Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, October 8, 2023.
We just sang, “our spirits long to be made whole.” Isn’t there, deep within each of us, that longing? To feel at home in ourselves and in the world; to be at one—heart and mind, body and soul? The question is, what keeps us from this? What keeps us from being more whole?
The pace and complications of our world these days doesn’t help; there are plenty of messages coming at us that say, “Do this! Be that! Find happiness here! Find fulfillment there!” These can crowd out the quieter voices that remind us of our inherent worth and goodness, that we don’t have to go anywhere or do anything to be in touch with that original blessing that is in us. Though we may lost track of it at times. We don’t need special knowledge or the right answers to be in touch that Spirit that’s in us and around us. As the psalm reminds us, “Be still and know that I am God.”
If you want to be more whole, being still isn’t a bad place to start. And then, doing your own work, including your own inner work. Finding parts that have been lost, healing what has been broken, piecing together the varied parts of your life into a quilt that will comfort and sustain you, a patchwork life that will surprise and delight you, in its beauty and its usefulness.
The writer Kathleen Norris tells a story that I love, and that resonates with me, of coming back to church after years of thinking she’d outgrown it. When she and her husband moved from New York City to a small town in South Dakota, the town where her grandparents had lived, and where she’d spend summers as a child, Kathleen Norris started attending the Presbyterian church there, where her grandfather had once been the pastor. And this unexpected coming back to church stirred her up, and set her on a journey of discovery, if wondering if there was anything for her in this faith she thought she’d left behind.
But it wan’t easy. She says, “When I first began going to church, I was enormously self-conscious and for a long time could not escape the feeling that I did not belong there. My alienation was such that for weeks at a time, my attempt to worship with others on Sunday mornings would trigger a depression lasting for days. More than once, the pastor suggested that I give it a rest for a while.”
Over time, in fits and starts, Kathleen Norris says she was finally able to feel that she was part of a worshipping congregation. This came mostly through practice. She writes,
“I feel blessed to know from experience that it is in the act of worship, the acts of saying and repeating the vocabulary of faith, that one can come to claim it as ‘ours.’ It is in acts of repetition that seem senseless to the rational mind that belief comes, doubts are put to rest, religious conversion takes hold, and one feels at home in a community of faith. And yet it is not mindless at all. It is head working inseparably from heart; whole body religion.”
There’s something in our nature that wants to divide and conquer, that feels the need to choose one or the other. Most of us are drawn to what is familiar and comfortable; we can get in a rut of our own making. One of the problems in our society these days is the tendency to gather with like-minded people, to live in bubbles of folks who see the world in mostly the same way.
A couple of Saturdays ago we had a Board retreat, and ahead of time we each took a simple personality type test, as a way of knowing each other a little better. This test revealed that we have in our midst a defender, a mediator, a counsel, a logistician, an adventurer, and three protagonists! So you can expect this Board to take care of business, and at the same time “to boldly go where no one has gone before” (as the original Star Trek put it).
This month we’re looking at this faith tradition called Unitarian Universalism. Which, at its best, invites and celebrates our differences and diversity, offering a space where we can be ourselves and become more fully ourselves, and in doing so, join with others to help heal and bless our world. This openness to difference and willingness to change must be some of what that teenager Clare quoted last Sunday was talking about when describing this congregation: “I say to my friends that it is a church the likes of which they hare never seen.”
Was this about our theological flexibility, our lack of a creed, our love of asking questions, our not just accepting the traditional answers? Our long name comes from the two denominations, the Unitarians and the Universalists, that officially came together back in 1961. Here in Haverhill, the Universalists were the stronger and larger congregation, and the Unitarians came here around 1950 after thinking about it for several decades. Which is why that here, in the name, Universalist comes first!
It’s generally acknowledged there were some real differences between the two traditions. The Unitarian churches tended to be more urban, with upper-middle class, folks, while the Universalists were were more rural and less well educated. Rev. Marilyn Sewell observes that “their worship styles were different, too, the Unitarians tending toward the cool and intellectual, while the Universalists were warm and emotive.” At the time of the merger one Universalist put it this way: “the Unitarians seemed more interested "in analyzing the nature of infinity ... than in the spirit of love. I ... feel that I ought to put on my company manners when I go into a Unitarian Church.”
Unitarianism broke away from Congregationalism over the doctrine of the Trinity; Unitarians said God was one, not three. Universalism arose as a corrective to Calvinism, which said people are basically bad and God is angry about this. Universalism says the nature of God is love, and that none of us are beyond it; and this belief in universal salvation is where the name comes from. Put more succinctly, Unitarian Universalism: one God, nobody left behind.
When I first entered a UU congregation, the invitation to ask questions and search my own heart and mind woke up a sleeping spirituality I didn’t know I had. A few years later, I heard a call to ministry that eventually led to three other UU churches, all of them Unitarian. And then I came here, the first Universalist congregation I’ve known. And that I love, so much. You goodhearted, down to earth people, with your kindness and generosity of spirit, and how good you are at feeing people! Do you know these are all Universalist traits?
And at the same time, it’s good we also have our Unitarian side, with its emphasis on thinking and questioning, its valuing of reason and learning. There’s a saying about this, that if you want good discussion, find one led by Unitarians, but if you’re hungry and looking for a potluck supper, then go to a Universalist church!
If this piques your interest, and you’d like to explore it more, then I hope you can come to one of the upcoming sessions of UU 101, which is a great way to meet people and learn about this church and our faith tradition.
My message for you this morning is this: that we need all these differences; the varied parts of ourselves, and the different perspectives and personalities and skills that each of us bring. If we are to be more whole we need a faith that celebrates body and spirit. We need head and heart, working together. Whole body religion.
From the start, I’ve loved on Sunday mornings watching you come into this place. And now I also love that you folks are able to join us over Zoom, from whoever you are. Years ago, from watching you I started to understand what brings you here. It’s not the sermon, it’s not the committee meetings, or the coffee, or the cookies. It’s something that happens before the service begins, and in our prayer time, and after the benediction. You come here, don’t you, to see and be seen. To be seen for who you are, and to see others in their fullness. This is the renewing and redeeming work of a faith community; witnessing and being witnessed, being part of this holy and life affirming dance, holding on and letting go. Opening up to the sacred mystery all around, what Whittier called “the Spirit overseeing all.”
I look around this sanctuary, and I see your beautiful faces, and I remember those pandemic days. And I’m reminded what a gift it is, simply to gather together. I feel the holiness of what happens when we are here, seeing and being seen. Head and heart, whole body religion.
This is what Ada Limón so beautifully lifts up in her words we heard this morning, about the reciprocity of seeing, and being seen. That “it’s our work together to see one another.” To seek and embrace these moments when we aren’t divided or disconnected. Which are holy moments.
To be swallowed
by being seen. A dream.
To be made whole
by being not a witness,
but witnessed.
To be made whole
by being not a witness,
but witnessed.
Amen.