Sermon Part 1: Vision
Consider the North star, also called the Pole Star or “ Polaris.” Our friends at “earthsky” point out that it appears to hold “nearly still in our sky while the entire northern sky moves around it. That’s because it’s located [near] the north celestial pole, the point around which the entire northern sky turns.”[i] A clear vision is like a pole star, holding steady and guiding us no matter where we may travel, no matter how the seas may change.
When I was in seminary all my teachers made sure we understood that it was important to create a vision statement with your congregation. I’ve been through this a few times now, and it always seems to involve butcher paper, and colorful magic markers, and possibly sticky dots. And when, a couple of months later, I couldn’t even remember the vision we had described that day, I always assumed that a better, more sophisticated process would be more successful if we tried again. We read books and expert opinions and started anew with a fresh pad of easel paper.
I think the misunderstanding I had, we had, was that vision was something that that we could create in a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon if we just had the right process. What I now believe is that a true vision is already there, and needs only to be uncovered, given language, shared.
When Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, he was proceeding along with his prepared remarks when Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson shouted, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” At that moment, he put his notes down and could describe, just out of his heart, to the dream that was already guiding him. He put into words the vision that had guided him to that point. When he said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”[ii] he gave voice to a longing that was already in the hearts and minds of the people listening to them that day. It is still in our hearts and minds this Sunday morning, still guiding us forward when we hear about the racial bias people of color experience in this world today. We hear those news stories about the way children of color are treated, and hold those stories up to Dr. King’s vision, and we can see we still have a long way to go.
Being able to imagine the future, to dream the future, is important to who we are as humans. Our dreams, large and small, provide a guiding star for our travels so we can know where we are headed, even when we don’t know exactly how to get there. Creating a vision is something we are already doing every day. Here is the most mundane example I can think of: you are sitting in the living room and it comes to you “I want cheesy fries.” That’s it. That’s your vision. Sometimes the vision is easily implementable- you already have some frozen French fries in the freezer, and some cheese in the fridge, all you have to do is go into the kitchen and start cooking. Other times, the vision seems impossible- it’s already late at night, and you don’t have any of the ingredients. But if you can hang onto that vision, say, the next time you are at the grocery store, or the next time you are out to eat, that vision can still someday become reality. See- visioning is easy.
The first time each of us came to this fellowship we had a vision that drew us here. Maybe the picture in our mind was of a place where we could meet new people, where we could find community. Maybe the vision was of yourself speaking what was in your heart, and other people truly listening. Or maybe you were frustrated and saddened by the state of the world, and imagined here at this fellowship you could meet other people who were concerned, and together we could do something. I know you had a vision because you would never have come that first time without some hope for what you would find here.
Visioning is not about “how.” Even the congregational leadership manuals are clear about this. “How” is the sphere of plans and strategies. Some strategies fail, some succeed. When we confuse strategy for vision, when we confused the path for the guiding star, we sometimes end up losing our way. One of the hardest parts of visioning is daring to have a dream when you can’t see a path that takes you there. If we only allow ourselves to imagine what seems practical and possible, we might not even be able to imagine what we really need and want. Consider Marriage Equality. How many of you thought 10 years ago, 20 years ago, that same-gender couples would be able to be legally married in the state of Pennsylvania? But we dreamed that dream anyway, and it came true. It’s hard to dream something that seems impossible; it’s scary because we know we might be disappointed. But what is possible changes as the times change.
And times are changing so fast right now, it’s easy to be buffeted about by the swiftly changing waters of our times. Organized religion itself is changing radically. Whereas in the 1950s just about everyone went to church or synagogue, we are told, today more and more folks have never even been. 30-40% of young people today don’t consider themselves part of any organized religion. [iii] Rev. Karen Bellavance-Grace, in a presentation to UU Ministers and religious educators, impressed on us the importance of “dreaming UU into the future.” If, she said, we want our beloved tradition to have a future, we must dream it now, together.
So I want to share with you a vision I have had for our movement; it has been growing in me for some time. I see our family size churches and fellowships as the beating heart of Universalism. We in this beloved community embody Universalist love, a love that holds each and every person, that holds each and every living being, as the early Universalists believed that God’s love embraces each and every one of us. We are the heart of Unitarian Universalism, right here in this sanctuary. Our love is like a hearth-fire where we come to warm ourselves, a fire that we tend and feed, a fire have kept burning for over 200 years. This world needs the luminous fire of our love. And we are not alone, this world is dotted with fires like ours.
But when I imagine that life-giving, restoring, inspiring, renewing warmth, it breaks my heart to imagine folks just out of site, wandering in the cold and dark. So part of my vision is that we are constantly reaching out for people who need the warmth our fire, whether they just need to be warmed for a moment during a cold, lonely time, or whether they choose to stay and become fire tenders themselves. This vision is simple enough that no matter what change the future holds, we can remember to keep the fire burning, to keep that fire at the heart of everything we do.
Dreaming the future is important. Casting a vision you truly care about, then just having the courage to hold it in your mind, and to share it with others creates a bigger possible future for everyone. It’s hard to hold onto a vision when we don’t know how we can get there, but remember there was a time when no one could have imagined a female preacher. Remember there was a time when we thought marriage equality would never come to America. So hold on to your vision like a north star, guiding us into that future.
Sermon part 2- Mission
Do any of you remember a movie from 1991 called “City Slickers?” It’s kind of a screw-ball comedy with Billy Crystal in which a trio of suburban middle aged men busy with family and work go on vacation for 2 weeks driving cattle from Colorado to New Mexico with real live cowboys. Towards the end of the movie one of them, Curly, played by Jack Palance (curly) turns to Billy Crystal and says
Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger]
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean [anything].
Every religion tries to answer the question burning in our souls “what is the meaning of life?” I believe that the answer, in this Unitarian Universalist tradition, is highly individual, but there are some common themes. The great UU religions educator Sofia Lyon Fahs said “the religious way is the deep way” So living life deeply is one secret your faith offers. Our tradition also teaches us that serving the common good is essential to a well lived life, As Rev. Rebecca Parker wrote:
“You must answer this question:So our tradition invites us to live our life deeply, and to serve the common good with our gifts. But do either of those things really gives us a “to do” list for when we wake up in the morning? That depends on our one thing. One can live deeply and serve the common good if you are an elementary school teacher, or a machinist, or a chiropractor. So it’s up to us to ask “what is the meaning of MY life.” Our faith tradition calls us to make sure our own mission, our own reason for being, is guided by certain principles, like respect for the inherent dignity of every person, and the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part. It encourages us to live out a mission different from that of the culture at large which I believe is “the one who dies with the most toys wins” or “you can never be too rich or too thin”
What will you do with your gifts?
Choose to bless the world.
When I was getting ready to go on maternity leave I knew that returning to work with a baby would be challenging. So I signed up for a seminar called “First Things First” from the folks at Franklin Covey. The primary message was that when we get up in the morning, we do the most important things first. Look, today we have already gathered in beloved community making our spiritual life and our relationships a priority. Then, when that unexpected call comes in the afternoon, or when your child comes home from school early with a fever, you have already done the most important thing, and you can end the day saying “well, I didn’t get it all done, but I got the most important thing (singular!) done.” By keeping your mission constantly before you, it increases the odds that you can live your life by that mission instead of getting sucked into a life of racking up the most toys.
Take a moment of reflection now to think about those moments in the life of this community when you have said to yourself “I’m really glad I made it to the fellowship that day” If you like to write things down, take an index card and list or draw some of those memories.
...now look for any patterns you notice among those memories. What do they have in common, like the string that holds the beads together? That, I submit, is your de facto mission. Now notice any qualities that come to mind as you review your string of memories and dreams. Compassion? Courage? Beauty? I’ll give you an example of what I mean from the most well know mission statement in the western world today:
“To explore strange new worldsBoldness is the quality with which the crew of the Star Ship Enterprise wants to seek new worlds. It would have been quite a different show if they had “prudently” gone, wouldn’t it?
To seek out new life and new civilizations
To boldly go where no man has gone before”
Are you starting to get a picture of the mission of this fellowship? What string links together those precious gems of our life as a community, a string that reaches all the way back into our first days in [the 1860s] [the 1950s], and will lead us into our future. Take a moment to write down any words, phrases, images, pictures, symbols that remind you of our reason for being, our reason for coming together. [pause for writing] Now check out how that feels in your heart and body when you project it into your future. Does it make you excited or inspired, or maybe even a little afraid? Or do they make you feel heavy and tired: “I really AUGHT to…” [pause] Because as Rev. Howard Thurman wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
If Vision is a picture of how you want to be, Mission is the verb in the sentence. Mission is what you are doing in that picture. If you resonated with that vision of us tending and warming ourselves by the warmth of universal love, then perhaps our mission is to “boldly embody God’s universal love”. But that’s still too broad to really tell us what to do first when we wake up in the morning. Let me suggest some things we are already doing- “tending our own spiritual lives and caring for one another.” A mission issues the challenge - “how do we best use the resources of our community, the gifts each person brings, and the legacy handed down from our founders over 200 years, to serve our mission?” Would a mission like that -- “To boldly embody God’s universal love by tending our own spiritual lives and caring for one another” – would that help steer us in the right direction? When the board, or the worship team roll up their sleeves for the good of our fellowship, what things would that mission call us to put first? It’s not up to me to choose a mission for this fellowship, only to encourage us to name and strengthen the thread that ties our work together, that gives it strength and purpose.
Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger]
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean [anything].
Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?"
Curly: [smiles] That's what *you* have to find out.
Endnote
[i] http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/polaris-the-present-day-north-star
[ii] http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html
[iii] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7513343&page=1
No comments:
Post a Comment