Sermons

READING ~ Religion at Its Best by Sarah Gibb Millspaugh

Religion is as much about faith in humanity as it is about faith in deity. And many of us will find that, over and over, our faith in humanity gets tested. We are immersed in a culture that's deeply corrupted by selfishness, greed, and oppression-borne privilege and fear. It's all too easy for us to justify the dehumanization, ostracization, suffering, and death of others. It's all too easy for us to devalue some humans' lives, and feel, somehow, like we're still good upstanding moral people.

Religion at its best asks us to do better than this: to rise above the selfishness and status-seeking, the othering and xenophobia that come so easily to us.

Religion at its best — and our Unitarian Universalist faith — calls us to honor that which is sacred in each person, even those we might hate, even those who we find disgusting. It impels us to accept, on faith, that there is a sacred spark, a worthy spark, in every person. This can sound mundane but it's very radical — revolutionary even. Each person, sacred. Each person, worthy.

Accepting this, on faith, changes how we live. In this time when so many of us live in fear of a dehumanizing political regime, let us renew our pledge to live out those sacred and humane teachings that draw us toward compassion, love, and justice in ever-widening circles of care.

 

READING ~ Thoughts from my window this morning by Sharon Kiley Mack ordpSseotn25eu1Mt7cAya s61d4:ua7818 t28Y3r40fmt7a a2llaecc47 Facebook, November 15, 2022

Thoughts from my window this morning:

I rose this morning from a warm, soft bed. I was able to wash and brush my teeth in clear, running water. I ate fresh berries on sweet, hot oatmeal.

When I dressed, I chose from several pairs of pants and shoes, and an array of warm sweaters. I drank coffee and read the paper at my own kitchen table in my own kitchen in my own house. My doors weren't locked - I had no fear or uneasiness.

Truth be told, there was a time in my life when I was hungry. When I had no choice of clothing or shoes, or a poor selection at best. I wore shoes that I had outgrown months earlier, when I knew I was the dirtiest, most poorly dressed child in the classroom. I remember when discipline was the buckle end of a belt and I can still feel how those welts bled and stuck to my underwear. A time when a sassy remark resulted in a broken nose.

I grew up in a swirl of madness, alternately hating and loving my father at the same time. There was the horrible burden of being the oldest and knowing that somehow I had to protect and keep the younger children safe.

But that was a long, long time ago, now, and this morning I chose brown pants and brown shoes and a soft beige sweater. I slipped my favorite bracelet on my arm and selected lovely earrings to wear. I took as long as I wanted to do the crossword puzzle and I sipped my coffee slowly. Simple things, some may say, but not to me.

With Thanksgiving near, my heart overflows with gratitude. I am so grateful for the peace of a life of my own making and direction. Grateful for a warm bed, a hot bowl of oatmeal and enough pants to have to make a decision. Gratitude swells and spills all around me.

 

SERMON

“Religion is as much about faith in humanity as it is about faith in deity.  ….   Accepting this, on faith, changes how we live. In this time when so many of us live in fear of a dehumanizing political regime, let us renew our pledge to live out those sacred and humane teachings that draw us toward compassion, love, and justice in ever-widening circles of care.”

These words from Sarah Gibb Millspaugh have stuck with me all this week as I have been thinking about our Annual Meeting and the year ahead.  The actions we will take later this morning signal another new beginning point in the life of our congregation.  Religion at its best calls, and re-calls, us to our highest aspirations and to the core of our beliefs: compassion, love, and justice in ever-widening circles of care.

Annual Meetings can sometimes seem mostly perfunctory and they can take too long– especially if every report from each committee and task force chair needs to be read aloud. Don’t worry, they won’t be.  You all can read those reports at your own pace if you haven’t already looked over the Annual Report in detail.

There are three things that matter quite a bit.  We elect people to serve on the governing board.  We vote on the budget.  And, we remember those members who died in the last 12 months.

Remembering those who have died may seem more like an end than a beginning, but speaking their names aloud reminds us that we are covenanted with one another across time and that because of those who came before, we are here now and we carry the life of the congregation forward so that those who are not yet here will have a firm foundation.

When we elect leaders and pass a budget, we are expressing our hope, our aspirations, and our expectations for another year.  Priorities may shift and leadership styles may differ.  Our mission remains the same – guiding all that we do together.

The mission of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Castine is to establish and promote an open and welcoming congregation that supports and sustains the spiritual, ethical, intellectual and overall well-being of our members (and friends) while serving our broader communities.

You may have read in the President’s Report – prepared by Brooke Tenney – that the governing board recently met in a special session to lay out priorities for the next 1 to 3 years as best we could given how quickly life can change. We established four broad goals that will guide us.

• Children
  • Future of the building
  • Collaborations: interfaith, community, philanthropy
  • Congregational vibrancy/growth

These goals need a great deal of refinement and discussion and some concrete action plans.  It will require more time and careful deliberation to formulate those action plans.  I hope each of you can see a vision for our future together and that you can see ways that you can be a part of creating that future – whether you are in Castine or you are half way across the country.  You are important.  Your vision and your commitment will determine the future of our congregation and our mission.

I want to come back to our readings for this morning.  These are very different readings and are an unlikely pairing.  One is about religion and faith from Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh, a member of the UUA Congregational Life Staff in the Pacific West Region.  The other is a Facebook post from Sharon Kiley Mack about the blessings of her independent life now after a childhood of violence and trauma.

Both readings are, for me, about faith and gratitude.

Faith in humanity.

Gratitude for all that is our life.

Faith in humanity is not easy.  It takes a real and deep commitment to our shared belief that in every person there is a spark of the divine that makes each of, all of us – no exceptions – sacred.  We need each other to hold on to this core belief because without the support and strength of our whole beloved community, any one of us could drop into a downward spiral of distrust and eventually hate that would destroy us from the inside out.  Grateful for the strength and power of our faith that keeps us moving forward toward greater understanding of how we are to live in this beautiful and broken world.

Sarah Gibb Millspaugh’s reading is appropriate for the work ahead as we begin another year with newly formulating goals to help us live into a mission that does not change.

When I read Sharon Mack’s Facebook post on Tuesday, there were tears in my eyes.  I know Sharon.  Sharon is many things, including an artist and a writer.  For many years, Sharon was on the staff of the Bangor Daily News and she wrote beautiful human interest stories that were deep and engaging and second to none. Sharon was a member of the UU church in Pittsfield, Maine where I was the minister until she left the BDN and moved to Machias to be closer to her family.

Sharon’s writing has always moved me – not always to tears, but she touches her readers’ emotions.

This piece is personal.

It is a Thanksgiving reflection.

Gratitude for what may seem like simple things to those of us who have always had them, but not to the thousands of precious souls, especially children, who could never count on having any of them.

“Grateful for a warm bed, a hot bowl of oatmeal and enough pants to have to make a decision.” 

Our mission is to establish and promote the well-being of ourselves and each other, and, to serve the wider community so that all people might enjoy well-being.

Faith in humanity.

Gratitude for all that is our life.

The goals and actions we choose to accomplish our mission matter.

The ways that each of us choose to engage with the work of our congregation matter.

May we choose well.

Blessed Be.   I Love You.   Amen.