Unitarian Society of New Haven
Sunday, September 23, 2018
“With Vision, The People..”
Rev. Megan Lloyd Joiner
Reading: Cataclysm and Songs by Conceição Lima
Happy what’s left of me after I’m gone
If only one of the songs sung
Lives beyond the person singing in me now.
Yet I would not save from the slaughter
A single one of the songs I sang and sing.
Instead from the entrails of oblivion
I would steal the laughter of children
And the age of the proverb.
And so to those who come
I would offer intact the enigma of light
Reading: Turning to One Another by Margaret Wheatly
There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about.
Ask: “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking.
Notice what you care about.
Assume that many others share your dreams.
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Talk to people you know.
Talk to people you don’t know.
Talk to people you never talk to.
Be intrigued by the differences you hear. Expect to be surprised.
Treasure curiosity more than certainty.
Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible.
Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.
Know that creative solutions come from new connections.
Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know.
Real listening always brings people closer together.
Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world.
Rely on human goodness.
Stay together.
Sermon
I stand before you this morning having spent the past week at the bedside of my 98-year-old grandmother who lay close to death after a bad fall. I traveled from her bedside in Atlanta to Wisconsin for the funeral mass for my great-aunt Pat who died last week at 101, also after a bad fall.
I stand before you this morning tired. And so grateful to this community for the space to make these trips this week, for your concern and care, and for your prayers.
I stand before you this morning humbled in the face of long life and the reality of death.
My grandmother was born in 1920. She was premature, born weighing only 2.7 pounds. She lived. Her mother, however, had died in childbirth, and her father struggled to even look at my grandmother during her childhood because, he said, she reminded him too much of his late wife. She left home at an early age. My grandmother’s childhood and young adulthood were not easy. She learned to protect herself; she learned to survive. She has been, for all of her 98 years, a survivor. And the truth is, this was not always easy for those who loved her and those whom she loved. Survival requires sacrifices. And it also requires a vision of how things can be, perhaps a vision quite different from the way things are. It requires asking “what’s possible?”
I left my grandmother on Friday afternoon. I said goodbye and kissed her on her forehead. I left her not knowing if I will see her again alive. She is a survivor. I say she’s the Energizer Bunny, but even the Energizer Bunny has to run out of batteries someday.
Having said goodbye to the last matriarchs of the Great Generation in our family this week, I am thinking today about how vision – the act of asking “what’s possible” – and legacy – what’s left of us after we are gone – are intertwined.
“Without vision,” the ancient proverb says, “the people perish.”
This got me wondering: what is the alternative?
We know we are mortal. This is the great truth of being alive, that we know we and all those we love must die. Forrest Church, the late minister of All Souls Unitarian in New York City, is famous for saying that “religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.”
Each of us comes to terms with the reality of death in different ways. For some, the idea of an afterlife provides great comfort. Others believe that a life endures in the memories of the living. Whatever we believe or think we know about what happens after we die, we do know that our time here on earth will end. So what remains of any vision we might once have had – for our lives, our families, our work, our world? What songs “live beyond the person singing in us now?” How do our imaginings of what is possible make any difference once we are gone?
We can, each of us ask these questions. We do ask these questions for ourselves. But we do not have to ask them alone. This is one of the reasons we come together here. To ask what sort of legacy we will leave as individuals and as a people, a community, a congregation.
I’m interested in both: in our individual answers and our collective response to the question of legacy.
Being a part of a congregation like this, a gathered worshiping community, a community working for justice in the world and living in covenant with one another is being part of an enterprise. An enterprise is defined as “a project or undertaking, typically one that is difficult or requires effort.”
A congregation is not its minister or its building. These are temporary trappings. A congregation is the legacy of those who have gone before, the commitment of those who are here now, the imaginings of those who have yet to walk through the doors. A congregation is the result of her people asking, “what’s possible?,” making new connections, expecting to be surprised, and staying together, even when it’s not easy, even when people make mistakes or you don’t agree with a decision or don’t like the music or are turned off by clapping during the service.
A congregation is about making space for everyone who wants to join the enterprise to bring their full selves to it. A congregation is about building the Beloved Community, that vision Dr. King had of a “society based on justice, equal opportunity, and love of one’s fellow human beings.” When we say a congregation is about building Beloved Community, it is not just about the work that goes on beyond our walls – though that work is certainly a part of our vision. No, we have an opportunity within these walls to join Dr. King in his vision right here, right now. Congregations with an explicitly Christian theology might say that our work together is to create the kingdom of heaven on Earth. In Buddhist circles folks refer to this idea of Beloved Community as “a sangha by another name.” Hindu leader Padma Kuppa talks about a community “walking the path of dharma” together.
What most religious traditions share in common is the idea of a community of practice. A community where the values one espouses can be lived in interactions with fellow members, where one is accountable to others, where members of the community support each other in walking the path of living faithfully, with love as a guide. Sometimes this is difficult and sometimes it requires great effort. And we know, those of us who choose to live in community like this, that we don’t want to, perhaps we can’t even, walk that path alone.
I come back to this idea, the idea of Beloved Community, of walking together, of living in covenant together, over and over it seems. Why is that? Because I truly believe that if we cannot practice what we preach here, if we cannot be kind and respectful with each other here, if we cannot “talk to people we don’t know” and learn each other’s stories and remain committed to inclusion and a wide welcome here, then we cannot do anything out there. If we cannot imagine what’s possible within our walls, if we cannot live our vision here, then what kind of legacy will we leave for those who come after us?
And, friends, we have work to do on this. We need to be conscious about the ways we speak to each other and to our children. I ask you to stop, to ask yourself: am I speaking or acting in love? How might I say something with more compassion? Make a different choice? Invite rather than scold? Ask questions and get curious rather than making assumptions? Encourage rather than dampen another person’s enthusiasm?
We need to consider our conflicts, when we disagree or are disappointed and recommit ourselves to working with our conflict openly and honestly without demonizing or vilifying those with whom we disagree. We need to consider the places where we are uncomfortable, where we don’t understand what is being done or why and educate ourselves rather than attacking those involved in a project that might not resonate with us.
A word about gender pronouns here. We started at the beginning of this congregational year, two weeks ago, an effort to widen our welcome to people who identify as non-binary or gender non-conforming or transgender. We gave you the opportunity to add pronoun stickers to your name tags. This practice has been adopted in many progressive circles as a way for a community to show solidarity with trans and non-binary people and for cis-gender, or those whose gender identify corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth, for cis-gender people to act as allies alongside members the trans community. When everyone wears their pronouns on their name tag, we are less likely to make assumptions about how a person identifies, and we make space through this practice for those who do use alternative pronouns to share their true identities without being singled out. Moreover, we are more open, we hope, to learning people’s stories – if we stop long enough to listen. If we don’t interrupt with our own opinions or our own experiences, but trust that people know who they are and how they want to be called. We trust that they know their names and their pronouns and their bodies and their minds and their hearts. When we truly listen, we might learn something we didn’t know before.
And I’ll tell you this: something as simple as a pronoun sticker matters. You may not think so, but believe me, it does. I was told this week by the mother of one of our young people who is bravely living into her true identity that she felt especially supported and loved and seen by her congregation because of this effort and by seeing how many people chose to wear a sticker. You made a child feel supported and loved and seen. That matters.
And if you don’t want to wear a sticker, that’s fine, that’s your choice, of course. But I ask that you trust us that widening our welcome in this way is part of the vision of Beloved Community that we are trying to build together. Ask questions, certainly, learn and ask for resources, we will do our best to provide them, but please don’t tear down what we are trying to build.
Look, the truth is, this is uncomfortable work. It is not easy. We will make mistakes – we have already – but we are committed to doing our best, knowing that we can always do better, knowing that when we are guided by love, when we lead with love, we remain open to what’s possible and we leave a legacy of love behind us when we go.
When my cousin came out to our family as transgender, he wrote a letter to all the elders explaining his transition, telling them his new name, explaining what pronouns to use. I have his permission to share this story with you. That summer, my great-aunt Pat, who just died, was driving with my mother. Sitting in the passenger seat, she pulled the letter out of her purse. She was 85 years old. She was a devoted Catholic. She had some questions. She called my cousin by his old name, then the new one. She mixed up the pronouns and then got them straight. She finally said, “as long as he loves me and I love him, then we’re good.”
You see, Aunt Pat was a Catholic who had married into a Protestant family and originally been outright rejected by her father-in-law. Still, she nursed him on his own death bed and finally, he looked up at her and said his last words: “You know, Pat, he said, we all worship the same God.” She felt acknowledged, accepted and welcomed. It was from this experience, that she was able to acknowledge, accept and welcome her great-nephew, just as her father-in-law had finally done for her.
Love gave her a vision of what was possible. My cousin and I stood side by side in the Catholic church in Reedsburg, Wisconsin yesterday to bid our Aunt Pat farewell. Love is her legacy.
What will be yours?
Forrest Church writes: “About life after death, no-one knows. But about this we surely know: there is love after death… Centuries from now, the last tracings of our being will yet express themselves in little works of love that follow bead by bead in a luminous [chain] extending from our dear ones out into their world and then on into the next, strung by our own loving hands.”
And the poet: from the entrails of oblivion, I would steal the laughter of children; And to those who come, I would offer intact the enigma of light
What would you steal from the entrails of oblivion? What would you offer those who come?
What will we?
Without vision, the people perish.
What about with it?
With vision, the people build a new way of being, of living, of doing and of loving.
With a vision of what is possible, the people leave a legacy of love.
With vision, the people make a difference in the lives of their children and each other.
With vision, the people welcome the stranger and listen to their story.
With vision, the people cast out fear.
With vision, the people flourish.