Costuming

Halloween has arrived: hungry, costumed hands scoop treats from large crucibles of sugary delight. Sweet-tooths take center stage, while other ghoulish figures lurk in the shadows, tending to the stock of chocolate surprises.

The 19th c. Unitarian Minister and his Shadow.

As Parisa mentioned this morning, the growing passion for the holiday may reflect an increasing awareness of the thin line separating life and death. In experimenting with who we are in costume, we cannot help but notice that some day we will not be at all. Our imaginative revelry cannot fully hide the truth of a death that is real, ultimate, closed to zombie re-awakenings.

That is not to say, of course, that death necessarily curtails our fantasy - or that it marks the end of our journeys. But its certainty provokes fear. And Halloween is when we get to act that fear out.

Perhaps it is worth considering: who will you be this year - in costume, and in your daily life? What personality will you take on? And might this safe, holiday fantasy make way for a more sustained experimentation with you who aspire to be in your un-costumed world?

May this Halloween season shine new light on old shadows. May it invite you to see yourself in another way. And may it reassure you that despite the truth crouching behind plastic gravestones, there is still some more time to dress up!

Crime on Blue Hill Avenue

Last month, youth and staff from First Parish attended a vigil in Mattapan sponsored by the Morning Star Baptist Church. WGBH reporter Phillip Martin covered the event. You can listen to his story here.

Eternity

This morning's service was touching, vibrant and Spirit-filled. It was also long. Thus, I have decided to reproduce some of the denser sections of my sermon below. I welcome your feedback and invite conversation through blog comments, as you are moved.

“Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” - 1 Timothy 6:12

Where is this eternal life to which we were called? What is it? If you, like me, consume a daily glass of skepticism to guard against spiritual heart attacks, you may not be entirely sure that you even want to wash up on eternity’s distant shore. Eternity can feel infinitely removed from the tangled temporal mess of our present situation. And truth be told, there is something compelling, something beautiful, about hacking through the thicket of time with the people we love.

How, then, are we to understand the eternity that has called us and that eagerly awaits our arrival?

The late Unitarian Universalist minister Forrest Church insists that eternity is not a length of time but instead a depth in time. It is a quality of time, measured not by the instruments of physics but by the instruments of our souls – when a single moment holds the meaning of a lifetime: the first cry of a newborn child; the unrolling of a high school diploma; the soft whisper of a lifelong friend, ‘I love you.’ These are the moments in time, large and small, predictably momentous and unexpectedly touching, when the clouds of the everyday tear open to reveal the limitless skies of the eternal. We experience eternity on rare occasion and yet it beckons us with every breath.

The depth of eternity cannot be represented, bounded or defined.

Rather, eternity must be experienced, enacted. It must bare your soul.

Over the past decade, I have come to realize that my story is small, that it is only one. But still it is one. And it is not mine alone. The story that I live, or rather, the story that lives me, has its origin in the greatness of that pulsating cosmos. It hinges on the stories of my ancestors; it turns on the stories of my family; it binds up the stories of all those individuals and traditions that have shaped me long before I could ever shape them. My story, of course, is not yet finished. And some day, death will demand my pen halfway through, leaving it to others to finish writing the meaning of my life.

This is true of your small story as well.

Ministry, for me, is about sanctifying these stories: helping us to render these stories sacred, while reminding us that they already are.

***

Last Sunday, Rev. Parsa introduced confession as a form of speaking together. And then, after worship service, this congregation spoke. We spoke our story: we adopted a new covenant.

Although I joined you towards its conclusion, I want to believe that the process in which you engaged to create this document opened space for the eternal. In the listening circles, in your coffee hour conversations, in committee meetings and draft revisions, I suspect that you experienced a different quality of time together: a newfound depth of relationship.

I do not need to tell you that First Parish is old; its founding predates the founding of this nation by almost a century. But perhaps I would do well to stress how young our new covenantal story still remains. You might say we have only written its preface. It is the way in which we live out these words that will fill the remaining pages of our shared story.

I quite like the musical analogy: We have the score, now we must make the music. For without sound, the notes of our covenant amount to little more than symbolic notation. This also explains why we don’t allow ourselves to get lost in the words. They are guideposts on our journey to eternal life, but they are not eternity itself.

If confession calls us to speak these words together, my prayer as your Intern Minister is that I may join you in living them out.

Let us not forget, though, the other meaning of confession.

At the beginning of this service, we welcomed two young souls into our care. The truth, of course, is that we will never be able to fully protect the children we just dedicated. We simply cannot guard them from the trapdoors of life; we simply cannot stave off the uninvited shadows of life. Yet, we pledge wholeheartedly and in good faith, to care for them, precisely because we know that they are deserving of our love and that love is real.

I want to suggest that our covenant rests on this same confessional logic. The ideals of our covenant are real, even if unrealizable. They point to the eternal.

Unitarian Universalism has exhibited a tendency of late to nudge eternity out of covenant. In so doing, covenant becomes little more than a promise to walk together. This is important, no doubt, but insufficient. And this reduction of covenant to a pinky-swear undermines the concept’s scriptural precedent. Where is the Holy? Is covenant not so much more than consensus? Is it not an invitation to sacred living, a path to the eternal life, a celebration of all that is Holy in this world?

Confession serves as a lens through which we may regain this holy purpose.

When we confess our covenant, we acknowledge both the frailties of the mortal and the splendor of the eternal. Our limitation comes into sharp relief only against the backdrop of the unlimited. Every shadow necessitates the flood of greater light.

***

My religious companions, we are building beloved community as we go. We are glimpsing eternity as we learn to see. And First Parish is where we practice. Church is where we improve our eyesight. In communal worship, in committee work, in our Small Group Ministries, these are the venues for learning how to live out our covenant.

Ask yourself: where am I practicing? How am I preparing myself for eternity?

Part of our building a new way is the recognition that we will fall short. That we will have to ask for forgiveness. And that such love will be granted. This is the meaning of living out our covenant confessionally.

Our New Covenant

Opening the liturgical theme of confession, Parisa expanded the term to include both private and corporate spheres of meaning. Individually, we confess, or ‘admit’ to, the ways in which we fall short of our ideals. This need not result in a guilt-inducing act of self-flagellation. Rather, we notice and name our shortcomings as an invitation to, as William Ellery Channing famously exhorted, “grow in the likeness of God.” Of course, our ability to transcend our own imperfection depends in large part on those individuals who companion us on the journey. Hence the importance of community. Parisa spoke passionately about the welcomed challenge of practicing physical fitness in a class environment, where the leader and fellow classmates simultaneously hold you accountable for your participation and push you past your comfort zone. So, too, as we train our spiritual health. By coming together in religious community, we pledge ourselves to aspirations of heightened character and purpose. Though we may well fall short of their unwavering attainment, we nevertheless vow to stand for them and by them. We confess, literally ‘acknowledge together,’ that these ways-of-being inform our time together, and in so doing form us in their image. Their goodness and truth serve as the measure against which we mark our creatureliness.


Following today’s service, the congregation voted to adopt a revision to its present Ames-inspired covenant, thereby acknowledging together how our faith community understands who it currently is and who it ought to become. This decision follows months of deep listening, thoughtful reflection and democratic discussion. I close with the words of this new covenant, as I pray it will serve as an ample source of reflection for this week, and for years to come:


In devotion to truth, searching along many spiritual paths,
We honor the living legacy of our faith in the human potential for goodness and in the God of limitless love, in whom we are one.
We unite in faith,
To celebrate the sacred as it reveals itself within and among us;
To promote spiritual growth and to care for those in need;
To honor and protect the natural world, which inspires wonder and sustains life;
To walk together in peace, committed to justice and compassion in our world.

Reflection for the Week: Our New Covenant

Animal Lessons

Upon returning this morning from a brief getaway, I was heartened to learn from staff and the local press that the Animal Blessing service this past Sunday was powerful and of great meaning to those involved. Amen!

Even though I did not spend the long weekend in Milton, my time away from church was not absent of canine companions. In fact, on Saturday I attended the annual Dog Show in Essex, CT. Skirting the glorious shoreline on a crisp, sun-drenched New England day, local residents gathered from surrounding communities to see and be seen with their leashed friends. Although the organizers offered best of show prizes in a variety of categories for the more competitively minded, most participants seemed to ultimately appreciate the invitation to simply share in doggy fellowship. Young children adoringly approached owners with a proposition too cute to refuse: ‘May I pet your dog?’ Between the sniffing, rolling and digging – of canine and human alike! – neighbors bonded and fresh faces were welcomed into the community. In effect, it was the love of individuals for their animals that opened the door to a greater love amongst such individuals themselves. 

The linguistic designation ‘animal’ derives from the Latin animale, signaling a ‘living being.’ It is a short leap from animale to animus: breath, soul. Beneath their furry exteriors, deep within their panting, slobbering, smiling selves, the dogs in Essex breathed new life into the community. Their effusive personalities, sense of companionship and yearning for intimacy seemed to teach us all about how to live – about what it means to be a ‘living being.’ As Sufi mystic Ibn ‘Arabi once observed: “Nature is in reality nothing other than the Breath of Compassion.” Despite significant linguistic barriers and noticeably different ways (and, at times, heights) of looking at the world, these dogs and humans seemed to share a common soul. As one woman stated, nestling her fuzzy Shih Tzu into the cave of her neck: “He’s my world.”  

It is fitting that we should acknowledge the many ways in which our animals bless us before offering them blessings in return.

That is not to say, of course, that the animal world displays a romanticized harmony. For every dog tenderly playing in Essex, another one was growling or defending her territory. Nature comprises both constructive and destructive potencies. And I want to believe that the blessings offered this past Sunday incorporated this holy observation as well.

In the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, the scripture of the Sikhs, we read: “Naked we come, and naked we go; in between, we put on a show.” Animals may open our eyes and hearts to this truth most poignantly. After all, three days out I can hardly remember which dog won first or second prize at the Dog Show in Essex – what I do vividly recall is the difference those canine consorts made in the lives of others.  

Reflection for the week: May we bless those who have 'shown' us blessing.  

After Fifty Years

Today’s service offered a rousing call to risk a leap of faith – in ourselves as a church community and in the promise of our religious movement. Parisa passionately connected our sense of urgency to the heroic story of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a rural village in south-central France that offered shelter to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Although the contexts differ dramatically, we Unitarian Universalists would do well to draw inspiration from their stories of radical hospitality and communal care. And indeed, our denomination has time and again demonstrated an audacious commitment to historically marginalized groups. We have extended an invitation of beloved community to women seeking ordination, to LGBTQ persons and, more recently, to racial and ethnic minorities.

Nevertheless, Unitarian Universalism has been largely relegated to by-stander at the parade of American religiosity. Consider: how often do you encounter someone who has actually heard of, let alone is familiar with, our faith tradition? I know that for me, as a minister in formation, I often spend more time describing the religion in which I hope one day to minister than I do relaying my calling to that ministry. Demographically, though, this inconvenient truth should not surprise us. In fact, this country claims more Neo-Nazi sympathizers than it does Unitarian Universalists.    

Our history holds fast to the dream of greatness, however. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of what former Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) president Robert N. West called the ‘Unitarian Council of Nicea.’ Foreshadowed and rehearsed by youth in the 1954 decision to join Unitarian and Universalist young adult ministry into the Liberal Religious Youth, the process of birthing our two-headed theological nomenclature reached an emotional climax in 1960. That year, at the annual meeting in Boston, hundreds of robed ministers joined with lay delegates to sing the processional hymn:

As tranquil streams that meet and merge

And flow as one to seek the sea,

Our kindred fellowships unite

To build a church that shall be free.

The blessing and the curse of a free church, of course, is that we have to choose our direction. In no uncertain terms, we are the ones who may choose to be relevant by opening ourselves to difference and thereby expanding our inter-connectedness. When the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of American took the leap of faith to consolidate, they risked partisanship for the greater cause of relevancy. They opted for a united institution of power that could wield the power of institution for the cause of justice-making and community-building. Preaching the homily at the annual worship service in 1960, Donald Harrington described the milestone event as “partly a new birth, partly a commencement, partly a kind of marriage [but also] … a degree of death.” Fifty years later, we are the ones charged with the task of writing the occasion’s legacy. Was consolidation the beginning of a new and vibrant faith journey, or the beginning of that journey’s end?

Walking through the Harvard campus, climbing the stairs of Widener Library and cutting through the Yard, I cannot help but notice my sense of smallness – a wave of humility routinely washes over me on such wanderings. The walkways I regularly travel once carried those courageous individuals, some popularly known and others lost to history, who made profound contributions to human knowledge and the shape of our society today. I catch myself, from time to time, asking that infamous question: do I really deserve to be here, studying for the ministry at Harvard Divinity School?

This question is one that we Unitarian Universalists might consider asking as well: do we deserve our historical legacy, as spotted and imperfect as it may be? Or even more poignantly, do we deserve to survive? Do we deserve relevancy?

It is tempting, of course, to rattle off a litany of justifications for our enduring existence as a faith tradition, much as it is tempting for me to dig through my résumé or transcript to validate my studies at Harvard. But I wonder whether there’s another way.

I want to believe that our justification lies less in our past and more in our future. The question ‘do I deserve this’ can only be answered retrospectively. After all, I am studying at Harvard and Unitarian Universalism, while peripheral, is still relevant. Thank God! Thus, the deeper question becomes: so what? How will my actions today and tomorrow validate the privileges I have already been granted?

It is a blessing to call oneself a Unitarian Universalist. Now, what are we going to do about it?

Reflection for the week: Our actions tomorrow sanctify our being today.