Unitarian Society of New Haven
Rev. Megan Lloyd Joiner
March 4, 2018
Call to Worship: “Be Still With Me and Enter” Marta I. Valentín
Reading: “On Approaching Seventy” by Joan Seliger Sidney http://mikeschultz.ghost.io/untitled-29/
Sermon
I chose this morning’s reading because I could hear USNH’s personified voice in the narrator’s words. Our congregation is approaching seventy. Founded in 1951, we have just three years to go.
A memory rises of my mother bending over our kitchen table in Flatbush, pressing, stretching,
folding flour, water, eggs into a living elastic.
Generations pressing, stretching, folding, pushing and pulling disparate parts into a whole. Any one of the ingredients alone does not make a loaf: flour, water, eggs, yeast. Together, they bond. Through kneading, the gluten takes hold, and, when you add a little heat, they rise, glorious, becoming more than the individual parts, a “living elastic.”
I like thinking of USNH as a living elastic.
To understand where I am going next you should know I have a version of synesthesia, you know that phenomenon where some people see colors that correspond with sounds or letters or numbers. Well, there is a lesser-known version of synesthesia that involves associating personalities and genders with sequences like numbers or letters or days of the week. It also happens for me with colors and sometimes inanimate objects. It’s strange, I know. But it’s true, and often fun. I can walk you through the alphabet or the numbers or the colors and tell you all about the various personalities I associate with each one. For example, the number one is male to me. Somewhat shy, a good friend, hangs in the shadow of number two. Number two is female, bold and brash, she knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to get it. It goes on. They are almost like family. It happens with places like USNH too.
In today’s reading, the narrator’s voice sounds to me like that of this place, and it is a woman’s voice. Sorry fellas. There’s no accounting for a synesthete’s taste in gendering a congregation.
What more can I say about USNH’s conjured being? She is strong, hale and hearty and knows how to party! She has a big heart, but she takes no nonsense. She wants to be involved with everything, but she knows that the world is changing around her and requires something different of her now. While her energy seems boundless, it is not, and she’s got her fingers in a lot of pots. She knows that she is called to something more specific, more focused, exactly what she’s not sure yet. She’s hopeful but a little weary. She’s approaching seventy, and she remembers the people who were with her from the beginning. She’s excited to meet new people; she’s friendly and outgoing but, if she is honest with herself, she’s a bit apprehensive and doesn’t feel totally comfortable sharing deeply with others right away. She’s spiritually complex and eclectic. She longs for connection. She is generous with her time and her money, and she has more – of everything – than she thinks she does, or acts like she does.
Dear USNH. She really is a love.
Leaders on our Board ask me often why I do what I do, why I believe in Unitarian Universalism so much, and why it’s energizing to me when people discover us. Here’s what I say: because this faith saves lives. It’s a little different than saving souls, but I do truly believe that our faith saves lives. I know this because it saved mine.
You see, at the hardest times in my life, the good people of the First Unitarian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, have shown up. At various point, they have sent notes and cards that offered me the love of the entire congregation; offered a connection that tethered me to them, made me feel a part of something, helped me remember, during my darkest days, that I mattered.
I’ll never forget it. That connection, more than anything, is why I am standing before you now, why I have dedicated my life to this faith that we share.
So many of you have similar stories. You’ve told me about how the people of this place cared for you when you were ill or a loved one was ill or when your mother died or when you first moved to town. You’ve told me about how you were welcomed into the homes of members before you knew anyone and what a difference that made. You’ve shared stories of raising your children here, of how this community loved them through adolescence or transition or difficult times. You’ve shared how this place grounds you, makes you feel a part of something, helps you remember that you matter.
But USNH isn’t just for difficult times. We celebrate, we laugh, we feast. We work together to become our best selves, to open our hearts, to leave the world better than we found it. We stretch and push and pull our way into the living elastic that is this community.
You’ve also told me that it’s starting to feel like we stretched ourselves too thin, that it’s a little frenetic around here – well, maybe a lot frenetic. You’ve shared the Social Hall feels full to bursting, that the newsletter feels like a running list of events you can’t attend because you are too busy. Some of you have told me that there is so much going on that it feels totally overwhelming – not to mention the fact that you can’t reserve a room for months in advance.
How do we move through some of the challenges we are facing to creating together a dynamic and vital, mission-driven congregation that cares deeply and effectively for its members and has room to welcome more people wholeheartedly into this faith and into this community that we love so well? What do we need to learn together that will move us toward solutions, that will allow us to thrive in ways we have yet to imagine?
This is a time in USNH’s history like none other. This is a time in our nation’s history like none other. And the truth is, our people and our world need more of us. Those of us who are here and those beyond our walls need us not to be disparate parts, but a comprehensive whole with a sustaining vision and powerful reason for being. We and they need us to take seriously the fact that this faith and this congregation changes lives, transforms lives, save lives.
In order to truly thrive, we must determine our collective purpose in this changing world, tell our story, be a WE.
Benjamin Zander writes: “The WE story defines a human being in a specific way: It says we are our central selves seeking to contribute, naturally engaged, forever in a dance with each other. It points to relationship rather than to individuals…This new being, the WE of us, comes into view as we look for it – the vital entity of our…community…Then the protagonist of our story, the entity called WE, steps forward and takes on a life of its own.”[1]
We are our central selves seeking to contribute, naturally engaged, forever in a dance with each other.
We may have come to USNH because we were seeking to receive something: spiritual clarity, community support, time for reflection, religious education for our children, or ways to work for justice. We stay because we find a way to contribute, to engage, to dance, not alone to our own drummer, but with each other.
Our work moving forward, our work if we are going to rise to the challenge that our times present, is to think together about how and if we can begin to dance to the same music. Not because we love conformity for conformity’s sake, but to see what, when we get in step with one another, we might create together, to see how we might use our energies more effectively to support each other and those beyond our walls.
So back to our friend, USNH. I said she was hopeful, if a little weary. The truth is, she has big dreams. She has ambitious plans. She’s ready to take a leap. She’s refinancing her mortgage, balancing her budget for the first time in years; she’s paying her employees fairly and adding just a little bit more staff time to her operation. She’s making plans in future years to hire more staff, but she knows it’s not quite time. In the meantime, she’s working hard to be a good steward of the money with which she is entrusted.
In order for USNH to take that leap into the future, in order for us to rise together, we need to know what is important to you. We need you to be in conversation with each other, with your Board of Trustees, with your Management Team and with your Stewardship Team. The potlucks the Team have arranged for the next month are a great place to start. We look forward to hearing about the conversations you share as you discuss the import of USNH in your lives. How has USNH transformed your life? How has it saved your life? What are your dreams for this place?
Where do you see us going together? At the end of these dinners, you’ll be asked to make your pledge of support to USNH (https://www.usnh.org/about-us/support/). I hope you will see that pledge, not as an obligation, but as an act of hope in a world that has caused so many of us to teeter on the edge of despair. Your support of USNH makes possible everything we do here and makes a difference in all the lives we touch: through worship and pastoral care, religious education and social justice.
In the past few years, it’s felt around here like ours is a rising dough that is bursting over the rim of the bowl. The heat is on; the Spirit is palpable. What do we want to do with this energy? Where do we want to go together?
When we choose to move forward together, as a WE, as ONE, then the possibilities are endless. We will reach beyond the limits we think are holding us back. We will climb over the obstacles that have stymied us in the past. We will fly higher than we thought possible. We will RISE.
[1] Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility, Harvard Business Review Press: 2000.