Sermons

READING ~ No.662 in SLT Strange and Foolish Walls by A. Powell Davies
The years of all of us are short, our lives precarious.
Our days and nights go hurrying on and there is scarcely time to do the little that we might.
Yet we find time for bitterness, for petty treason and evasion.
What can we do to stretch our hearts enough to lose their littleness?
Here we are – all of us – all upon this planet, bound together in a common destiny,
Living our lives between the briefness of the daylight and the dark.
Kindred in this, each lighted by the same precarious, flickering flame of life, how does it happen that we are not kindred in all things else?
How strange and foolish are these walls of separation that divide us!

READING ~ Waiting by Marta I Valentin

Step into the center
come in from the margins
I will hold you here.

Don’t look back
or around
feel my arms
the water is rising.
I will hold you
as you tremble.
I will warm you.

Don’t look out
or away
life is in here
between you and me.

In this tiny space,
where I end and you begin
hope lives.

In this precsious tiny space
no words need be whispered
to tell us we are one.

You and I
we make the circle
if we choose to.

Come
step in
I am waiting for you.

SERMON

Ollie Ollie In Free! Ollie Ollie In Free!
Do you remember it?
Perhaps your words were slightly different, but with the same meaning.
As kids playing outside in the summer, usually the game of TAG, we shouted “Ollie Ollie In Free” when the game was over or the person who was “IT” was giving up without finding their companions – defeated and tired of searching aimlessly.
You know what it means. Everyone can come back to game central without penalty or trickery.
Ollie Ollie In Free – come to the safe zone.
The safe zone.

We all need a safe zone. The place where we freely come without penalty or trickery. Our Safe Zone. Our Free Home Base.

A Story. One woman’s story. Hers alone, but a story very much like the story of others like her.

My mom is a searcher and I love her for that, because we went to a lot of different churches when I was growing up. I got a rich background in what faith can look like. When I went to the Unitarian Universalist church on my own, following her example, I fell in love. I knew instantly that I’d found my faith community. ~ JeKaren Olaoya

This community, this congregation, this Unitarian Universalist faith, is a Safe Zone; it is Home Base. You can, and do, come here any time without penalty or trickery. You are safe here. So Unitarian Universalists tell a story like this one.

“I had never even heard of Unitarian Universalism and then when I finally got here, I knew I was home. I knew I had found my spiritual and religious home.”

“I left church as soon as I could and I never looked back. Church was harmful to me. Then, my friend invited me to come to their church and expecting the same pain and grief, I came only because I love my friend – though fully guarding myself against the message I would be forced to endure. But, it was different, so different. I felt as though I might be safe there.”

Does this sound familiar?
If you did not grow up in a Unitarian Universalist family, you probably found us somewhere, somehow, and perhaps you too felt that you had found your home – your safe zone.
If you are a cradle UU, and you are still here, or here again, the you too know about this being your home, your safe zone.

Ollie Ollie in free. And here we are.

The blessing of our gathering is that we are a safe zone for ourselves and for so many others, especially perhaps for those who have experienced church harm in their lives and are especially grateful for the chance to come into a house of faith as their true and authentic self.

Come, come, whoever you are, come.
Though you have broken your vows a thousand times, come.
Come, come, whoever you are, come.
Though you have many doubts and deep misgivings, come.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving, come.
Though you have been betrayed by other religious leaders so many times, come.
Love is the doctrine of this church, come.
Though you have been told in so many ways and so many times that you are not ok and that you must change who and what you are before you can enter the holy realm, come.
Every person has worth and dignity.
Though you have been expelled and wounded by others, come.
Ours is no caravan of despair, come.
Come, yet again, come.
You will be safe here.
Come, come, whoever you are, come yet again, come.
The blessing of our gathering is the invitation to everyone of good will and a kind heart to come.
The blessing of our gathering is that we will make a place at the table for everyone.
The blessing of our gathering is that we gather in Love and we said with Love – always.

We are a safe zone for so many.
We – all of Unitarian Universalism – have worked hard to be a safe zone for so many.
We are always working to understand what it means, really means, to provide and be a safe and loving home for all spiritual seekers.

Beloved Community. Love Beyond Belief. Radical Hospitality. Inherent worth and dignity, no exceptions. LGBTQIA+ – – welcome. Spiritual and not religious – – welcome. Humanist, atheist, agnostic, believer, pagan, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jew – – welcome. What a blessing. What a blessing.

All this we do and we are – – grateful that we can and must be together.
It has been a hard week, a very hard week in many, many ways.
The world is a mess. Hope is hard to find.
We need our safe zone.
We need our gathering and each other.
We need to be a blessing for those still searching for their safe zone.
This is no time to go it alone and it is no time for a casual or timid faith.

Hezekiah Walker is a gospel musician.
The words to one of his songs have been constantly with me.

I need you
You need me
We’re all a part of God’s body
You are important to me
I need you to survive
I pray for you
You pray for me
I love you
I need you to survive
I won’t harm you with words from my mouth
I love you
I need you to survive
I pray for you
You pray for me
I love you
I need you to survive

In good gospel fashion, it’s a 7-minute song … sometimes, a 9-minute song. I need you to survive.

The blessing of our gathering. Our gathering is a blessing to all of us.
Gathering is a verb and a noun.
Blessing is a verb and a noun.
We are and we do both gathering and blessing.

Now ….. let me invite you to hear the rest of the story we heard at the beginning. These are, again, the words of JeKaren Olaoya …. And I invite you to open your heart and listen carefully – for this is her truth and so it is our truth.
My mom is a searcher and I love her for that, because we went to a lot of different churches when I was growing up. I got a rich background in what faith can look like. When I went to the Unitarian Universalist church on my own, following her example, I fell in love. I knew instantly that I’d found my faith community.

We Unitarian Universalists like to tell everyone that they’re welcome, but I quickly realized that in order to be part of this community, I had to find a way to fit in; to not make waves about my needs. It’s painful, physically and spiritually, to be silenced in an environment that encourages people to speak out against injustice—but it’s something I deal with every day of my commitment to this faith community.

I’m not alone: the default in most of our UU churches is whiteness. For non-white UUs, the rules of Unitarian Universalism have been very clear for a long time—Don’t disturb the status quo—and we’ve had to keep quiet and fade into the background. Many of us are recruited into leadership positions and as soon as we offer an alternative perspective or suggestion, we’re discarded. Too many of us have learned the hard way that the only way that you can stay is if you’re quiet and you sit in the back while you try to get spiritual nourishment from the worship service.

As more people of the global majority have been drawn to UU’ism—especially queer BIPOC people—they’re leaving faith systems that tell them they’re condemned. These seekers experience our theological freedom and say, “You know what? I’m loved, just as I am! These Principles mean that I have a place in this world, and I have dignity. I want to be part of that.” But when they come into our UU churches, too often they’re met with ambivalence, not welcome.

What would it take to welcome BIPOC people? To start, it would require white UUs to say, Hey, come in. How can we make you feel welcome? How can we incorporate what’s important to you?

To create congregations and spaces that are truly welcoming, we have to keep finding ways to widen the circle of care and concern. That circle shouldn’t be a hard, plastic white box; it should be a bubble that morphs and changes and moves. Our greatest aspiration should be that everyone can bring the best of their beliefs and their culture into our UU spaces and get to live them fully, while also incorporating the Principles that we all hold together.
Truth. Her truth. Our truth. Yes …. The blessing we offer is that we are a Safe Zone. And, we have a long way to go before ours is a place where everyone has a place at the table of our bounty that provides the food and sustenance of their soul; each soul …. Every soul … as they feel it and need it. Not as we have always done it this way and you are welcome to come and be one of us, like us.

We run the very real risk of squandering – or even losing – our blessing if our invitation to come in free, come in free – without penalty or trickery is an invitation of assimilation rather than true welcome as your full and authentic self.

If you are cis gender– meaning that you identify with the gender assigned to you at birth – and you are straight and you are middle class and you are white and you speak English as your first language and you are reasonably able in both both mind and body and you are free from the trauma of abuse now or in your past – – you probably don’t know what it is like to be welcomed into a safe zone that yes, comes without penalty or trickery, but does come with the unspoken and palpable requirement to become “one of us.”

The great challenge of Unitarian Universalism right now is living into our aspirational faith. The Rev. Mykal Slack spoke at the UU Ministers meeting this week. In his talk, he wondered aloud with all of us how our faith and our congregations would be, would need to be different, would need to change, if we stopped saying that our principles are aspirational and began doing whatever we need to do make our principles and values operational. I was caught up short. I am among those who often say that our principles are not accomplishments, they are aspirations. So, does that give me a pass on doing the work that I would need to do to move from aspirational status to operational status?

Rev. Mykal Slack loves this faith and he loves us and our people and he is not going anywhere else. And, at the same time, he longs for his safe zone to embrace all of who he is and how he lives in this beautiful and broken world. Here is is bio (in his own words):

Rev. Mykal O’Neal Slack is the Community Minister for Worship and Spiritual Care for Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism, an organization and spiritual community committed to supporting Black folx in our UU faith, and a co-founder of the Transforming Hearts Collective, a ministry that both supports spaces for LGBTQ people to access resilience, healing, and spirituality and resources faith communities and other groups for the work of radical welcome and culture shift. He is a Black, Queer, and Trans Southerner, committed to healing and truth-telling, as well as community accountability and care. He has been engaged in congregational ministry for the last 20 years.

If you met Mykal, you’d like him. He is warm and open. His smile is beautiful. His voice is soft and engaging.
And, he is completely serious about gathering all of us together and transforming our faith, the faith of our mostly white, straight, cis gender ancestors into the faith of by and for the people, including all of us, who need the blessing of Unitarian Universalism now.

We need each other …. All of us – those already here and those who are yet to arrive
I need you
You need me
We need each other to survive
I love you
I pray for for you
You pray for me
We need each other to survive

Let us rejoice and be glad in the blessing of our gathering.
Let us move ever closer to Beloved Community where everyone is loved as they are – fully and authentically the person they have worked so hard to be. Let us not expect others to become like us; let us expect ourselves to grow and rejoice in the diversity of our community and seek to expand the circle ever wider. Let us be the ones whose faith is Love.

I want to finish with words from Rev. Theresa Soto – another precious UU who keeps reminding us to fashion our shared safe zone for her too.

We Hold Hope Close By Theresa I. Soto Source: “Spilling the Light”
In this community, we hold hope close. We don’t
always know what comes next, but that cannot dissuade us.
We don’t always know just what to do, but that will not mean
that we are lost in the wilderness. We rely on the certainty
beneath, the foundation of our values and ethics. We
are the people who return to love like a North Star and to
the truth that we are greater together than we are alone.
Our hope does not live in some glimmer of an indistinct future.
Rather, we know the way to the world of which we dream,
and by covenant and the movement forward of one right action
and the next, we know that one day we will arrive at home.

Blessed Be. I Love You. Amen.