Journeying Together
Morgan McLean, Intern Minister
September 5, 2010

Reading: “I am Not I” Juan Ramón Jiménez, Translated by Robert Bly

Reading “The Journey” Mary Oliver

Message

Note: The sermon is an oral event. This manuscript may not reflect the exact spoken words. If you want to hear what was actually said, you can listen to sermon visit our website at www.uurockford.org. © Morgan McLean, 2010.

Let inward love guide every deed – what a noble goal we share. During my time in seminary I was often challenged to move from leading from my head to leading from the heart. I didn’t know where the path would lead. In May, I graduated from Andover Newton Theological School, a liberal Christian seminary just outside of Boston. I choose to go to a Christian seminary because I felt solidly grounded in Unitarian Universalism, and was comfortable in the Humanist tradition and language I grew-up with and related to the most. And, I lacked a comfort with words and concepts like “prayer” and “God.”

To tell you a little more about me and my journey to this pulpit, I’m going to borrow a popular title - "Eat, Pray, Love," although I have to admit I have not read the book nor seen the movie. Still I love the idea of putting those three concepts together. My journey has been full of eating, praying and loving.

In my second year of seminary, I was the student minister on campus, as part of my required Field Education. As student minister, I helped coordinate and lead the daily morning worship, as well as the weekly community worship. My “congregants” were my colleagues, my friends, who were in the process of becoming mostly United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalist and American Baptist ministers. I had to pray, and I had to talk about God.

The most striking piece of that year, however, was that I set the communion table when we did communion once a month, and bought the bread, found people to be servers, and once even invited people to the table. It was, and is still, a bit strange for me. Growing up Unitarian Universalist, communion wasn’t really any part of my history, which may have been helpful, since I didn’t have any personal positive or negative association with the ritual. My two biggest hesitations then, and now, is first the question of “Am I really invited to the table, and why?” Like, is this table only open to me in hopes that I might experience Jesus. And the second question is “Is it even appropriate that I have anything to do with Communion, since it is decidedly not part my theology, and a very important and sacred part of other’s theology?” But I really came to see the power and beauty of setting a table of absolute abundance, and welcoming anyone to it.

I would go to the bakery and spend a long time finding the right loaves. I smelled them and touched them and considered how they’d look together. It was like shopping for a dinner party. I picked the most beautiful loaves in all sizes and colors, and then spent time arranging them, piling them like Martha Stewart to create the most inviting table I could. It wasn’t about Jesus in that moment, it was about the community, and providing a place where people could put aside whatever conflicts they had to break bread together. Providing a welcome table.

As I learned about communion, it was fascinating to me to see that even Christians had varying levels of comfort. When I would ask people to participate as servers, many refused because they didn’t know the custom in the chapel, while others found it a deep honor to be asked to participate. I was amused each time I found myself explaining the “custom” or saying “it’s not a big deal.” “Bread of Life!” I was the last person one might expect to be advocating and explaining communion! But there it was – part of our custom as a community, part of many people’s shared religious tradition, and a pretty simple, yet moving dinner party.

That being said, I only took communion once that year, the one time I invited people to the table, because I was sure of that intention. I said, “If you need to be fed, If you long for connection, If you hope for mending, If you are on a journey, or If you are here today, We make room for you.” It was a privilege to participate in the ritual, and to learn that everyone eating at that table was doing so for different reasons. Sure, some where doing it to feel more connected to their God, but mostly I found people were seeking community in some way, a place where they belong, where they can heal, where they can share. And all because of a beautiful French loaf and some Welch’s grape juice. “Come, eat.” “Come! Eat!” How simple, how nourishing.

That Protestant communion was very different from the communion I experienced at the Catholic hospital where I spent a summer as a chaplain. I definitely was not invited to that table, and definitely would have been misappropriating a religious tradition if I participated. But the Catholics apparently had something else in store for me, and that was praying. I can now confidently pray spontaneously to any person, place, or thing, and walk you through the Rosary. In fact, after handing out at least one Rosary a day, my fellow chaplains started to call me Sister Mary Morgan. Once you get to know me better, I hope you’ll see how funny that really was.

Praying with the Rosary was its own unique experience. The first time I was asked for a set, I just felt like a delivery person passing along the beads. I followed along the printed guide to the Rosary as I moved along the plastic, glow in the dark beads made in China. As the requests increased, I felt like a facilitator in a deep prayer practice. While I personally don’t have Mary as part of my theology or spirituality, I have come to see the power she has in prayer and hope. When I said the rosary, I didn’t feel that I was petitioning Mary or God, but instead felt an important connection with the patient.

When I consider my lifetime of church involvement, I had done my fair share of praying in my own way; I may have called it meditation, or hoping, or positive thinking, or joys and concerns, and I did always find a true calm and sense of hope when I named things. But praying with and for other people, and calling on their God or healer, was a pretty new experience for me.

As a chaplain, I was asked to pray a lot. Pray for healing, for clarity, for forgiveness. I prayed for patients of all ages, and families in all stages of distress. In the hospital, I mostly split my time between the oncology unit where outpatients came for chemotherapy treatment, some of which was palliative, and on the addictions unit where inpatients were detoxing from alcohol, heroin, or oxycotin addictions and looking towards a sober life. I talked with all my patients about fears, loss of control, hopelessness. I would ask them what would be helpful, and many, many, said remembering them in my prayers would mean a lot.
And so I did.

Every morning we would have a short worship service in the hospital, and I would be intentional in thinking about the people I had met and the concerns they faced. I would hope for their health, for their comfort, for the ease of the families. I would name my own feelings of helplessness, and remember in those quiet moments why I was there.

I didn’t need to believe someone was listening to my prayers, or that they’d be answered in some divine intervention. I just needed to believe the people I met, and my own experiences, were all part of humanity, and that the overall well-being of the world was worth some of my time.

I now regularly take time to intentionally name my hopes. In moments of prayer or reflection during a worship service, that’s what I do. My theist colleagues recognize it as prayer. And maybe that’s really what it is. I guess in my time of prayer, I’m not petitioning a God, but I’m petitioning all of humanity to care for each other. I am sincerely hoping for comfort and healing, for success and progress. Maybe it’s in that spirit that I’ve come to actually appreciate, instead of resent, when people tell me they’ll pray for me. It is nice to know that someone would make time for me – that a prayer may be all someone can give, and they give it.
Well, we’ve talking about Eating, and Praying… so what about the third piece of that title, Love? What I have come to understand of love hasn’t been through one specific experience, but rather the realization of how the love of a community can be with you, even when you’re not in the middle of it.

In seminary, I was constantly asked about the sources of my personality tendencies, of my beliefs, my style, my customs, and ultimately how they will all affect my ministry. I found many answers inside the Unitarian Universalist churches I have been a part of. This church will be the fifth Unitarian Universalist Congregation I have been involved with. Each of them has reinforced the strength love can give on one’s journey. The Unitarian Unviersalist church I grew up in in Racine, which is about the same size as this one, is a place of renewal for me. Whenever I am back I feel “at home” even if many of the faces have changed. The values I learned about respect and friendship have guided me in every aspect of my life, and the members of that congregation served as my early role models for relationships and families, community involvement, and social justice work.

In the very small congregation in Staten Island, New York, someone was always willing to pick me up from my college. I was studying International Affairs at Wagner College in those first few politically and emotionally charged years of the new millennium which saw the 2000 Presidential Elections, the attacks on September 11th, and the launch of two wars. I was moved with the deep sharing in that congregation, which seemed to sustain the members through the week until they reconnected as a community on Sundays.

At Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, Maryland, I marveled at how a church with over 800 members could build such intimate community through classes, small groups, and multi-generational activities. I was working for Amnesty International at the time, organizing and training volunteers for work towards the abolition of the death penalty. It was a hard job, and the church gave me a place to rejuvenate after my often-weary work weeks.

At The First Parish of Watertown, Massachusetts, I joined the 150 members standing on the side of love in a public demonstration after the rainbow flag on the church was burned. They responded to a hate-crime with renewed love for each other and for their whole community. Openly lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered members of the church were surrounded by support not only from their own congregation, but ten other UU congregations, and local United Church of Christ, Episcopal, and Jewish faith communities, along with many community organizations and allies. The following Sunday we sang Thou I May Speak With Bravest Fire, as we did today, striving to let inward love guide every deed. It was a great congregation to be part of while in seminary.

And now, at this church, I have already been personally warmly welcomed. As I have learned and observed the committee workings and the worship and calendar planning, I have been impressed at the dedication and collaboration that makes everything go! I am really looking forward to this year of journeying together.

So, it is in the larger Unitarian Universalist community that I learned the ethical foundation of interacting in the world – that all people have inherent worth and dignity. I learned to be open and curious, with healthy skepticism and deep respect. Perhaps this is why I could gain so much from experiences with communion and the rosary – because I have been nurtured to love the human experience.

My ministry, then, is really the ministry of this community. The love and support you offer all who come begs us all to become the best possible version of ourselves. My journey towards ministry, each of our life journeys, have been challenging theologically, emotionally, and intellectually, but when we are part of a church community we are never alone.

This is our common spiritual home. Those of us here may we have returned today from the summer, or maybe longer. And many of our members and friends are away this holiday weekend, maybe even visiting other congregations. We are a sometimes unbelievable mixture of travelers, from many backgrounds and differing life experiences. We have different understandings of our final destination, but we share the journey. While we might set a different table, we eat together, nourishing ourselves at coffee hour and church barbeque.

We might not be comfortable with the word “pray,” but together we name our hopes, fears, and intentions, knowing they will be at least be heard within and among us. And we love with outstretched arms, kindness, acceptance, and encouragement.

“Church” isn’t just Sunday morning. It’s the depth of our shared values, and the strength we hold collectively. It helps us make meaning in our daily lives. We came together today to worship as a community, yet we gather - in spirit - every day.