Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, January 21, 2024.
Do you ever stop and wonder, “Does it matter? In my life, am I making a difference” I certainly wonder. And I imagine you do too.
And it’s a good thing to think about. Because if you keep coming back with “No,” or “I don’t think so,” then it may be time to make some changes. Because you do hope to make a difference while you’re here, don’t you? A note of caution: our culture, with its tendency toward individualism and hero worship, can make you think that if you don’t do something really big, then you’re not doing anything.
We just heard this wondering in Jane Hirshfield’s reflection on her work as a poet
“I can’t say how a poem can offer a useful reply to the crises of biosphere and justice we now know and live through. How can poetic language serve actual hunger, address actual damage?
“Yet poems do feel, to me, if not ‘answers,’ responses that are grounding, are saving. Poems soften fear’s fixities and despair’s immobility, return the heart-mind to openness and the possibility for change that come with the knowledge of interconnection and shared fate.”
I find this heartening, because what she describes isn’t that different from what we are doing here in this faith community. Isn’t this what happens when we gather for worship, or to feed people, or to listen to one another: “return(ing) the heart-mind to openness and the possibility for change that come with the knowledge of interconnection and shared fate”?
It’s easy to fall into despair these days, because the news is so focused on what’s wrong and broken. But each day people get up and do their work helping others, repairing what is broken, raising families, teaching children. Can we take heart, that our efforts and our care are for something? Many years ago Bobby Kennedy said:
“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a (person) stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice (they) send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance.”
We don’t always get to see the end result of our work. So we hope and trust and have faith that it is for something. Like those words at the top of the order of service today from Marge Piercy:
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Over the years I’ve become increasingly aware that the work of ministry can’t be done alone. It calls us beyond heroic individualism toward shared effort and experience and celebration.
We’re talking these days about shared ministry, and I know some of you may resist that word “ministry.” If it just does’t feel right to you, can you suggest a better word? This is a shared project, and I certainly don’t want to exclude anyone from the work because what we call it becomes a sticking point. Do you have a better way to describe it? Anyone willing to say that out loud?
(People said “fellowship,” “kinship,” “community,” “sustenance,” “work,” “being helpers,” “service,” “love,” “friendship,” “shared sharing,” “I think we forget all the meanings of the word ministry…to help someone who is in need, to minister to them, to be a trusted friend or counselor,” “someone called to help figure out ways to do things we need to do here.”)
Last week we heard words Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.…. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”
A healthy and vital congregation is one in which people can easily find ways to serve. Where you offer what comes naturally to you, and that you’re good at: if you’re outgoing, can you help as a greeter on Sunday morning? If you like to cook, do you know about Community Meals? If you have a passion for justice and activism, we need you in our social justice efforts. If you’re smart about organizing, we could use your help in a number of ways, from rethinking how we do coffee hour to getting our act together helping newer folks find their place here. I hope this is also a commnity where you can take risks try things that are a stretch for you.
Hearing me talk about shared ministry, I hope you’re not thinking, “Oh, he’s getting old and tired and he’s hoping we will take over parts of his job.” I’m certainly getting older, but I’m not tired, and shared ministry is not about you doing more so I can do less. That’s not what it’s about at all. It’s about expanding our ways of caring for one another and making ours a better world.
But if this makes you feel tired, or feel overwhelmed, because it’s about all you can do these days to get to church, or to get your children here; if in your life you are straight out just handling your job and your commitments and your life right now, if what I’m saying makes you worry that it’s not okay to just come to church for an hour a week and rest, then please hear me: we are here to hold open a space for you, where you can be still for a time and hear that invitation to rest in this moment, where you can be spiritually fed and feel renewed and restored for what waits for you out there, in your demanding life.
Maybe we are helping to support the ministry you are doing out in the world. I hope so. I hope this church offers you some comfort, some solace, some inspiration for the living of these days. Above all, please don’t hear my invitation to shared ministry as something that makes you ask if you belong here, because right now you have no time to give. Your presence here is a gift, more than you know. One I do not take for granted, and am ever grateful for. Our gathering here on an ordinary Sunday morning is a reminder to me, and I hope it is to you, that this present moment is holy, and a gift; that having one another as companions is a blessing, and we are here to embrace and and enjoy this moment, while we can.
A few night ago I had a dream. I was here in this sanctuary, I was standing over there somewhere, near the piano, in a conversation with a woman, I think it may have been you, Lisa. We were talking about music, talking about putting on a performance of Handel’s Messiah. And Lisa, you were going to sing! I was so glad that this was going to happen, because I love that piece of music. And somehow, Lisa, I was assuming that you were magically going to do it all!
But then, in that dream, I suddenly remembered there were all these parts, that one person couldn’t do it all. We’d need other singers—usually you have four soloists—a soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. And we’d need a whole chorus—where would they come from? And then I remembered—you need a whole orchestra to bring that music to life! My beautiful dream was running into one roadblock after another. And then I woke up.
Dreams come to us as symbolic language. And it seems pretty clear to me that this dream is about the shared effort and expertise that any worthwhile endeavor we do here requires. We have different gifts, and different parts to play. And we are here to practice—to bend and stretch and grow, expanding our hearts and our vision into a wider embrace than we thought possible. Joining together to do what we could never accomplish alone.
We won’t pull off a full-scale production of Messiah here, but so what —that’s not what we’re here to. What we’re about, the choir sang it just a few minutes ago:
We will learn from each other,
heal one another,
build what is good and true.
We will reach out, sing out, make a change,
We will show the world what love can do.
That’s why we’re here. It’s called shared ministry, and it’s what we’re about. Thank you, and bless you, for being part of it.
Amen.