At their heart, religion and spiritual practice are meant to free us. Any faith worthy of the name is here to open us up to a clearer and more expansive view—of our lives, and the lives of others, and of our world. To help us be in touch with both the light and the shadow of life, its joys and its sorrows. The nun Elaine Prevalent, in an essay on minding one’s call, wrote,

“For most, the call has a particular container—a marriage, a church community, a mission site. At the deepest level, the call frees us. It enables us to see what really matters, to focus our love, to dedicate ourselves to something/Someone larger than ourselves, and so to enter consciously into that continual stream of losing and finding ourselves that is the mystery of life.”

Do you feel worthy of being loved?

 Is there some part of you that you feel is hard to love, or even unlovable? 

While I can’t speak for everyone, I don’t think it’s all that uncommon to have, at times, believed that about ourselves. 

Our theme for this month has been generosity, which means, broadly, going beyond what is expected of us. Sometimes, what we have been told, or have come to believe is that some part of us - something we have said, or done, or experienced - makes us dirty, or broken, or unremarkable, or somehow unworthy of love. And all too often, even after those voices have gone, we continue to tell that lie to ourselves. 

Dear spiritual companions, how are you doing? How are you holding up? How is it with your soul? 

We’re living in difficult times, to say the least. The leaders of our government are blowing up and tearing apart the institutions and practices that have made us a good nation and a good neighbor, and at this moment we don’t know where it will lead and how and when this nightmare will come to an end. It’s clear, isn’t it, that we need to prepare for a long haul. To make alliances and build community so we can help and heal and try to protect those who are at risk. So we can resist the forces that betray our values and our Constitution. So we can stay grounded and alert and awake in these days.

Do you know the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator? It’s a personality type test designed to help you to get in touch with your preferences, behavioral tendencies, and work styles. It’s a helpful tool in learning more about yourself. Well, early on in my time here, at a staff retreat, we all took a simplified version of that test. It turned out that everyone on our little staff belonged to the type called “dreamers.” Sally Liebermann, our beloved Religious Education director back then, looked around at us, smiled her peaceful smile, and said, “With all of us dreamer types, it’s a miracle we get anything done around here.”

My name is Erika Lundin.  I've been a member here for 22 years.  I joined the day my son was dedicated here.  I got to pick the words for the responsive reading during his ceremony, so I used lyrics from a song by the band Entrain).  The refrain sums up what I found here: "We are all connected, all one."

“Life calls us on,” the choir just sang, “Love calls us on.” I could preach almost every Sunday about calling, about vocation, because I truly believe that there are callings coming to us all the time, inviting and urging us to be more of our true selves, to turn toward what is good and live-giving, to not be seduced and led astray by all those voices promoting their own narrow and divisive interests. 

I can’t tell you how good it is to be back here in this sanctuary, under this roof together, after being online the past two weeks because of snow. This, right here, is one of the things I am going to miss most when I retire—an ordinary Sunday in this place, with you good people. Including those of you on Zoom; all of us gathered together.

If you pause and look for it, there are rituals to Sunday morning, and to all of church life. And there are rituals to daily life too; things you may take for granted, like morning coffee or tea, practices like prayer or meditation or filling the bird feeder, like kissing your spouse or children goodbye, like saying “I love you.” Aren’t these practices as holy as any ritual in any church faith community?

I’m always grateful when people come here for the first time, I often tell them that I think it takes some courage to enter a church for the first time; you don’t know what you’re going to find. Are people going to be welcoming and kind, or indifferent and inattentive? If you take a further risk and venture into coffee hour, will you be standing there all alone? Is anyone going to come up and talk to you? It’s like that saying, that some of the bravest words you can say are, “May I have this dance?”

These days I keep asking myself, “What is needed? What is required? What does it mean to be faithful?”

Is it to filter the news, and find ways to be informed and engaged without losing your mind? Is it to be out in the streets, protesting the injustices against immigrants and others who are at risk? Is it to be spending nights accompanying guests at our warming center downstairs? Or making a meal for the hungry, like our Board members did yesterday? Is it to be coming to church, and praying for equal justice under the law and freedom for everyone? And staying afterwards for our conversation about social justice?

I wrote my sermon a week ago and it was ‘pretty good.’ I had my wife read it over. I can always tell when I’ve hit it out of the park, she gets this cute look in her eyes like she knows she picked the right one to spend her life with. 

She didn’t have that look after she read my sermon. 

She told me it was good. That she got teary eyed. That I made some good points. And she told me I didn’t share enough of my own story. That I’d kept what was most compelling - the personal-  to a minimum.