Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, March 20, 2022.

“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.”

I know this is a happy day—we are back here gathered for worship, and hopefully the technology is working and folks are also with us on Zoom; it’s so good to be together, and it’s the first day of spring, and there’s going to be coffee after church! We have plenty of reasons to be hopeful and happy.

But I have to tell you, my spiritual companions, that there is also despair in my heart. And I expect there may be despair in your hearts too. Despair for our world, and for the suffering all around. Despair for what we have been though, these last two years, and for all that has been lost. How can there not be?

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes… (Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”)

We have this beautiful world to comfort us, and we have the Spirit moving in our midst. And we have each other, thank God. We have all these blessings. As the UU minister and theologian Rebecca Parker wrote, 

in the midst of a broken world
Unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide.
here is an embrace of kindness that encompasses all life, even yours.

What’s become even more obvious to me over the past couple of years is that to live in this world you have to be able to hold both sorrow and joy, both despair and hope. And that’s something we practice every Sunday here, and the days in between too! I honestly don’t know how people have gotten through this pandemic without some kind of community like this one. On this two year pilgrimage, I am so grateful for what faithful travelers you have been, for all the ways you have been caring and compassionate, patient and persistent. 

Back when I was a photographer I once did a week-long workshop with a National Geographic photographer whose work I admired, and who had a way about him, a kind of spiritual sensibility I wanted to be around. He said that when he traveled overseas, he always hired a local photographer as his assistant. “I don’t need help carrying my gear,” he said, “because I carry so little. It’s good to have a local guide. But that’s not why I hire an assistant. It’s because when you’re out on assignment, at some point things always go wrong. And when that happens, it’s really good to have someone to commiserate with.” 

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Rather than seeing this as complaining, what if we see commiserating, giving voice to our doubts and fears, as an act of health and healing, a necessary step in moving toward more hope and more faith?

Back when I I was training for ministry and did my chaplaincy internship, that was a pretty intense time. Completely by accident, one of the other guys in the program and I discovered a way to blow off steam. We had a little chaplain’s office at the end of a hall, and one day the two of us were in there alone, and we closed the door and started saying swear words as loud as we wanted! It was blessedly irreverent and liberating, and we did it several times that summer, often ending up laughing or crying or both. And that was a blessed and needed release.

So on this day when we are gathered back here, and some of you are gathering with us from a distance, I want to encourage you to look around and see one another, and to acknowledge the truth that has got me through these past two years, and I expect it may have gotten you through these years too. That saving truth is this: we are in this together. Will you turn to someone near you, or look at someone on your screen, and say this? We are in this together. 

If nothing else, hasn’t the pandemic shown us how much we need one another, and depend on one another? If I have learned anything over these past two years, it’s that I don’t want to go it alone. We live in this culture that celebrates and encourages a kind of heroic individualism, and I certainly like some solitude, but I have no interest in trying to go it alone.

Wasn’t it good to have young people here with us this morning? It’s a lot, you know, to be a parent of little ones—especially these days. I’m so grateful for our young families here, and hope that being part of this church helps them—that we are a place where there’s support and care and encouragement and hands ready to help.

Back when our children were little, and I was running my photography business, it was a lot. And one day I came home from work feeling stretched thin; trying to be a decent father and husband and photographer, but worried that I was falling down on the job. I confessed this to my wife Tracey. I said, “I can’t hold it all together.” And she said the perfect thing; she said, “It’s no one person’s job to hold a family together. We are in this together.” 

Sometimes Tracey jokes with me that she’s my unpaid ministry consultant. At that’s true! What she does is invisible to you, but I am so grateful for her support and wisdom, and never want to do this work without her. Nor do I ever want to be without the staff we have here. Much of what they do is invisible, at least some of the time, but I can say without reservation that this is the best staff team that I have ever worked with, and I am so grateful for them.

Over the past two years everyone on our staff has had to learn new ways of doing church, and they have taken on things that weren’t necessarily their job, but that needed doing, as we tried to find new ways to help you all stay connected. In addition to being a musician and directing the choir, Lisa became a software troubleshooter and tech support for her singers. Clare took on organizing our pastoral care efforts. Nate started recording his music and became our song leader. Lorryn learned how to edit worship videos. Tori started her internship here in a time when it’s been hard to get to know folks, but hasn’t she moved seamlessly into our hearts and into our congregation with her many gifts, including her presence and her preaching?

We’re at the time when we ask you to make a financial commitment to your church for the coming year. It’s an extraordinary time, right now, for faith communities. And many churches are struggling, because these two years have been hard. We’re not perfect here, but we have done pretty well through this pandemic, because there is a spirit here, a sense of community and connection and commitment to one another. And that has really gotten us through, hasn’t it? We are in this together, and if nothing else, the past two years have taught us that in a deeper way. We need one another, for support and encouragement, we need each other as companions in joy and in sorrow. 

We need each other’s help and encouragement. And speaking for the church, we need your money! I hope you trust that whatever you are able to give to your church is a good investment. That you know we spend it wisely here, and that it pays dividends here and in the wider community, more than you might imagine.

Especially this year, I want to see us pay our staff a little better. They are such good people, so devoted and competent and caring at what they do here. And so I ask you, to look at our stewardship brochure, and picture your church family and this awesome staff we have here, and take some time to consider what you are able to give, and then fill out your pledge card and return it to the office. 

Hear again Rev. Gretchen Haley’s words about our gathering for worship that were our invocation this morning:

We gather here to practice
surrendering to the waves 
of grace and grief
in song, in silence, in story.
We come to remember the possibility
of a larger call,
that we might offer our gifts 
with a surprising generosity.
That we might release ourselves
from needing to know.
That we might simply be present
to this beauty, these partners,
this hope that we make
together.

We are in this together. All we kindred, pilgrim souls. Simply being present, accepting this moment as it is, we see that we have what we need. It is right here. It is enough. And it is good. 

Amen.