Sermon given by intern minister Tori Rosati, December 2, 2022.

Tim and I recently got away for a few days with some friends up in the White Mountains. Our cabin sat at the base of a few of those formidable peaks, which we could see out our kitchen window. While there, and in the spirit of the landscape we were in, one of the nights we all watched the rock-climbing documentary called “The Dawn Wall.” The movie told the story of famed rock climbers, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgenson and their pursuit of summitting the Dawn Wall, a never before climbed face of El Capitan, the iconic vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park. 

A popular spot for rock climbers, El Capitan had been climbed for decades by famous climbers, but the successful pursuit of the elusive Dawn Wall remained a seemingly insurmountable feat for its sheer rock face and few “holds” – places in the rock where you can curl your fingers and toe around - to climb. The Dawn Wall gets its name due to the fact that it faces the east and catches the first rays of sun at dawn that illuminate its face – casting pink orange rays on its formidable exterior. 

Over the course of a decade, Tommy had faced a number of intense life challenges that led him to try and achieve the seemingly impossible and find a way to scale the Dawn Wall. 

He found a partner in fellow climber, Kevin Jorgenson, and the two friends trained for over 6 years, studying every crack, crevice and crag in the rock to find a way to the top. In rock climbing you need your partners. In addition to needing someone to hold the ropes, climbers need each other to help them find their way to the top. When one climber attempts a climb, the one below is watching and learning from the person ahead of them, noticing where they put their hands and feet, where they struggled and how they moved their body. When one falls shy of the end, they leave a way for the other to pick up. 

In this way, Tommy and Kevin were going to climb in sections or what are known as pitches. One of them would start a section, or pitch, while the other one, stayed below held their ropes for them. When that person finished, they could go back down and hold the ropes for the other. Back and forth, preparing the way for each other as they made their way to the top. 

There was this really hard section of the wall called pitch 15. It was hard because it went across rather than up. Tommy, after much trial was able to complete this section but try as he might, Keven kept falling – over and over again. They decided after some time that Tommy would keep going while Kevin stayed behind on pitch 15 trying to catch up.  

Tommy got within a day of finishing his climb - a dream he had for years and this culminating moment that represented moving through some of the hardest moments in his life was just a few hand holds within reach. But…Kevin was still back down below him struggling on pitch 15 and starting to think he wasn’t going to be able to make it – they had already been on the wall (eating and sleeping on beds that hung on the side) for 3 weeks. 

Tommy has a choice – go on ahead and achieve the feat he had so tirelessly worked for or go back down and help Kevin. In the end he decided he couldn’t summit the mountain without his friend so we went back down and helped Kevin - held his rope, gave him encouragement and waited with him as he tried and tried. Falling over and over again. Finally, he got it! Kevin quickly caught up to where Tommy had left off and together the two friends submitted the wall together. Something no one had ever done before and something they did together. 

This month’s worship theme is humility and I love this story for the way it embodies this theme. The humility in knowing one’s need of others, a counter to so many of our societal messages of being the best, charting our courses alone, rising above the rest. Here we find an example of someone, staying low, waiting and knowing that their rise is inextricably linked to that of their companions, that their success is shaped by how it leads and prepares a way for others to follow. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about this story as we transition into the busy holiday season. I start out every December asking myself – how do I want to spend this time? As Frank explored last week in his sermon, it is easy to get swept away in the busyness and stress of buying, planning, and navigating the challenges of that the holidays often brings. Alongside this is the reality this time of year is not joyful and celebratory for us all. This can be a time of sadness sand grief, made more so by not feeling the ways the world around us is asking us to feel.  As the nativity travelers can attest, traversing the land with all their worldly possessions on their backs, guided by only a star can attest – sometimes the way is long and lumbering. 

In addition to the external preparations, however they may look to you this season –building yule logs, buying gifts, lighting candles, sharing time with family and friends, there is a gathering in that is upon us – one that asks us to prepare…for the long winter ahead, the returning sun, the birth of hope and peace in this world.  

So, I wonder how we might spend this season – address both the busyness and sadness that hangs over this time of year. Here, I think about those two friends who prepared a way to the top for each other. How might we help each other course paths for ourselves to scale the mountains of our days? And, how might this invitation call us to live into our humble need of one another?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, 

“I have gifts that you do not have, so, consequently, I am unique-you have gifts that I do not have, so you are unique. God has made us so that we will need each other. We are made for a delicate network of interdependence.”

God has made us so that we will need each other. Isn’t that a wonderful way to think about humility?

By sharing our gifts with the world – our stories and presence, the routes we scale up our rock walls -  we steady the ropes, and mark the crevices and holds for the next person to grab onto. We can’t do any of this alone. Humility for me is claiming the power of that. The power of knowing my need of others and the truth of our interdependence. To offer myself, yes, but also let others offer to me a path up the rock’s face. 

The author of our reading this morning, minister and poet Jan Richardson, wrote a short introduction to her poem in which she shared,  “Others have traveled here ahead of me, each in their own fashion yet providing pieces that I can use: scraps of words, images, prayers, stories; fragments that help me to find my way and enable me to smooth the path a bit for others yet to come.

In some sense we are all creating the road as we go. Yet beneath this, undergirding this, is a path carved by those who have traveled here before us, who followed the God who called them to the journey, who gave themselves to preparing a way for the One who came into the world to walk with us.”

The One who came into the world to share the journey with us. For me that One isn’t necessarily God in the traditional sense, but the bonds and commitments between us. I have been part of UU faith communities for over 12 years and one of the things that is affirmed for me again and again is the way these spaces of love, community, and spirit carve out paths for us when we can’t see a way through. 

I have delighted, these last few months, in the ways this congregation does this. After the last nearly three years of distance and separation, the ways through this community are filled again with the smells of soup before vespers, the sound of voices singing in unison, the sight of beautiful faces coming through on zoom. 

In our showing up for each other - we show each other the way – through the turns and pitches of our lives – reminding each other every day that we won’t leave you on the mountain side. This path has been set by those who traveled before us - and our call, as people of faith is to ensure it continues on. 

You all have certainly been that for me – helping me find my way through this learning and forming into ministry – you have held my ropes, and shown me the way through the twists and vulnerable turns of being new to something. This is what a faith community, at its best is – a place where we can need each other, and through that need, offer our gifts to carve a path for us all to reach the top together. 

I can’t help but pause here and reflect on these quilts. Being part of the group that hung them was a poignant experience and one I have carried with me as I’ve reflected on the notion of preparing the way this week. It was hard not tear up as we gently carried them through the sanctuary and encountered the people their images memorialized. I couldn’t help but feel the literal weight and humble power of these panels stitched lovingly together by grieving hands that call each of us to remember forward. The AIDS quilt is the largest community art installation in the world. If these panels were put end on end – they would stretch over 50 miles. A way that charts a painful history and legacy – one of inhuman discrimination, heartache, and grief and also one of hope and healing and commitment to the future. 

The National AIDS Memorial says, “By sharing the story of the struggle against HIV/AIDS, we remember, in perpetuity, the lives lost, we offer healing and hope to survivors, and we inspire new generations of activists in the fight against stigma, denial, and hate for a just future.”

Inspire new generations for the future…

Cleve Jones, who conceived of the quilt in 1985 said in an interview about the project, “Quilts are traditionally made from cast offs – taking scraps of fabric of different colors and textures and sewing them into something warm and comforting.” Jones and others carved a way through history to tell their stories, humanity and worth through these panels – ensuring we don’t forget that the statistics are people – real life people, those cast offs that when gathered together keep warm the promise of and insistence that we keep the way open for the next generation. 

So…as we go about our busy preparations this time of year – cooking our meals, wrapping our presents, lighting our candles, I hope that we let ourselves find balance and direction by the light of this community - let it waken our senses  to the sights, smells, sounds, and textures of the paths we trod together - the ones broken for us and the ones we are breaking in our own unique and gifted ways  each one of us – stitched together in the name of providing warmth and comfort for those who need it most in these days. 

Let us pay attention to the courses charted by the companions beside us – how they help us to find our holds and traverse our pitches,…and the way this, may in turn, chart a path for those alongside us to follow. How might that scrap of conversation in passing, this invitation to connect, this story on our lips that wants to be told – how do these offerings, these gifts, like the returning sun at dawn in the east casts its pink orange glow on the mountains and valleys of our lives – how might they illumine our path – a course so mysterious and great – that we all find our way.