister from Iowa, came to Orlando to attend the marriage of her  friend Carline Groninger to Mahlon Gore. While here she purchased a grapefruit grove, saying that she hoped to make her fortune selling fruit. Rev. Gordon had been assistant minister to Rev. Mary Safford in Des Moines. Presumably being a female Unitarian minister on the Iowa frontier was not a good way to make a fortune. Five years later Safford herself retired to Florida and conducted a few services here in Orlando. That same year Gordon returned to check on her fruit grove. She and the Gores got into a conversation about how much they missed their Unitarian church which led to the question, “Why not start one here?” And that is how the oldest Unitarian Universalist congregation in Florida, the First Unitarian Church of Orlando, was founded.

On January 8, 1911, 17 people attended a service in the library of the Gore home, conducted by Eleanor Gordon. The next week attendance doubled, and increased with each following service. When Gordon returned to Iowa, the retired minister and fruit farmer Mary Safford took over the preaching duties until she found that being a farmer and being a preacher just didn’t work well together. In 1912 the president of the American Unitarian Association, Frederick May Eliot, asked Eleanor Gordon to return permanently to Orlando and become the first official minister of this church.

In the early decades of the 20th century, it was hard for women clergy in our movement. The Universalists ordained the first woman in the United States back in 1863, and women continued to be ordained in both the Unitarian and Universalist denominations. But those women found it difficult to get congregations to accept them. Many served as missionary ministers in small congregations on the frontier. A particularly determined and well organized group, which came to be known as the Iowa Sisterhood, followed the lead of your founders, Mary Safford and Eleanor Gordon. The Sisterhood established 18 Unitarian societies in the Midwest. Their efforts, according to historian Charles Lyttle, allowed the Iowa Unitarian Association to “achieve a degree of spiritual integration and financial independence that was unequaled throughout the denomination.”

You were founded by pioneers; but Gordon and Safford couldn’t have done it without you – the folks who came and sat in the library for that first service, invited family and friends to the next service, and then did the work that always needs doing for an idea to become a reality. You have always been pioneers, people imbued with a spirit of adventure, people who venture into the unknown, who open up new areas of thought or action. You have always been, and will continue to be, pioneers. It is in your congregational DNA.

So what happened next? On February 21, 1912 a meeting was held to charter this congregation. Immediately there was tension because Mary Safford opposed any plan that included aid from the American Unitarian Association. I can only imagine how she felt about the AUA given her personal experiences. But you made an important decision that day. You opted against the ‘rugged individualist’ model of the pioneer in favor of the associational model. You claimed your identity as Unitarians, part of a movement rooted in a shared history and united by shared values. You made a difficult but principled decision to offer the pulpit not to Mary Safford but to Eleanor Gordon, thus accepting affiliation with the larger movement.          You have always been, and will continue to be, intentionally connected to the larger movement. It is in your congregational DNA.

As I scrolled through the notes from your history wall I noticed something else about you. Whenever current events called for a religious affirmation of human rights, you were there. You were there to challenge the dominant culture. You were there even when your affirmation of the inherent worth and dignity of every person made you feel vulnerable and afraid. Ask Jean Siegfried to tell you her story about lunch out with the youth group one scary Sunday.

In 1953 the Rev. John C. Fuller was called to this pulpit. Fuller was active in the civil rights movement, and articulate in humanist philosophy. On his watch you purchased 3 acres of orange grove at the corner of Robinson and Hampton, began raising money, and built the first of the buildings that would become your beloved campus home. In 1960, the same year you had a housewarming for the new RE building, you passed a resolution supporting the peaceful integration of Orlando lunch counters, and praised Mayor Carr and the Bi-Racial Committee for their courage and wisdom. The resolution passed, but not without controversy. It was challenged by members who questioned whether the church should take public action in the civic arena. The question, according to meeting minutes, was carefully considered. Then you affirmed the rightness of being a public church in a hurting world, and passed the resolution. You went on to host a meeting of the Southern Conference Educational Fund – to advance integration, civil rights and civil liberties. You incurred the wrath of the State Legislature which accused you of doing damage to the state by hosting a ‘subversive organization’. The legislature called the Southern Conference a communist front. Your congregation president at the time, Harold Scott, called Attorney General Robert Kennedy to complain.

Your next minister, Rev. David Brown, continued the tradition of public advocacy. He attended civil rights marches in Montgomery Alabama, and was in Selma for the groundbreaking demonstration there. You offered very practical help in the integration of the Orlando public schools by offering tutoring to African American children in advance of their integration, recognizing that their previous education had been separate and unequal. (How many of you took part in actions for civil rights during the 60’s?)

Fast forward 30 years, as you and your minister, Rev. Marni Harmony, conduct a huge public wedding ceremony at Lake Eola to advocate for marriage equality. (How many of you have participated in actions for civil rights in the 21st century?) Today after church we will continue that tradition by marching together in the Pride Parade. Will you be there with me? Of course you will, because you have always been, and always will be, willing to advocate on the side of love. It is in your congregational DNA.

For most of a century, you and your ministers have worked well together. Your ministers have been pioneers like you. They have been strongly connected to the larger movement, they have been outward looking and prophetic, courageous and visionary. Together you have embodied the wisdom that good churches and good ministers make each other. But there have been exceptions.

In the late 60’s a conflict erupted over worship style. Early in the ministry of Rev. Miles McKey a decision was made to try to contain the conflict by offering 2 different worship experiences. One was a more traditional minister-led worship service, the other an informal discussion based service. Those in favor of the discussion based service called themselves the “New Ideas” group. There was competition for time and space, there were arguments over whether or not paying a minister was a good use of resources. Leaders of the congregation and the District made several attempts at conflict resolution. A proposal was made to create an autonomous fellowship within the church. The “New Ideas” group purportedly threatened to leave if they didn’t get their independent fellowship.

Once again you chose the courageous and principled approach. Instead of bowing to the threat, you continued to meet and talk and listen and experiment, seeking a solution that would accommodate the various needs and wishes of your membership. You insisted on respectful engagement, compromise, and civil discourse. Sometimes people do go away when they don’t get their way. That is sad, but it is not a reason to diverge from your core values.

So this conflict – which presented over worship style but really represents a deeper question about the place of professional ministry – continued to simmer. Ongoing conflict is costly; people who don’t want any part of the conflict leave, money and volunteers become scarce, and core values are often forgotten as the two sides escalate their demands. In 1975 after a no-confidence vote Rev. McKey left, and for 2 years you were without a minister. During that time the much debated subject was, “What is the appropriate and expected role of professional ministry in a self-governing, self-sustaining liberal religious congregation?” The decision was made to move forward with the search for another minister, and in 1977 Rev. Robert Smudski arrived. He brought creative ideas about Sunday programming which made room for different styles and theologies. His approach restored trust in professional ministry such that in 1980 the board formally designated the minister as Chief Operating Officer of the church. His sudden death from a heart attack was a painful blow.

When I take the long view, I see the conflict over worship style and professional leadership continuing to play out into the 90’s. In 1992, during the tenure of Marni Harmony, you established a New UU Congregation Committee, whose purpose was to extend Unitarian Universalism by planting new congregations in central Florida. In January of 1993 the University UU Society was established. This congregation, fondly known as the Triple Us, was the first fruit of the New UU Congregation Committee. 33 members left here to join the Triple U’s, along with many of the people who had left First Unitarian over the years because of their preference for a lay-led fellowship and informal worship. There are different perspectives on the story of the creation of the Triple U, and all of them are true. University UU did come into being as the result of an intentional growth initiative from First Unitarian. University UU did come into being as a place where UU’s in Orlando who were disaffected for whatever reason from this congregation could gather for worship and fellowship. No matter. The most important thing is that 15 years later, there are two thriving UU congregations in Orlando, offering different flavors of our diverse faith. And that is something to celebrate.

After Bob Smudski’s death Tom McMullen came. Sad to say, his ministry did not serve you well. He was meteoric in mood, sometimes charming, other times short tempered and dismissive. Many of you grew dissatisfied with his unpredictable leadership style. Less than 5 years after he was called, he negotiated his resignation. The personality conflicts that characterized his ministry were well known; what was less well known was the fact that he had been accused of inappropriate romantic involvement with several women in the congregation. The board at the time made a principled decision not to make this public in order to spare the feelings of the women involved. Enough time has passed that it is now safe to shine the light on this story of betrayal of ministerial trust.

Intentional interim ministry is significantly informed by family systems theory. One of the basic tenets of the theory is that history matters, even if you weren’t there. The system learns things from the past and applies those things to the present, often without any of you realizing it. Secrets matter, even if you don’t know them. Secrets make a system sick. When a congregation has been betrayed by their minister, even when the betrayal is a closely held secret, damage is done to the health of the entire congregation.  Mistrust and anxiety are symptoms of that damage.

The mistrust of leadership in your system manifests itself even today, decades after the betrayal. I am confident that by naming the source and acknowledging the harm done, you can make a deliberate decision to let go of that legacy going forward. Betrayal and mistrust don’t have to become part of your congregational DNA. You can, together, decide to recover, to reclaim the legacy of positive relationships between minister and congregation that you enjoyed prior to 1985. The repair work began in your 20 year relationship with Marni, and the healing continues today. I recognize that this material will be distressing for some of you to hear. Please know that I am always available to talk personally with anybody who wants to process this further.

In November I will weave a little more of your most recent history with Marni into a sermon entitled, “Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It.” If what we are is a product of the interplay between heredity and environment, that sermon will mostly be about the environment piece. But I want you to remember, and embrace, what you are by heredity: bold and visionary pioneers; well connected and intentionally open to learning from the experience of others and offering the gift of your experience as well. You are courageous and outward looking, compassionate and principled. And you recognize the value of partnership with professional ministry. First Unitarian Church of Orlando, you would make the Iowa Sisterhood proud.

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“On Turning: The Spiritual Discipline of the High Holy Days” by Rev. Roberta Finkelstein

October 4, 2009

The Days of Awe have just ended. Those are the days in the Jewish liturgical calendar book-marked by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, marks the day when the scrolls of fate roll open before God. On the scrolls Yahweh finds every life as it has been written by every individual – choices made, words said and unsaid, deeds done and left undone. The rabbis tell us that God reads every entry and passes judgment on everybody for the year to come.

The novelist Herman Wouk, an observant orthodox Jew, describes it this way: “Who shall die and who shall live, who shall be rich, who shall be poor, who shall rise in the world, who shall fall, who shall live in peace, and who shall stumble in misery.” Do not despair, though, for this Yahweh is both a merciful judge. Everybody has ten days – the Days of Awe – in which to search their hearts and lives, repent, do good deeds, and promise to learn from their mistakes. The end of this grace period is Yom Kippur. On that day, the scrolls roll shut again for another year, destiny sealed.

You have heard Jay and Barry share their memories of the High Holy Days from their Jewish childhoods. Although I shared some of the Jewish holidays with my father’s family, my most distinct memory of this time of year is more recent. In 2001, Rosh Hashanah fell just after the events of September 11. I remember reading about a Jewish congregation struggling to celebrate the New Year – a celebration usually marked by joy, baking honey cake, dipping apple slices into honey and offering the blessing “May God grant us a sweet life in the New Year.” One participant commented that their prayer, in that terrible time, was only for safety, not sweetness. Reading that broke my heart. The saddest and scariest times are the times when it is most important to pray for gladness. That’s why a liturgical calendar is so important. Rosh Hashanah comes every year, no matter what has happened in the world, and its coming reminds us that joy does indeed come even to those who mourn.

The Jewish High Holy Days also remind us of the importance of a regular practice of self-examination, an honest assessment of the quality of our lives – words spoken and unspoken, deeds done and undone, choices made. And that process does not come easy. This discipline of repentance, which is so important to our emotional and spiritual well-being, is particularly difficult for folks like us – Unitarian Universalists – children of the enlightenment, dedicated to the use of reason in religion. But even for us, some form of regular ethical and moral housekeeping is needed. For it is only by turning, ever so slightly, that we are able to find and reclaim our higher selves.

Here’s another description of how Jews understand the High Holy Days. “We pause in reverence before the gift of self; the vessel shatters, the divine spark shines through. And our solitary self becomes a link in Israel’s golden chain. For what we are, we are by sharing. And as we share we move toward the light.” That is a powerful spiritual expression of the movement from the individual to the communal. The ancient Israelite understanding of the importance of community is one of their enduring gifts to Western culture. Herman Wouk wrote about that sense of the communal in relation to Yom Kippur. “There is no machinery in Judaism for confession to a human being or for release from sin through an agency on earth. Confession in Judaism is a whisper of the entire congregation at once. It is confession in formal unison, no outpouring of one’s own misdeeds . . . The wording throughout is plural: we . . . us . . . our . . . Such usage in a piece of liturgy at the heart of a holy day cannot be an accident of rhetoric. It means something.”

What it means, to me, is that ultimate religious and spiritual meaning is found not in solitude, not in self-reliance, but in right relationships as a people. If you look at the Seven Principles that encompass the ethical boundaries of Unitarian Universalism, you see that same movement from the individual to the universal. First we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Then we move to affirmations of the ways we will be in community: justice, equity, compassion, acceptance, encouragement, the use of the democratic process. And then we are asked to cast our eyes upward and outward, to a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. Finally, we recognize as a tenet of our faith our interconnectedness to all of life.

Similarly, the Prophets of the Hebrew scriptures did not address themselves to men and women one by one, offering personal salvation. They addressed themselves to the entire nation, insisting that as a group the Israelites had to reform, to turn, to remember what made them a people. They reminded their fellow citizens that when they were frightened of powerful enemies they could not depend on military might or wealth to provide safety and security. Only be keeping covenant with each other and their creator would they be safe. When those ancient people longed for an end to war their prophets told them that peace could not be found in political compromise or military might. Peace comes, they said, in the act of creating a just and compassionate society. Salvation – wholeness – shalom – is not the result of the recitation of prayers or the repetition of rituals; salvation is found in living together by the terms of that ancient covenant defined by the teachings of the Torah.

So often, those ancient Israelites strayed from the foundations of their faith. As do we. So often they were tempted by the riches and glories of the world – more powerful weapons, bigger armies, taller buildings, gold and silver. As are we. And so often they remembered that when they turned from their covenant with Yahweh, grief befell them. They would ask, in despair, what God could possibly want with them. “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” And the answer, in the words of the prophet Micah, is so clear and simple. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah6:6-8) The message is powerful but simple: remember the covenant that bestows your identity, remember the principles upon which your community was established. Do not let them become lofty words carved in stone. Instead let your lives be the embodiment of those principles. We share with Judaism a common understanding of salvation as something that happens in the here and now; deeds not creeds. What we don’t have in common with our Jewish brothers and sisters is a liturgical calendar that regularly calls us to account for our deeds. I hope they won’t mind if we borrow a bit of their wisdom to assure our salvation. So, my friends, now is the time for turning. Your participation in this intentional interim ministry means that the scroll of fate has rolled open here at the First Unitarian Church of Orlando. Take this opportunity to do the work of the Days of Awe: to acknowledge what has not worked, to heal hurts, to let go of resentments, and to make things new. The good news is you get more than ten days to do the spiritual work that needs doing. You can take as much time as you need, within reason. And the really good news is that I’m not Yahweh! I am merely a guide, a companion for a while on your journey.In that role I ask you to reflect on the way you have lived your life in faith together over the past years. For some of you that will mean thinking back over many decades. For some it may mean thinking back to when you walked in the door this morning. No matter how long you have been a part of this congregation, you are a part, now, of this journey of repentance.Maybe you have been hurt or disappointed or even afraid. Or you may know somebody who has felt that way. Have you said or done things you regret, or left unsaid or undone things you wish you hadn’t? Some of you are carrying grudges, nursing resentments, hanging back, reining in your passion and compassion. Maybe you are waiting out the interim, wondering if this will ever be, for you, a safe place to be a Unitarian Universalist. I want the answer to be ‘yes’ for all of you. That is one of the reasons we take on that task of coming to terms with your history. Last year you started a process with Rev. Jay and the Transition Team. You created together a history wall. On it you recorded the significant events in the life of the congregation. You were asked to speak for yourself and respect that fact that others might remember the same event differently than you did. You were asked to use civil and responsible language, but most of all, you were asked for your truths as you remembered them. I have read all of your contributions, and I will use them to write a sermon in which I tell you back the story of your communal life next Sunday morning.  This is an opportunity  to recognize and turn from unhealthy patterns, and to move towards communal health. Shalom.There will be other such opportunities. On November 22 the Transition Team and I are sponsoring a Thanksgiving Seder, a ritual re-telling of the Thanksgiving story in the manner of a Passover Seder. We will incorporate some of the history of Unitarian Universalism in central Florida into the ceremony. And, we are inviting to be our guests the members of the University Unitarian Universalists (the Triple U’s), our sister congregation in Orlando. I hope many of you will attend this family friendly event. Sounds like a pretty easy and pleasant way to achieve salvation, doesn’t it? Here’s another. At the Congregational Meeting after church today you will hear the first news from this year’s Stewardship Campaign. You may be surprised to hear me name stewardship as path to salvation. I do so because t in our culture and in this congregation money has been used as a vehicle for dealing with conflict. You withhold your treasure when you are angry or disappointed or scared; you share it generously when you are hopeful and confident. I firmly believe that one way you can move confidently into your future is to engage in the stewardship process in a new way – to come together and talk about money honestly and openly, with a view towards turning back towards your beloved community and re-investing in your shared future. We, like the ancient Israelites, need prophets to remind us of who we are. Prophets to shout from the mountain tops clear those foundational principles out of which our faith has evolved and upon which this church was built. In our radically free faith, we all can and should be prophets to each other. James Luther Adams wrote frequently about the prophethood of all believers. Every Unitarian Universalist congregation is, or could be, the embodiment of that proud vision – a people gathered in voluntary association who share equally in the work of casting a vision and calling each other back to the ideals of that vision.   Now is the time for turning. If you have been hurt or angered by past events, it is time to speak that anger honestly and listen respectfully to those with differing views. If you have been lying low, waiting out the transition,  it is time to stand up reclaim your place at the table. If you have said or done things that caused harm, it is time to acknowledge and repair the damage where possible, and get back to the business of building and sustaining a healthy liberal religious community.Now is the time for turning. Turn away from easy answers towards the full engagement of mind and heart. Turn away from diffidence towards the responsible exercise of church membership. Turn away from resistance towards the embrace of our human ability to change, to be transformed, to be better than you have been in the past. For as Jack Reimer reminds us, if you fail to turn, you will be forever trapped in yesterday’s ways. And I know that you do not want to belong to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of yesterday.

I close with an adaptation of the final lines from another prayer for the Days of Awe. “We pause in terror before the human deed: the cloud of annihilation, the concentrations for death, the cruelly casual way of each to each. But in the stillness of this hour we find our way from darkness into light. May we find our life so precious that we cannot but share it with the other, that light may shine brighter than a thousand suns, with the presence among us of the (Spirit of Life). Amen”

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“Sacred Promises: A sermon” by Rev. Roberta 9/20/2009

On September 14,1974 a couple of 22 year olds walked into a Justice of the Peace in upstate New York and got married. It was very low key; just us and our parents and my somewhat confused grandmother and my brother. We didn’t want an elaborate ceremony and we held the reception in a nearby park.

Thirty five years ago we didn’t know much about what it meant to make a sacred vow. We were in love, head over heels. We made some promises to each other, but we had no idea what the real measure of those promises would be. Today, we have a much clearer idea of what it means to say ‘for better or for worse.’ Terrible things happen in the course of every life time. They happen to everybody. The living through those things is what makes us real. Remember the passage in The Velveteen Rabbit when the Skin Horse explains to the rabbit about being real? “When you are real you don’t mind being hurt. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Once you are real, you can’t become unreal again.” We have, over the last 3+ decades, become real. We don’t break easily; neither of us require careful keeping. There are places where the loving has worn away the gloss, but we don’t mind.

We don’t mind because we have also learned that in the keeping of sacred vows, wonderful things happen. Things that surprise and delight, things that invite us into awe. Barry and I have been together now for well more than half our lives – several generations of cats have come and gone, baseball dynasties have risen and fallen. When we got married telephones were large things attached to the wall, computers took up a whole room, and America was reeling from the after affects of an ill advised military incursion on the other side of the world. We have cleaned up wet basements after numerous hurricanes, taken uncountable vacations, watched a bald eagle soar over Squam lake. The changes that have happened around us have strengthened our relationship. In spite of all the change we still have much in common – little things mostly that make it easy to be together. We laugh together, we listen to old Beatles songs. We are somewhat awed by the passage of time. I am not old enough to have been married for 35 years! What is most awesome, though, is the ways in which we have managed to remain true to those promises we made in ignorant bliss back in 1974.

As we have walked together through the terrible and the wonderful, we have learned a great deal about freedom and about making intentional choices. There is no such thing as a relationship made in heaven. It doesn’t fit with Unitarian Universalist theology. Free will, whether you believe it to be a natural state or a gift from God, is something that needs to be carefully exercised in order to be meaningful. Good relationships are made in the free exercise of the human mind and heart. For relationships to work long term, you have to want to make them work. And you have to work to make them work.

Along the way Barry and I discovered that we sometimes respond very differently to things – both the terrible and the wonderful. Learning to respect those differences instead of resent them has at times been a challenge. Too often we assume that in order to be compatible we need to associate with what we call ‘likeminded’ individuals. Sometimes what is best for us is to associate with people who see the world dramatically differently than we do. But then you have to be willing to learn from each other. Barry and I have done this over the years by talking to each other and listening to each other. Listening not for the notes of agreement, but for the discordant notes that could either threaten our well-being or merge together into a more complex harmony. We have also talked to and listened to other people – friends and family, ministers and marriage counselors – whatever it has taken to make it work.

We have kept our relationship fresh by being intentional about spending time together – we pencil each other into our calendars, have lunches together. On my day off we try to do something special together. We have always made our marriage a priority even in the face of the demands of jobs and kid and other important matters.

There is a lovely reading by Anne Morrow Lindbergh that is often used at weddings. “A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back – it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.”

We didn’t have the reading at our wedding, because we didn’t know enough to choose it. But we have lived it in the years since. We have learned to hold on to each other, but not too tightly. We have learned to move to the same rhythm even when we are going in different directions. We have learned to create a pattern for our lives that accepts fate, welcomes grace, and allows us each to the freedom to grow and change and still have a safe home base. All of this has happened because of the sacred vow, the covenant, we established years ago.

I wasn’t a theologian back then, so I didn’t realize how important covenant would become to my professional life. Unitarian Universalism is a covenantal faith. We are not bound by a creed, but we are bound, my friends. We are bound by a covenant, a sacred vow, a promise that we make and remake to each other every time we come together. We are bound by that covenant even when we are not paying attention to it; in fact we are most bound by that covenant when we have broken it. Covenants call us to our better selves. They are ethical boundaries, reminding us that though we are imperfect, though we sometimes fail to honor the promises we have made, those promises are worthy of our best effort, and they are worthy of our return when we stray from them. Covenants are most powerful when we have broken them, recognized our brokenness, and reaffirmed them. Our covenants call us to our best selves.

But more important than that, covenants call us out of ourselves and into relationship. They remind every one of us that it really, really isn’t all about me. I’ll be honest with you. Neither Barry nor I remembers the actual words of our marriage vows. But the strength of that covenantal promise bound us together, two young people who had no real idea of what they were getting themselves into, and held us together even after we found out in the most challenging ways what it meant to say, “we intend this, for better or for worse.” Our covenants call us into relationship because every covenant is a sacred promise made in love.

Love is, of course, the basis of a successful long term partnership of any kind. It is also the basis of a successful faith community. Love is the compelling core of our free faith; it unites us even in the absence of a set of shared beliefs. Both historically and presently, we know ourselves by our doctrine of radical love. If a covenant is based on love, then the relationships that emerge out of that covenant will reflect that love. The community that is built on that basis will embody that love. A covenanted community is the incarnation of love. The covenant of the free church calls us to our better selves, then calls us out of ourselves and into a loving and beloved community. For as long as free thinkers, heretics, those who yearn for a liberating religion that affirms human dignity and recognizes the interdependence of all creation – for as long as people like that, people like us – have practiced this radically free religion, our covenant has been a voluntary affirmation of our willingness to walk together in the ways of love.

There was another time when I took a sacred vow. That was on the day of my ordination. At that time I said to you, even though I didn’t yet know you, “I am aware of the privileges and obligations that this ordination confers on me. I enter into this ministry with a deep sense of commitment, with gratitude to you who have ordained me, and with a sense of joy and excitement. In humility I promise to try always to live my life in unity with the principles by which this act of ordination takes place.” Just as I didn’t know much about marriage when I took my marriage vow, I didn’t know a whole lot about ministry when I took my ordination vows a little over 17years ago. But there were things I did know about our free faith then that I still know now.

I knew that Unitarian Universalism is a religion that is worthy of the very best we have to give. I knew that the great strength of Unitarian Universalism is our radical inclusionary principle; we are committed to creating communities where people with different theologies and philosophies can come together to explore the nature of life and love. More importantly, we come together to find answers to the question of how we can live out our faith in tangible ways. After 17 years I still take delight in being a professional facilitator of that process – insuring that our congregation does the great magic trick of holding in creative tension all of those ideas and hopes and dreams and experiences in such a way that all who are willing can experience spiritual growth and transformation, and can better prepare themselves to offer their gifts of spirit to a hurting world.

What I know now, after all these years of ministry, is that the covenant that calls us into community is an ideal that is all too often broken. I am no longer surprised that Unitarian Universalists are so quick to endanger the health of their beloved communities by allowing gossip and rumor and resentment and narcissism to have free rein. I am not surprised by how often we have to hold each other accountable, to acknowledge our failings, to ask for and offer forgiveness, to begin again in love. A former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association once said that his biggest surprise after becoming president was not how often UU congregations shoot themselves in the foot, but how quickly we seem to reload. But we keep coming back, we keep trying to live up to the ideals of our covenant, we keep trying to be the people who reflect the ideals that we enshrine in our sacred promises.

We live by covenants that call us to our better selves, that call us into relationship, that call us into community. There is one more dimension to our covenants. They call us into awareness of whatever is of ultimate worth to us. That is why I chose to read the Miriam Williamson poem, words often mistakenly attributed to Mandela himself. At a time when his nation needed a bold vision of what a free South Africa could be, what better way to address individual South Africans than to remind them that each and every one of them “was born to make manifest the divine within?” You don’t have to believe in a traditional God to know that there is something noble that resides in our souls and is constantly seeking expression. Finding the divine, within yourself and within your covenanted community, is the essence of Unitarian Universalism. Our other reading, from UU minister Brent Smith, refereed to the gift of our faith as “the freedom to explore and understand one’s own unique and direct relationship with God (or the Ultimate)”. This, he said, “is the purpose and aim of spiritual community, of giving one’s consent to walk with others.” We enter into covenant in order to have the freedom to explore our relationship with the ultimate. We enter into covenant in order to have others to walk with us in our exploration.

So what is the covenant of the First Unitarian Church of Orlando? Or more accurately, what are the covenants? You do have an explicit covenant, voted upon 9 years ago. It is called the Seven Virtues Covenant. It says, “In order to do my part in creating the Beloved Community at First Unitarian Church of Orlando, I agree to cultivate the following virtues: GRATITUDE: An embracing response of the heart to the richness and abundance life offers daily; thankfulness for the natural, rhythmic cycling of it all; the heart of a generous prayer cast wide. GOODWILL: The intention to look at one another with living, rather than accusing, eyes and hearts. MORAL COURAGE: Standing fast in support of religious or social convictions, particularly when doing so may result in ostracism, censure, threats, or harm; the soul work of learning to act in spite of fear. CREATIVE FIDELITY: Walking together without a map, always acknowledging each other’s freedom to change. HUMILITY: Being grounded in what is most essential, speaking gently, transcending self-will, and being honest about who we are. CIVILITY: A voluntary way of living and relating that respects others and reasonable societal norms, listens carefully, and may ask sacrifice and trust for the sake of the larger good. COMPASSION: Being in union with others in their passion and suffering; the spiritual discipline of opening our hearts and deepening our awareness of the interrelatedness of all things and expressing that awareness in the work of healing and service.

Those are good things to cultivate. And I’d like to find ways to bring that covenant back into the day to day and week to week consciousness of your congregational life. The Seven Virtues stands as your official, explicit covenant.

Every organization also has implicit covenants, those things that go without saying but ‘everybody’ knows them. The First Unitarian Church of Orlando is no exception. The problem with implicit covenants is that only the insiders know them. Newcomers may sense that they exist and feel anxious about violating them; they might even try to guess at what they are. But that is hard work when you are trying to enter deeply into the life of a religious community. Implicit covenants make your community more insular; they divide us from them. As an outsider, I don’t know what all the implicit covenants are, but I have guessed at some of them. And it doesn’t surprise me that these implicit covenants do not always reflect the best or healthiest ways of being together. They seem to be about indirect communication – in order to avoid potential conflict you covenant to be extremely reticent about expressing concerns or fears or disagreements directly. I’m all for civil discourse, but there are ways to engage in disagreements directly without being hurtful or getting hurt. You can disagree in love. But your implicit covenant nudges you towards indirect communication, towards talking about rather than to those with whom you disagree. Third party communication almost always degenerates into gossip and rumor and people end up getting hurt anyway. In fact some of the most painful wounds inflicted by UU’s on each other these days seem to come from anonymous email, the very worst form of indirect communication.

I would love to see you renounce the implicit covenants that do not serve you well. And I’d like to see you embrace your most explicit covenant of all – the covenant captured in the song of dedication that you sing every Sunday in worship. That, more than a document that you almost never look at, captures the true spirit of how you intend to walk together. Love is the spirit of this church. Love of self, love of other, love of the gathered community. The quest for truth its sacrament. A sacrament is external evidence of internal grace; to seek truth is to make manifest what is of ultimate worth. And service is its prayer. When we serve others, we are in direct communication with the ultimate.

To dwell together in peace, to seek truth in freedom. This is a promise that you make to each other: that you will practice peaceful means, even in disagreement; that you will insure for each other the freedom to explore without fear or without intimidation; that you will create a safe environment here, filled with mutual respect and affirmation. That is the only kind of freedom that has religious meaning. Not the freedom to do whatever I want and to heck with everybody else. Covenantal freedom assumes mutuality, it assumes that you have the maturity to understand how your words and actions affect others, it assumes that you will make room, in your freedom, for the free search of others.

As you walk together through the years there will be many times when you will need to invoke your covenants in order to recreate and sustain your beloved community. Sometimes it will be easy and joyful. Sometimes it will be more challenging. Remember always that a covenant is not a onetime thing that is said and then promptly forgotten. A covenant grows deeper as your souls grow deeper. A covenant grows more compelling as you mature together and grow in your appreciation of what intentional community can become. When it gets tough, that is when it is most important for you to once again join hands and sing, thus do we covenant with each other. Thus do we covenant with each other.

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“I Can’t Stop Loving You” A homily by Rev. Roberta Finkelstein

“Such is the power of public liturgies,” wrote Clarke Wells in his lyrical and moving essay. Public liturgies, whether in football stadiums or in this sanctuary, have the power to bring disparate people together, transcending differences and elevating all of us to a higher plane.

My first mentor in ministry was fond of calling the art of ministry the great magic trick. To bring together a group of people and meld us into one body powerful enough to overcome all that divides us is indeed a great magic trick. And we do it every Sunday. I don’t know how many of you noticed, but two weeks ago when you sang the postlude the enthusiastic and tuneful harmony served as a counterpoint to the inescapable fact that you root for different teams. Yes, I heard you. You sang, “So it’s root, root, root for the . . .  Red Sox, Cubbies, Orioles, Reds, Yankees . . .  ” And then the great magic trick happened. You all came back together in time to close out with a mighty and unified, “For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ballgame.”

We come together in worship to find common ground even while celebrating and honoring our differences. We rejoice that theists and humanists can pray together, that classical and rock musicians can play together, that those who find the holy in the teachings of Jesus and those that find the holy in the rhythms of nature can commune together. It is the power of public liturgy that allows us to transcend our differences, breaking through loneliness and fear and awkwardness and pain; ultimately brining us to the point of remembering that there is so much of life to celebrate and affirm and, yes, to love. That is what the experience of transcendence is all about.

The power of public liturgy reaches even further. Beyond a move toward unity, a defiance of difference, our liturgy is a move towards the affirmation of life itself. Yes, in public liturgy we defy death. If, as many sociologists of religion believe, humans invented religion as a response to our awareness of our own mortality, then all religions, even ours, must be death defying in some sense. Not death denying; we accept that death is a part of life, of the cycles of nature. And we Unitarian Universalists are particularly careful not to look to the afterlife as the succor for our mortality. No, we offer an exuberant affirmation that salvation is in living our lives fully in this world, at this time.

Awareness of mortality may be especially acute in the autumn, a season that has been called the season of life enroute to death. You may have to live a little further north to really appreciate that metaphor. There is nothing like the stupendous blazing color of maple and oak trees, followed by the falling of all those beautiful leaves, to remind us that nothing, no matter how splendid, lives forever.

We have no choice but to love those splendid colors, even knowing that they will soon turn to brown and fall to the ground, saddling us with the back-breaking work of raking them into neat piles. Don’t ask me why we do that! But we can’t stop loving the colors of autumn, even knowing that they are symbolic of life enroute to death. Because we are human, because we know that we will die, because we create religions and build sanctuaries and come together to experience the power of public liturgy – because of all that we simply cannot stop loving life, and the communities of people who share our lives with us.

The song, I Can’t Stop Loving You, it is about the love of life. Well, maybe it started out as a very sad love song. The kind of love that the Greeks would have called eros. A love that is passionate, sensual, the expression of desire and longing. The ‘my heart went boom when he crossed that room’ kind of love. A love that you would perhaps think is not worthy of our consideration in worship. But Plato claimed that eros is one of the ways that human beings arrive at spiritual truth. To love another helps you to an appreciation of beauty in another, which in turn in helps us to an appreciation of beauty in general, which in turn helps the loving soul recall the knowledge of beauty in general. To know beauty is to experience  genuine spirituality. To affirm, Platonically, that I can’t stop loving you, is to be a spiritual being.

The Greeks had several words for love. Eros is one. Philia – for which the city of Philadelphia is named  is another. That’s why Philly is called the city of brotherly love. Philia is the kind of love that emerges out of friendship. It is not based on desire, but on choice. It is a more dispassionate kind of love than eros, the kind that leads to the creation of communities. Aristotle believed it to be the most virtuous kind of love, because it is not based on need. This kind of love doesn’t make your heart go boom or leave you moping around when a relationship comes to an end. This kind of love nudges you into sustaining relationships, it engenders a sense of deep loyalty for the objects of your philial affection. This, rather than eros, is the kind of love that makes the world go round. Barry and I met and fell in love in the City of Brotherly Love. Our son and his fiancé did as well. My initial attraction to Barry was definitely of the heart went boom variety, but as our relationships matured, it has been the sustaining philial love that has kept us together.

And then there is agape, what the theologian C.S. Lewis identified as Christian love. Agape is unconditional love; it transcends narrow self interest and moves one to charity and care for others. Agape, like philia, is a voluntary kind of love; It is by choice that you love even what is unlovable and far from perfect. It is by choice that you go on loving even when you are disappointed or frustrated. “I can’t stop loving you. I’ve made up my mind.”

Agape is the kind of love that happens when you clear the stardust from your eyes and see yourself and those you love as the fully human, vulnerable, fragile and imperfect creatures that we all are and decide that you can’t stop loving them even then. It is a charitable and forgiving kind of love, a humble kind of love. The Catholic Church on Orange Ave has a saying on their sign this week: “Quit complaining about your church. If it were perfect, you wouldn’t be here.” It is agape that keeps us admittedly imperfect creatures coming back to an admittedly imperfect place like this one.

This morning in the Water Ritual you reconstituted this perfectly imperfect community, you mingled your waters, symbolically indicating your willingness to keep on loving one another, to keep on caring for one another no matter how unlovable we might be on any given day. This morning you created together a powerful public liturgy that reminded you of the ties that bind you one to another in religious community.

It is love that makes the world go ’round, it is love that keeps us coming back, it is love that turns the half-time of a college football game into a powerful experience of public liturgy, it is love that led to the birth of this congregation, and it is love that has brought you to this point in your history. Let it always be love that brings you together.

Sermon Transcript

“Work That Matters – A Labor Day Reflection” by Rev. Roberta Finkelstein

The poet Marge Piercy says, “People yearn for work that is real.” What makes work real? A good Labor Day week-end question. Where I come from, Labor Day is the final gasp of summer – up north we are so busy with back to school and how to get rid of zucchinis that we may forget the historical significance of Labor Day; forget to offer that nod of gratitude to courageous generations of workers who learned that by coming together in unions they could demand fair compensation and working conditions and make their work more satisfying. Low pay, long hours, unfair compensation and exploitation of workers were common. Paid vacation and sick leave were unheard of. When people are underpaid or exploited, they are not happy. That is why the labor movement began. But studies of employee satisfaction tell us that although low pay or unfair employment practices create dissatisfaction, higher compensation or better conditions don’t necessarily create satisfaction. Something  less tangible contributes to true job satisfaction; the something that makes work real.

Many years ago I was given a book called Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Laurence Boldt. It is a big, thick, long book and it sat unread on my shelf for quite a while. But when I finally opened it, I was surprised to find a convergence between his premises and the basic tenets of liberal religious philosophy. Boldt defines Zen as that which integrates the spiritual and the material, holding up the sacredness of the ordinary. “Very UU,”  I thought as I read it. He says that realizing your life work is a lifelong process – an unfolding rather than a discrete point in time. “Very UU, ” I thought again. Finding your true vocation takes both inner and outer work. The inner work is cultivating self-knowledge, clarifying values, separating yourself from the expectations and opinions of other.  The outer work is investigation: reading, talking to others, learning, doing.  “Very UU,”  I thought. We Unitarian Universalists believe that our spiritual journeys are based on learning from each other as well as finding what is already inside of us.

Boldt assumes that a truly satisfying vocation will have a service orientation of some sort. This can be true of any job, not just those we think of as human services types. When we work congruently with our values, when we are cognizant of what impact we are having on the larger society, we are likely to feel good about what we are doing. As he described this understanding of the impact of our work on others and on our world, the image of the interdependent web danced in my mind. “Very UU, ” I thought.

He refers to his book as “a practical philosophy of work in four acts plus a prologue”.  In the prologue he introduces the genre of the mythical quest in which a hero or heroine sets off into the world to do some great deed – usually with a grand vision that few others share. The quester meets many challenges, learns some things about herself and the world, is oft defeated and discouraged, figures out who his real friends are, and finally is successful in reaching the goal.

In the prologue to the quest you learn to say “I SEE” in a Zen-like manner. ” I SEE” is not just a statement, it is an acronym. The I is for integrity – knowing who you are, and being faithful to that identity. The S is for Service. The first E is for enjoyment and the final E is for excellence. Now, I have a bit of a disagreement with Boldt over excellence. I advocate the “good enough” approach to many things – like parenthood, ministry and vocation, and life in general.  But the acronym becomes very un-Zen like when you replace the E with GE, so I’ll let the excellence stand as an ideal rather than a concrete goal.

The prologue is the heart and mind and soul searching stage of the quest for meaningful work. Boldt believes that a good career choice is made from the inside out. Once you have said, “I SEE’ you move on to Act I – the Quest for Life Work. Like mythical heroes we must each embark on a vision quest – asking ourselves, “What is our word view? What do we imagine ourselves doing?” We then create a heroic identity for ourselves. Having a heroic identity means knowing your purpose, acknowledging your particular gifts and talents, and coming to a realistic appraisal of the possible outcomes of your efforts.

Then on to Act II – The Game of Life’s Work. Boldt explains that it is a game because you have to be willing to play, and to play roles. At this stage you are no longer imaging and imagining, you have made a choice, often in spite of the disapproval or disbelief of others and the incongruence between your choice and the expectations you grew up with. I experienced some of that when I announced to my somewhat startled colleagues in nurse-midwifery that I was leaving to go to seminary.  “You’re going to be a what?” At a worship service General Assembly several years ago I heard a story about a well-known preacher remembering the reception he received when he made public his intended vocation. At a dinner party he was asked, by a very loud and imperious hostess, “I understand you are going into the ministry. Is this your own idea, or have you been poorly advised?”

ee cummings says “to be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody-else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”  Only by calling it a game, Laurence Boldt would add, and playing at it, do you resist the temptation to become grim about it. A strong purpose allows for playfulness – purposeful playfulness.

Act III is the Battle for Life’s Work. Boldt uses the term battle intentionally because in any vocation, power is a reality that must be dealt with. Power is something that we are not always comfortable with. It is easier to think of ourselves as powerless than it is to decide how to exercise our power to bring about the world we believe in. You will note that this discomfort with owning and exercising power is not a weakness shared by our friends on the radical religious right. Every time you ask yourselves how those people are able to push their agenda so hard and so successfully, remind yourselves how deeply they believe in their personal and communal power. Because they believe, they show up, they write checks, they write letters, they make phone calls. They don’t wring their hands and talk about being a small bastion of conservatism awash in a sea of liberalism. They do not live in a culture of scarcity. They have the money and the time to change the world because they are willing to acknowledge and exercise their power.

It is well documented that Unitarian Universalists across the continent have the second highest per capita income of any religious group, yet we are the second lowest givers to our own churches. Margaret Beard, who was Director of Extension for the Unitarian Universalist Association for many years, used to say that almost every church she visited told her that they were the exception, that although UU’s in general may have money, “We don’t.”  Yes, we do! Yes, you do. You have money and you have power and my goal for this year is to convince you of that and to get you to use both in order to fulfill the mission of your beloved UU community.

Many times in your history you rejected the ‘small island of liberalism awash in a sea of conservatism’ metaphor. You built a building, and then another. You showed up when you felt the call to advocate for civil rights for people of color, for gays and lesbians, and for other marginalized peoples. Many of you have shared with me your yearning for the First Unitarian Church of Orlando to be a significant presence on the religious landscape of this community. Let’s do that. Even though transitions are hard, and money is scarce and some of you are burned out and discouraged, I feel energy and determination returning. So come on back, all ye who are weary. Remember that you are powerful, you are warriors. And it’s a good thing too, because this year is a splendid opportunity to recreate this congregation, to fashion it into your own image and then invite a new minister to join you in your quest. On your terms, based on your hopes and dreams, your shared sense of liberal religious vocation.

Listen to what Boldt says about being warriors. “No doubt, some of you are still having difficulty with the warrior metaphor. As we use the term, warrior isn’t limited to combat veterans, but applies to anyone who uses their aggressive energy in a disciplined way. Aggressive energy is a part of life. There is no getting around it. It can be used creatively, or it can be used destructively, but it cannot be eliminated.  Non-violence is the creative use of aggression.” He goes on to extol guerilla tactics in the creative use of power. Don’t take on large armies in their strongholds – go under, around and behind the bullies. Use the essential internal strengths that you all have and can cultivate. The first is Bravery. “Only the gentle are brave,” Boldt writes.  True valor arises out of commitment to your vision, it allows you to initiate new strategies, endure against the odds, and ultimately to triumph. The second is Integrity – being true to yourselves. Greed compromises integrity, but so does laziness or passivity. The third is Resourcefulness – which means knowing there is a way, finding the way using both reason and intuition, taking action, and keeping at it!

You will soon have an opportunity to apply integrity, reason and intuition to the forward progress of this  congregation. That will be to complete, with warrior courage, the Mission Priorities process. In conversations with many of you over the past month I have heard a repeated theme: we are tired of talking, we want to do something. Well, here’s your chance. Once you agree on mission priorities, you can and should stop talking about them and start implementing them. I promise to bug you until you do.

Here’s the hard part. To affirm a small and practical set of priorities inevitably means that somebody’s pet project or fondest hope will not be on the list. I strongly encourage you to come together in support of the priorities chosen by majority vote. Be realistic about the fact that you cannot do everything, at least not this year. Do not nurse a grudge if you find yourselves in a minority; that will surely disempower you. This is a democracy; that means that what you promise to each other is that you may not always get your way, but you will have had many opportunities to make your voice heard.

But I digress from my theme of finding work that is real. So after the quest, the game, and the battle, we arrive at Act IV -The School of Life’s Work. The end point is not an end point at all; but an on-going process of learning and change. We are never finished finding our true vocation. The humanist psychologist Carl Rogers once said, “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn . .. . and change.” Think of this congregation as the local branch of the School of Life’s Work. In worship, in adult religious education, in covenant groups and in acts of service to church and community, you will find those opportunities for learning and change and personal growth. How blessed you are to have this branch of the School up and running!

I have given you a basic overview of what Boldt sees as the essentials of pursuing meaningful life work – work that brings health and satisfaction to the individual and improves the world in some way, work that does not destroy self respect, burn you out, stress you, or eat you up inside. There is one more factor that Boldt did not talk about. So we need to consult another model for work and re-creation:  the model given to us in Genesis 1, which is a model for vocation. What I take from that lovely and lyrical poem of creation is this: always work from a grand vision, enjoy doing what you do well, pause to examine your work and bask in the warmth of success, and then take a day off! Time off is part of my spiritual discipline. I take Thursday off every week. If you call me on a Thursday with anything other than a pastoral emergency, I will remind you that it is my Sabbath, and ask you to try again on Friday. I figure if God needed rest every six days, I should as well. And so should all of you.

August is behind us, school vacations have come to an end. School, church, office – all are calling us back. Let’s go about our various callings joyfully, but let’s also remember that in all that we do we need recreation, no, re-creation time, so that we can renew our capacity to give to the world, receive from the world, and feel the better for our giving, and our receiving.

The moral of this sermon is really two-fold. First:  seek work that is real. Second:  Look at the fruits of your labor, see that it is good, and then take some time off!

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