Living Tradition
This week’s sermon is part of a conversation with the Unitarian Universalists of Fallston about creating a vision for the future. It asks questions about what brings us alive. What inspires us with vitality as we carry the tradition forward?
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Tradition is a funny thing. There are things that I have learned from people who have nurtured me along the way, yet somehow what I’ve learned changes over time. I found this out when my Dad and I attempted to make soup together when I was visiting.
We had gone to the store and agreed on a very basic assortment of vegetables: onions, carrots, celery, and broccoli, among other non-surprising ingredients. We brought them home. Dad started chopping while I went looking for spices. I’ve mentioned before that I learned to cook some things from my Mom, but my Dad was just as much a part of my culinary education. I remember being a kid and looking forward to Dad’s stew.
So it was a big surprise when I turned around and saw that he was already boiling the chopped carrots in plain water as the first step. “What? Don’t we want to sweat the onions first, then add the carrots?” We compromised. I started on the onions and celery in a separate pan while he boiled the chunkiest vegetables.
My scavenger hunt for spices yielded the usual suspects: dried parsley, thyme, and oregano. I was digging around for a measuring spoon when Dad got out the Italian seasoning mix. “What? Why are you bothering with exact amounts? Just add spices until it smells right.” We compromised. I added careful amounts of dried herbs to the onions and celery while he intuitively sprinkled the boiling pot with spices.
It seems that passing the chef baton from one generation to the next was more complicated that we had realized. I learned to cook from my Dad, yet we ended up with different ideas about techniques and what one ought to stock in the pantry. We were assuming that neither one of us had changed since I moved out. We still shared the same goal, though: simple, sustaining food for a large family. Next time, we’ll talk about our plan first, and we’ll assess the ingredients we have to work with before we begin.
I think that church can be like this, too. We have both continuity and change in our commitments, our goals, and our ideas about how to meet them. We have the same roots and so much in common, we might be tempted to move ahead on auto-pilot instead of talking about our values, our plans, and the resources we have to work with. Unitarian Universalism is a living tradition. There is a season for change and growth, as well as a season for appreciating our origins.
The question, I think, is this: what makes us come alive? We can phrase this in several ways. What inspires us to carry the living tradition forward, with all of the richness of both the past and present? What gives us the energy as a people to both honor the past and move toward the future together? Change can be intimidating, so there’s an element of the same question I asked in this morning’s Time for All Ages: What helps us to be brave?
For Unitarian Universalists, honoring our sources while planning for the future has an added layer of complexity, because we draw from multiple sources. Throughout the past eight months, we have explored some of those interlocking threads. From Earth-centered practice to Humanism to Christian wisdom, spirituality may be woven together from many strands. Supported by the tapestry of UU faith, we can name several sources of inspiration that help us to move forward with a new vision.
We are inspired by people who have nurtured us along the way. This can include mentors, friends, family members, and anyone who calls us to become our best selves. People who have nurtured us give us the courage to change and grow.
Stories inspire us to have courage. Whether they are fictional legends or historic turning points, stories ignite our sense of what can be possible. The most captivating stories are embedded with the ingredients for change and growth.
Our commitment to authenticity gives us the energy to move forward. We allow the living tradition to make demands on us out of a desire for integrity. The Universalist part of our heritage assures us that we don’t need to be anything other than ourselves. Beginning with our imperfect humanity and our honest relationships, we can build with justice and compassion.
Today I would like for us to talk about these different sources of inspiration. There are at least three things that help us to come alive: people who have nurtured us, inspiring stories, and a commitment to authenticity.
People Who Have Nurtured Us
In this morning’s Time for All Ages, Frog and Toad were inspired to be brave. They wanted to challenge themselves to try things they had never accomplished before. At the end of the day, they were each glad to have a brave friend.
There is a Rumi poem, “Of Being Woven,” that speaks of the need for companionship, even for mystics.
The way is full of genuine sacrifice
The thickets blocking the path are anything
that keeps you from that, any fear
that you may be broken to bits like a glass bottle.
This road demands courage and stamina,
yet it’s full of footprints! Who are
these companions? They are rungs
in your ladder. Use them!
With company you quicken your ascent.
(Rumi continues)
When ink joins with a pen, then the blank paper
can say something. Rushes and reeds must be woven
to be useful as a mat. If they weren’t interlaced,
the wind would blow them away.
Like that, God paired up
creatures, and gave them friendship.
(Excerpted from “Of Being Woven” by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, from The Essential Rumi, pp. 246-247)
Families, mentors, and friends give us the inspiration to follow a path of change and growth. On an individual level, perhaps you can think of someone who nurtured you and challenged you to become the best person you can be. For us as a group, we practice “acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth,” which helps us to become the best congregation we can be.
For me as an individual, people in congregations provide that inspiration. The longer I am a UU, the more I want to stand by this faith because of the people I meet: members and friends, children and youth, newcomers and elders. I aspire to write coherent sermons, to help build caring communities, to speak out on behalf of our shared values because you deserve the best. None of us can succeed all the time, and we talked about forgiveness a couple of weeks ago, but I think we raise the common denominator by gathering together.
From what I hear, you all had a great conversation in Discussion & Sharing last week about this very topic. I understand there was a lot of enthusiasm for sharing the ministry with everyone here. I heard about an idea for a Caring Committee, a group of people who could reach out to members and friends who are ill or grieving or who have fallen out of touch. Members have been doing this informally, yet how fabulous to imagine being intentional and organized about sharing the caring ministry. Organized ministries are much easier for people to become a part of, and are a sign that the congregation is maturing in some exciting ways.
I think the idea of a Caring Committee grows out of the genuine concern that members and friends have for each other. You know as well as I do that we are better together in community. People who have nurtured us along the way inspire us to come alive, to carry the living tradition forward.
Inspiring Stories
A second source of inspiration can be found in stories. These might be imaginative stories, such as great legends or fairy tales. Frog and Toad were inspired by books about dragons and giants. Great stories might be dramatic moments from history. When a story captivates an individual or draws together a community, I think there’s usually something symbolic that the narrative can tell us. Rumi says:
A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!
Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.
(Excerpted from “Story Water” by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, from The Essential Rumi, pp. 171-172)
Wisdom can be communicated in stories. Sometimes we get more out of a story after hearing it several times. The message bubbles through the story eventually, bringing inspiration for imagining the world as it could be.
For Unitarian Universalists, one of the stories that can tell us something is about Jan Hus. He wasn’t a Unitarian or a Universalist. He was a religious reformer during a time when that was dangerous. In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, when Jan Hus was a Catholic priest in the region we now know as the Czech Republic, there was a lot of controversy in the church. Jan Hus advocated a number of ideas that he considered to be more Biblically-based than the discipline and practice of the church at the time. There’s one practice in particular that interests us.
Communion at that time and place worked differently than it does now in Christian churches. All Christians in good standing, including lay people, received the bread, the body of Christ. Only the priest celebrating Mass received the chalice, the blood of Christ. Hus taught that this restriction was opposed to both scripture and ancient practice, and advocated administering communion in both kinds.
Although Jan Hus was burned at the stake in 1415, his followers continued to defend his view of communion. In 1436, they reached an agreement with the Catholic church that said, among other things, that priests in that country could administer both the Chalice and the consecrated bread to all communicants. The Moravian Church has its roots in these followers of Jan Hus, and Jan Hus day is still observed in the Czech Republic. While this bit of history might be new to a lot of us in America, it’s more familiar in Eastern Europe.
(Sources: Hello Czech Republic, Catholic Encyclopedia, Wikipedia)
Here’s where a thread of that story hops over into a later century. An Austrian refugee named Hans Deutsch was asked to design a seal for the Unitarian Service Committee to use in its European relief work during World War II. Hans Deutsch said he conceived of a flaming chalice as a timeless, universal symbol of service and sacrifice.
(The flaming chalice was a logo long before it was a practice to light a flame at the beginning of a UU service. See the UUA’s version of the history here)
It’s hard to say how all of the symbols in the history of Europe combined in the artist’s mind to form this logo. It seems to me that a chalice and a flame would invoke a number of great stories of reform, including the story of Jan Hus.
When I look at a flaming chalice like the one in our stained glass window, I can’t help but think of the worshippers who tasted the communion chalice for the first time because of Jan Hus. I imagine that, when they accepted the cup, they saw themselves as being part of the church in a new way. As a UU symbol, the chalice was born from people performing acts of service and sacrifice. All of us have access to the deepest mysteries, all of us are called by this flame to some form of service.
What do we want these stories and this symbol to mean for us? Just as the Czech church changed in the fifteenth century to share the chalice with everyone, just as the Unitarians and the Universalists changed by responding to the call in World War II, we are inspired by the past to change in pursuit of a new vision.
Whatever this new vision is, we know it will be a shared ministry. The flame belongs to all of us. Last week, you talked about the idea of a workshop to set goals for the future. The Board acted on your ideas, and is making plans for a celebration and meeting in the fall when the congregation can do just that. The current hope is to begin this process on the first Sunday in November, late enough to be settled into the church year but early enough to carry some momentum forward. Our tradition lives because of the energy we unlock.
Authenticity
A third source of inspiration is our desire for authenticity. For many Unitarian Universalists, this is a key reason to be here and not somewhere else. Perhaps there was another time or place in your life when you felt that you were being asked to believe something you couldn’t, or to be something you were not. Or perhaps you have always enjoyed encouragement to be yourself, and you want to continue to be part of a community where that value is treasured.
Universalism teaches us about the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We don’t need to pretend to be wiser or stronger or more correct in order to have value. We begin with ourselves as we are.
Now, I really believe in Universalism for other people. People make mistakes, yet I still believe there is a divine spark in everyone. I believe that the love of the Holy is unconditional. I don’t think other people have to earn their right to exist. Learning to believe in my own value is much harder.
When I was in training to become a minister, I spent a summer being a student chaplain. This is a program called Clinical Pastoral Education, and it’s something that a variety of faith traditions require for their clergy in training. Students serve in nursing homes or prisons or, like me, in a hospital.
As I went around knocking on hospital room doors for the first couple of weeks to offer chaplaincy services, I figured that families would want me to come equipped with some resources. I imagined that what they wanted from a chaplain would be someone who could read comforting scripture passages. I carried a Bible with me everywhere. The pages of text were like a shield to me, protection against being regarded as not ministerial enough.
There’s nothing wrong with having a few words of scripture to share, if that’s what a family wants and needs, but I was hiding behind those books. Re-familiarizing myself with the text was helpful, because I was able to be more fluent in Biblical text if that’s what was called for, but I needed to rearrange my priorities. I stopped walking around with a Bible in my hand, unless I had a specific reason to bring it for a family.
For awhile after that, I carried around little books of UU poetry and meditation. These were words that I could imagine speaking in my own congregation. The poetry books were smaller and lighter, and perhaps the words were more “me,” but they were still a shield. I didn’t get a lot of use out of them in random visits, so they went on the shelf in the office next to the Bible, waiting for a specific need.
Around that time, I noticed that patients and their families had shields of their own. I learned that, when people are in crisis, we often find props to help us get through the day. We tell people we’re fine when we’re not. We say optimistic things and hope that we can believe them. That’s OK, that’s just survival.
I found that, when I showed up day after day, without any fake props of my own, people were eventually able to find a moment of respite from holding up their shields. In an authentic meeting, I didn’t need to pretend to be wiser than I was, and they didn’t need to pretend to be “stronger” (whatever that’s supposed to mean). We could be as real as the family needed to be.
I think that practicing with different resources helps make them fade into the background, leaving direct relationships between people in the foreground. Whether it’s sacred text or poetry or science, there’s a difference between drawing strength from something and letting it be a barrier to authenticity. If we don’t delve into the sources of Unitarian Universalism, they can become obstacles, but studying them is not enough. Bringing life to this living tradition means having the courage to be ourselves. That’s harder than it sounds. Rumi hints that we find the courage in love. He writes:
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
(From The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, p. 36)
Among us, there are hundreds of ways to live out an authentic spiritual path. We may wake up feeling frightened, yet we can find courage in letting “the beauty we love be what we do.” Our desire for authenticity is one of the things that inspires us to grow and change together, to become who we are.
Conclusion
What inspires you to live as a changing, growing person? What gives us the courage to come alive as a people? Poetry and stories are clear about the hazards of being alive. Sometimes the truth burns. Sometimes fear creates obstacles. Yet the spirit of life persists. The soup I made with my Dad was pretty good. It was a mix of love, memories of soups from the past, and honest ingredients. With more planning and understanding, it will be even better next time. The same goes for our congregation: people, stories, and authenticity give us the courage to sustain life.
We can find inspiration in the people who have nurtured us along the way. If that’s a new experience, stick around. Let’s inspire each other in our acceptance and encouragement of one another. There are good people here. You are not alone.
Stories from imagination and from history provide another source of inspiration. Let’s be creative as we transform the symbols of the past. Let’s borrow the boldness of great stories as we turn toward the future.
Our desire for authenticity is one of our greatest strengths. We need not be anything other than ourselves, reaching out in honest friendship. Let us find the courage to become who we really are as individuals, as a congregation, as a faith.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
