UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST

                                            CONGREGATION

Earthrising   //

            Tranquil blue waters surrounding undulating green-brown land masses

Light layers of wispy clouds sailing just above the planet.

Everything about the image

            Sweet peace peace peace

Watching it…the still photograph, imagining the softness

Of breath rising in and through the life on this planet, is poignant.

There is no hint of loneliness

there is no hint of sadness, of loss, violence,

Grief

            A meditation on the perfect sphere capped at each pole with

Hats of snow and ice...offers a sense of warmth and oneness

A holy place, a temple…

A gentle swirling mass of creative potential

                        Rotating with promise…we move with it, pulsating beings

Proclaiming our will to survive…to thrive

 

Viewing earth, viewing us from a distance…we fade…

it’s almost impossible to tell we’re here.

It’s impossible to see us, individually.

It’s impossible to capture us, label us, stamp upon us those markers: sex, race, income

That declare us as different from some socially constructed norm.

From a distance, it would seem that we are one.

            And, we have a collective impact on this blue-green miraculous marble

As it moves through space and time.

 

From a distance…one might ask: what does it…does it matter?

And up close, up close

            You may find that it does.  It does matter.  And all is not as serene as it seems.

Far from it.

            Hearts beat and pound and shout and mourn.

We celebrate in loud, ecstatic bursts, and we flounder…we lose faith,

Unsure of our place in the scheme of things

Unsure of if we matter and to whom

Unsure of if there is a grand purpose powering life and living.

We lose faith,

            It falls from our careful hands just when we least expect it

Shattering beyond all recognition and with it the will to

With it, goes Hope…an iridescent disc intimately connected to faith itself.

 

//

 

Ever notice how faith and hope seems to thrive in the midst

Of celebration?

            When we’re happy, at peace…when life is abundant and sweet…

There is so little struggle with faith. And Hope seems to abound.

I have to tell you,

            I lose my faith a lot. Now, on hearing that, you might think: wow, she’s fickle

But, it’s true.  I lose my faith a lot.

And always I seem to be able to duct-tape it back together.

This iridescent disc of Hope that I carry…well, it’s got some holes in it

Some water stains from my tears…it’s a little worn in places.

It’s grimy from being worried by my sometimes dirty hands.             

 

And here lately, in this month of spring, of new life, of re-birth

I’ve lost it again…

 

//

 

            I’ve lost faith again, lost Hope again and I found myself asking:

How does my religious community support me in times of

            Struggle?

In times of despair…in those times when the world – up close and personal – is full

Of corruption / destruction

            Is brimming with pain?

How does my religious community help me make sense of

            Injustice? 
It’s a funny time of year to be asking these questions…with the days

Growing longer, warmer, brighter…

            The days stretching out with brilliant sunshine extending some kind of

hope and yet I find myself slightly distressed.

I find myself slightly disturbed, I find myself growing quietly outraged.

 

Makes me think of that passage in the book of Luke.

 

//

 

Now, I know that a lot of us aren’t bible readers…

            I know that only maybe one or two of us turn to the bible to find

Support…and in these days,

in these days, it’s where I found myself turning

Thinking of that passage in the book of Luke¹…where Luke tells the story

Of Jesus traveling up to Jerusalem and as he comes closer to the city, multitudes

Lift their voices in praise

            And some of the Pharisees in the crowd say to him:

“Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”

And Jesus, Jesus answers, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout.”

 

Luke goes on to say that: As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying,

“If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!”

Distressed, disturbed, and outraged he entered the temple and began to drive out those

Who were selling things…

            And the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking

For ways to get rid of him.

 

I keep coming back to that passage in Luke:

            The stones would shout, if the collective voice of the people was silenced,

The stones would shout.

 

Jesus weeping over the city saying:

If you’d only recognized on this day the things that make for peace…

Jesus driving profit makers, driving those concerned only with corruption and destruction

Out of the temple

 

I tell you what,

            Living in these times…it ain’t easy, is it?

The song Shine On² - played this morning says:

            it’s been hard not to give in

and it ain’t easy living in hard times…

but there is work to be done in the dark before the dawn

 

I don’t suppose it was easy for Jesus either overturning injustice.

I don’t suppose it’s easy for any of us.

            It’s bold to talk about Hope in these times.

It was bold to talk about Hope and Love back in 1967…

April 4^th, Martin Luther King Jr. confronted by the breath taking beauty of

Spring

            And the continued outrageous reality of an unjust war…the over

Powering reality of America’s culture of violence

Spoke these words…he said:

            “Somehow / this madness must cease.

 

//

 

We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and

brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam.

I speak for those whose land is being laid waste,

whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted.

I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of

smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam.

I speak as a citizen of the world,

for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken.

I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation.

The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."³

What strikes me about that,

            What strikes me about those words is that you could replace

The word Vietnam with the word Iraq

 

It’s easy to lose Hope, watching as history repeats itself.

 

Somehow this madness must cease

            Both Jesus and King might have gotten knocked off

Of their feet…but they got up and started walking and talking again

Shining an ever present light of freedom

in those twisted places of destruction.

 

King said:

            The great initiative in this war is ours.

The initiative to stop it must be ours.

In his sermon “Loving your Enemies"⁴ he said:

            “Somewhere somebody must have a little sense,

that’s the strong person.

The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil.

And that is the tragedy of hate, that it does not cut it off.

It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe.

Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off,

and inject within the very structure of the universe

that strong and powerful element of Love.”

 

And when he said Love, when King said Love he was talking about Agape.

He was talking about “redemptive goodwill for all people”

He was talking about “a love that seeks nothing in return”

He was talking about “an overflowing love…the love of

God,” the Divine working in the lives of all kinds of people…Agape.

 

Not love as eros – that romantic…feel good love

Not love as philia – that mutual love between friends, and kin

But Agape that “refusal to do anything that will defeat another

Because we have agape in our souls,⁵

            Because we’ve “looked inward and

we’ve seen clearly the complex truths of our lives and our histories.

And we commit ourselves to the spiritual practice of waging [love]—

in our hearts, at home, in our congregations and communities, and in our world.⁶

 

And that’s the place we’re trying to get to.

            That’s the land of Love we seek…and

Somebody must have religion enough, morality enough and Hope enough

To inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and

powerful element of Agape…of Love.

It’s a journey…and somebody…communities, “communities of some-bodies”

Must have sense and strength to undertake it.

 

//

 

Communities of Some-bodies must have morality enough to say that

It is unacceptable to keep on talking about the rising

Death toll in Iraq…

To come to April 2007, another deadliest month since the last deadliest month which was December 2006

To not know just how many civilian casualties there’ve been

To confirm that more than 70% of a sample of 2,500 children who live in

Baghdad exhibit overwhelming signs of stress caused by this war.⁷

 

Communities of Some-bodies must have religion enough – a religion that believes deeply

In the inherent worth and dignity of all people

            To lobby for returning veterans who are being paper-worked

and classified out of health care benefits for themselves and their

Family members by the U.S. military…the very military that

Sent them to war.

 

Communities of Some-bodies must be disturbed enough to keep on pointing our

            Administration to the worsening situation in Sudan: 200,000 killed

millions homeless, and still no peacekeepers -  we must insist that something more be done.⁸

 

Communities of Some-bodies must be outraged enough to lift loud voices

protesting that here in Colorado

            We are doing so little to deal with immigrant workers…workers…

            People who work on our behalf…with compassion and justice

 

Communities of Some-bodies must have Hope enough to shine a sensible light on the fact that

            “of the fourteen worst mass shootings in Western democracies

            Since the nineteen-sixties the United States claimed seven” that’s half,

            “and just as important, no other country on the list has had a repeat

            performance as severe as the first.⁹

            Just us…and the shootings keep increasing in severity.

 

 

Communities of Some-bodies must have Hope enough to insist on stricter, tighter gun laws

            American children are more at risk from firearms

than the children of any other industrialized nation.

In one year, firearms killed no children in Japan,

19 in Great Britain, 57 in Germany, 109 in France,

153 in Canada, and 5,285 in the United States.¹⁰

 

5,285

 

And there is a link…for we cannot have peace here at home, in this land

While we wage war in distant lands…it cannot be done.

 

Communities of Some-bodies must have Hope enough to value individual rights, yes, but to also realize that we are a collective,

 an interdependent collective and we affect each other.

 

And if we, this collective are to get to that place,

            That land of Love…then we must be willing to “develop and envision

Alternatives to the prevailing but wholly inadequate views."¹¹ of our times.

 

Our alternatives must start from believing that change is possible…and must

Contain a commitment to the common good…

            We must be both responsible and responsive

Responsible: re – meaning “turn” and spond-eyo – meaning “promise”

Responsible:

As committed citizens we have the capacity to turn, to notice, to be affected,

To be informed, to form bonds, and to make promises.¹²

 

And this gives me Hope.

            We have the capacity to be affected, to promise, and to create nonviolent solutions;

changing the culture of violence in which we now live…

refusing to keep on repeating our history.

 

//

 

We have the capacity in this community, which is our religious community,

to be a part of something good…

be a part of this blue-green miraculous marble

As it moves through space and time,

As a collective we can envision and develop alternatives to the

prevailing but wholly inadequate views of our times…

 

Because we…all of us…can commit to being both responsible and responsive

We must commit as a “community of some-bodies”

We must commit…lifting our voices at injustices so unacceptable that

the stones will shout if we are silent

We must commit to weeping over the mindless destruction that happens

In our names and then working to restore the world

We must commit to staying on the journey of Agape, of Love

 

No, we are not yet there…

            and Hope is within reach

Hope for the “long and bitter but beautiful struggle” does live and breathe in our midst

Hope breeds in our will to care, to affect others, to connect, to engage our moral

Imaginations on behalf of ushering in positive change

 

No, we are not there yet

            But we can be…just over 40 years ago Martin Luther King Jr. said:

 

“We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.

In this unfolding conundrum of life and history

there is such a thing as being too late.

 

Procrastination is still the thief of time.

Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity.

 

We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage,

but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on.

Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late."¹³

//

 

There is such a thing as being too late.

            Somehow this madness must cease

Somehow we must find it within ourselves to restore the temple

To drive the profit makers, drive those concerned only with corruption and destruction

out of the temple…out of key decision making positions

out of places where they make policies that have detrimental effects on

the majority of citizens

  

“Now let us begin.  (King says)

Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter –

but beautiful -- struggle for a new world.

 

This is [our] calling…and our brothers and sisters wait eagerly for our response.

Shall we say the odds are too great?

Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard?

Or will there be another message, of longing,…of solidarity…

[of shining, of giving each other Hope],

of commitment to the cause of just living, whatever the cost?

The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise

we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.¹⁴

 

We must accept that what we hope for, what we work for

what we DO does matter.

            Mend our sense of Hope…create a vision…

a life positive, peace positive manifesto for our collective lives and living

And at the very top, we will write:

            somebody must have a little sense,

that’s the strong person.

Somebody must have religion enough,

morality enough, and hope enough to inject within

the very structure of the universe that strong

and powerful element of Love.

And that somebody is Me.

 

 

Benediction:

 

            somebody must have a little sense,

that’s the strong person.

Somebody must have religion enough,

morality enough, and hope enough to inject within

the very structure of the universe that strong

and powerful element of Love.

And that somebody is You.

           

We extinguish this chalice

But its flame…its flame of hope, of commitment to Agape

Shines on within us.