“My greatest weakness? Honesty.” The interviewer said, “I don’t think honesty is a weakness.” I replied, “I don’t care what you think.”
Why don’t scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything!
What do you call a factory that makes “good enough” products?
A satis-factory.
Audra tells me someone attending our service last week via Zoom sent in a joke. It wasn’t even remotely funny.
The message today is simple. The title alludes to a philosophy often attributed to Aristotle. “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.” Applied to the UUCHC, every act of service and every personal interaction contribute to the quality of our shared ministry. Someone brings refreshments. Another person decorates the chalice table. Others facilitate religious education programs, worship programs, small group ministry, community outreach, member care support ministry. From these and other contributions, qualities emerge that impact us and even those who never set foot here. From all this emerges a spirituality that gives more than any of us could create alone.
What we create together and come to understand together is beyond any one person’s control. By participating in good faith, we experience religion that is beyond belief. The agreements or covenants between us create a container that supports wonderful transformations.
When I first attended a UU congregation it shifted the direction of my life. By sharing the experience, I hope to illuminate some of the qualities that are or can be part of this congregation’s ministry. I first set foot in a UU Fellowship to attend a meeting of a social justice organization, the committee for a SANE nuclear weapons policy. I picked up some literature describing UU and I became very excited. I exclaimed to myself, “This is what I believe. This is me!”
I was a 23 year old teacher of high school English and Social Studies. At night I was attending graduate school to become a counselor. Like many at the time, I was very concerned that the raging arms race could result in a nuclear winter, extinction of human life. What good would my teaching or studies be if there was nuclear annihilation?!
I had grown up influenced by the Judaism of my father’s family and the Catholicism of my mother’s family. I found aspects of both compelling. To me though, the emphasis placed on adhering to specific traditions and doctrines seemed far less important than social concerns. Would we continue the patterns of deforestation and environmental pollution? What could we do about social injustice? Would we survive at all?
For me, G*d was a given. However, I was disturbed by the tendency for different religious groups to argue and even kill from certainty that they possessed THE truth.
In the first UU service I attended there was a professor, Dr. Virgina Malenkott, talking about her participation in a team that created a language-inclusive lectionary. I decided to begin using female pronouns to refer to G*d to try to balance the effects of G*d personified as a man.
My second UU service was led by Rev. Ray Pontier. For more than 30 years, Pontier had been a Dutch Reform minister. His opposition to the American war on Vietnam made waves. He lost his job and his ministerial standing because of his advocacy of women’s reproductive rights. That’s when the UU Fellowship asked him to become their minister. The first time I heard him preach he expressed concerns and objections about Christianity that mirrored my own. “You can say that here?”, I marveled.
The best part was what we call “Congregation Responds.” Congregants expressed differing views from each other. Some even disagreed with the minister. They did so WITHOUT contempt or animosity!
That’s when I concluded, “I could do that. I could be a UU minister!” Ministers and leaders most often are the first born in their family. I was by far the youngest in my family. Telling people what to do, giving commands was not something I imagined I could do. But I had a lot to say. As an English teacher I yearned to help my students discover their own authentic voice in a system that had trained them to write what they imagined the teacher wanted them to say.
Later as a counselor I strived to assist people to find their authentic voice. I learned that healing comes when we can face things held inside and discover truth written deep within us. I wanted to help clients cultivate internal guidance systems rather than conforming and obeying authorities that too often abuse their power.
This yearning drove me to UU ministry and to give my energy to communities like this one. Do you know that in this church, I have no vote on operational matters? I am a trusted servant. I do not govern. Hopefully, I have earned some trust, gained some influence.
As a younger minister I came to congregations eager to see what I could accomplish. When I came here, I thought, “Let’s see what we can do together.” I asked, “What is possible for us?!” I put this question before us today. Alone we can do very little. When we join together, if we are willing to listen to and work with each other, then we can say, “Let’s see what is possible for us!”
That declaration echoes one of significant personal history. In 2017 a truck encounter left me with great injuries and unable to speak. We didn’t know exactly the extent of my brain damage. As I recovered, I didn’t want to hear anyone tell me what I wouldn’t be able to do. My insides screamed, “You don’t know what is possible for me!” It was empowering and it was terrifying because I realized that I did not know what would be possible for me. Then something inside said, “Let’s find out!”
Similarly, no one can say with certainty what is possible for this congregation. What will be here in 20, 50 or 100 years?
What is our vision for this congregation? The book of Proverbs says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” To prepare to cast a vision, let’s nurture our sense of our worth! Toward appreciating our counter-culture ways, I wish to name some aspects of the wider culture that often get in the way of our finding the treasures located here in UU land.
IMO there is great spiritual impoverishment in our land. We get steeped in materialist, capitalist, consumer culture, and it has a deadly effect on us! This is why evangelicalism has been corrupted and Jesus’ teachings pushed aside. Christian nationalism makes it easy to forget about the poor. It places faith in the dominance and victory of Christian leaders.
Instead of seeing humans as souls with intrinsic worth, materialism leads us to view people as commodities that can be acquired, bought, sold or traded for profit.
Capitalism is a system where the profit motive supersedes all other concerns. The way to profit is to externalize costs. Pass them on to others. Gain capital, gain power, and rise to the top. It has us look at people with eyes that only ask, “how can I exploit profit from this person?”
We tend to bring a consumer mentality with us to church. We imagine the way to gain spiritual treasure is to consume the good stuff that’s here.
The tough but good news is that what we get out of church is a factor of what we bring to it. I’m not saying you “should” join more committees, take classes, visit more people in need, sign up to be Service Associate, lead a service, and pledge more money. “More more more!” can be a sign of addiction or a mindset of spiritual impoverishment. Let’s covenant to affirm abundance and promote faith development. We can celebrate and enjoy who we are right now. Sometimes the next right step for spiritual growth is to say, “No thank you! Not today!
Of course I am pleased that people often choose to say “Yes!”
If we wish to share in this church’s ministry, we must remember that it’s impossible to pour from an empty cup. We can’t give away what we do not have. I remember a song from the Dances of Universal Peace that goes, (sings)“Take this cup. Drink it up. The fish in the water is not thirsty!”
One way to feed our heart is by practicing gratitude. When we see spiritual richness in UU tradition and in our community, it’s easier to appreciate and enjoy it.
Good news: if you didn’t appreciate what’s here, you probably wouldn’t be here. So, I’m going to make a request. Let’s cultivate the ability to talk about what we like here, what we do here, and how religious terms apply to us and how they don’t.
If you are willing, when you go home, write a sentence or two to articulate what you have found here. Why do you show up? Or ask yourself, “If this church wasn’t here, what would Kerrville be missing?” There will be opportunities for those who want to share their answers. Then watch the spirit grow in us!
In our last hymn, three times we sang, “Sing now together this our heart’s own song.” Isn’t it extraordinary and aren’t we blessed to have a religious community that helps us to find our hearts own song?! To sing our own heart’s song, we must learn to nurture each other’s hearts. And we must learn also to nurture our own.
What we have here is a learning community. We are learning together. We learn by making promises, covenants, by falling short, speaking up respectfully, forgiving and learning to do better.
I pray that every one of us will find fulfillment in our religious community. That’s why we invite each other to look inside our own hearts to find what we are yearning for.
I like to advocate compassion. My internship supervisor told me that if I was working in a hospital, it wouldn’t be wise to be angry at patients for needing medical care. In our shared ministry, it isn’t wise to resent, blame or criticize people for needing the spiritual succor and nourishment that is available in our tradition and in our religious community.
When we feel disturbed, we can gently ask ourselves what espoused value, what quality do we long to experience that we imagine would make life more wonderful? When we are disgruntled, can we ask for help? Can we forgive others and ourselves for having a lot to learn? “Do we give up bitter and battered, or can we slowly start to build a beautiful city, a beloved community?”
We find fulfillment in predictable and surprising places: where we gain a sense of shared values, of belonging, where we have cherished companions who encourage, inspire and challenge us.
All that we find here has been given freely. One way to give back is to appreciate what has been given. Appreciating little efforts and big ones, also helps us! The church is sustained not only by all the volunteer labor or the financial contributions. It is fed and sustained by the love we bring here. It’s sustained by a generosity of spirit. Generosity is another quality that UUs aim to nurture and cultivate. It emerges from the sum of the parts. It’s something our hearts long for and something that makes our hearts sing.
Then we experience connection: we’re no longer scared little creatures facing a world out to get us. We become aware of a life force moving in and between us. We are transformed, and we know ourselves as part of a beauty that is beyond words.
That’s my prayer for us. So be it.
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