Past, present, future
The Rev. Matthew Johnson-Doyle
Sunday, March 28, 2010

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. © Matthew Johnson-Doyle, 2010.

Reflection: Seven Streams

Take your seats, but keep your hymnal open, won’t you:
I want to look at these lyrics that we just sang together,
As Tranquil Streams.
Marion Franklin Ham, who wrote this song,
was writing about how two streams –
Unitarianism and Universalism –
were merging together to form one new faith.
He wrote the song in 1933,
but the two denominations didn’t finally come together until 1961.
Sometimes these things take time.

I chose this song as our opening song today
because it reflects and includes each of the seven vision suggestions
that we’re talking about this morning.

To recap –
we are in this year long process of discerning about who we are
what we care about
what this church is for.
We’ve talked about our values and sources of strength and joy.
And we’re talking now about a vision:
a phrase that inspires and speaks clearly about this church.
You’ll see in your order of service the seven we are talking about today –
suggestions made by you.

These suggestions come deep out of the core of Unitarian Universalism.

Look at the third verse of this song:
A freedom that reveres the past,
but trusts the dawning future more;
and bids the soul, in search of truth,
adventure boldly and explore.

And look at the first suggestion:
inspired by the past to shape the future.

A Universalist minister, about a hundred years ago,
was asked, where do Universalists stand,
on some theological dispute of the day.
And he replied, Universalists don’t stand! We move!

We are a faith that faces the future.
The hymnal in your hands, keep your finger in 145,
but look at the cover –
it’s called Singing the Living Tradition –
the Living Tradition.

The past is important, it is helpful and even inspiring.
But we trust the dawning future more.
We face the rising sun and the new day.
We adventure boldly and explore.

Five hundred years ago,
we embraced Biblical literacy and the freedom of religion.

Three hundred years ago,
we embraced the ideas of the enlightenment:
the power of reason, the freedom of conscience, the democratic process
as the best way to honor the human spirit.
We embraced the historical criticism of the Bible,
looking for what science and clear thinking would tell us about reality,
facts being more important to us than ideology.
A hundred and fifty years ago, we embraced the new science of evolution.
In the last century, we have gained insight from cosmology and social sciences,
the encounter with world religions,
and the movements for liberation across the globe.

We face the future.
We trust it more.
Or take a look at the second verse of As Tranquil Streams;
both the Unitarians and the Universalists
valued reason, and still do,
and so Ham wrote of a faith that would
be “free from the bonds that bind the mind to narrow thought and lifeless creed”
so that it could, in the forth verse,
“go forward in the power of love, proclaim the truth that makes us free.”

The second suggestion for this morning:
the light of reason, the power of hope.
We are free from narrow thought, we embrace reason –
partly because we value truth, and reason is a way to get there,
but even more important than reason
is love, hope, service to human need.
Our freedom is not just freedom from –
freedom from stultifying dogma, or the shackles of the past,
but freedom for:
freedom for building a better world.

This theme is repeated in today’s third suggestion:
Embracing Change, Helping Others, Nurturing Hope.
We embrace change for the sake of the dawning future,
a future we make with our own hands and hearts
when we help others,
and by so doing and by so living,
we nurture the hope of that better world.

The Unitarian and the Universalists who would finally merge in 1961
had already merged here in Rockford –
in fact, had been one church since the 1840’s.

The Universalists who started on the East side of the river
folded shortly after they began,
and the members of the Universalist church joined up
with the Unitarians, who had started on the West side of the river.
They would eventually merge with some Baptists,
and change their name to the Church of the Christian Union, Unitarian,
and then you changed the name back to the Unitarian Church
when you moved to this site in 1966,
and added back the Universalists in the 1980’s.
The Unitarians and the Universalists, here and elsewhere,
saw themselves as founded in love.
Love is the spirit of this church,
many of them would recite each week.
God is Love, so said the Universalists.
Love is good, so said the Unitarians.

Go forward in the power of love,
proclaim the truth that makes us free,
we are founded in love and committed to service.

Free from lifeless creed, we engage our liberating ministry:
or, in other words, deeds, not creeds.
Or, Living by Loving, Growing by Sharing.

This is Unitarian Universalism, this is liberal religion:
righteousness is not about what you believe,
not about what rituals you do or don’t do,
and it sure as hell isn’t about the color of your skin or the language you speak
or about how you worship or even what God you do or do not pray to.
Righteousness is about how you live.
It is about the love that you show to others.
It is about mercy and justice and integrity.
It is about being honest and graceful and kind to one another.

And it is about trusting the dawning future more.
It is about moving, not standing.
It is about staying tuned,
because new things are happening.

You can put those hymnals away now.

This morning, we’ll take a journey.
We’ll weave our way through these suggestions.
I’ve selected an element for each one, a way that we can approach the idea.
Sometimes it is music. Sometimes it is a reading or something else.

Here and there, I’ll say a little more about how we can let these ideas
about love and hope and the good life
into our own lives.
This is an adventure. Let’s begin.

We’ll start with this suggestion:
inspired by the past to shape the future.
Today’s anthem is inspired by the language of the letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 12:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every encumbrance,
and the sin which so easily entangles us,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
We are inspired by these witnesses,
we inherit their legacy,
and we build from that store-house
a world for the future.

1. Inspired by the past to shape the future
Choral Anthem:
So Great A Cloud of Witnesses

It’s left to you and me to further their legacy.
Our foremothers and our forefathers dreamed large dreams,
they took bold risks.
They put their lives on the line for this faith,
for the faith of freedom and hope,
the unity of God and the power of Love,
they put their lives on the line,
and some gave their lives:
Francis David, the founder of Unitarianism in Eastern Europe,
died in a musty Mountainside prison,
Miguel Servetus, burned at the stake in Geneva,
James Reeb, who laid down his life in Selma, for the right to vote –
not for himself, but for others –
these, and more, who passed along this faith to us –
and it is left to you and me to further their legacy.
This faith is not a museum piece.
It is not an artifact.
We trust the dawning future, we move towards tomorrow –
that is what those who came before us did,
and we honor them not with dirges
but with courage and with love.

But how do we know what to do?
We value reason in our faith –
we value reason and we profess to practice it.
We value hope in our faith –
we value hope and we profess to practice it.
Hope makes us plunge in,
reason helps us swim.
For our second suggestion –
the light of reason, the power of hope –
I want to share with you this reading by Robert Fulghum,
Unitarian Universalist Minister and author.

2. The Light of Reason, the Power of Hope
From Robert Fulghum

Skepticism and realism are not the same as cynicism and pessimism.
This is the light of reason:
not, I’m so reasonable that I’m right about everything.
That is not reason.
That is not humanism,
and that is not Unitarian Universalism.

Reason is: I might be wrong.
We hold our conclusions tentatively.
We are willing to adjust them when new facts and new insights appear.
We place aside our pre-conceived ideas
for the sake of the person who stands before us in need.
This is the light of reason and the power of hope:
that the future is unwritten, that social justice is possible,
that skeptics sometimes jump in the lake with all their clothes on,
to save another.
Or even, to save themselves.

For our next suggestion, Embracing Change, Helping Others, and Nurturing Hope,
I’ve picked out some words by the poet and naturalist Wendell Berry –
and Jessica Brown, today’s Worship Associate, will lead us.

3. Embracing Change, Helping Others, Nurturing Hope

4. Founded in Love, Committed to Service

Once again, the prairie burn will happen when I am out of town.
I will be sorry to miss it.
Maybe next year.
This is the life of the prairie – that the burn clears it out,
puts the good stuff into the soil,
and a few weeks later, it will start to grow.
And later this summer, it will be amazing in its beauty and wildness.
And then the seasons will turn again,
like they always do.
If we will make our seasons welcome here,
says the poet,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live here,
and they will celebrate the abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
its indwelling light.

Embracing Change.
I like the term embracing,
because that’s the choice.

You don’t get to choose,
change or not change.
There is no “not change.”
The question is – do you embrace it,
or resist it.
Me, I’m enough of a Taoist to believe in embracing.
The Tao, so say the ancient sages,
is like one of those tranquil streams,
flowing water to the sea.
it will go to the sea.
And you can swim upstream or you can swim downstream.
And one is easier than the other.
Embracing change, helping others –
on the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down the old forest
an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
Families will be singing in the fields.

This is about a vision of beauty –
the beauty of community, the beauty of kindness and sustainability.
The beauty of justice.

And this is our hope:
that the lives our lives prepare will be good ones,
that my children’s lives will be lived in more beauty than mine,
and their children’s lives in even more beauty than that:
a hope for a world a hope for a country a hope for a city a hope for a church
that we might live together in joyfulness and serve human need in compassion.

This is the ancient yearning, the founding in love
which lights our way.
We continue the journey.
As a meditation and a response to our next suggestion:
founded in love, committed to service,
let’s sing together, hymn number 295, Sing Out Praises for the Journey.

5. Deeds, Not Creeds
A litany for a lived-out faith

Our faith is a lived faith.
It is a faith of deeds, not creeds.
Free from the bonds that bind the mind to narrow thought and lifeless creed,
we instead commit to the liberating ministry.
A faith of deeds, a faith of action.

And we are a church of action.
A church of deeds.
Yes, things we do as an institution.
We’ve given over seven thousands dollars away in our share the plate donations since July –
money for literacy and homeless youth and to prevent domestic violence
and to fight AIDS and so much more.
We gave thousands more for Haiti.
And we’ve served meals and delivered clothes
and done paperwork so school nurses can focus on their patients.

But most of the work for justice,
most of the deeds of integrity and beauty and sustainability
which are done because of this faith,
are not done through the church’s official programs,
but by you in your lives.

You come here, believing that there is more.
More than the run-run-run, work-work-work, buy-buy-buy
world of secular materialism.
You don’t want to retreat, though,
not retreat to the world of fantasy or ideology or apcolypticism.

Hopefully, at this church,
you find encouragement and strength,
perspective and company,
to live a better life:
a life that serves the world, a live that prepares for other lives,
a life that celebrates and strengthens,
a life of beauty.

We celebrate those lives,
we celebrate the victories,
little and big and medium-sized,
that make our parts of the world just a little better.

So this is a litany of celebration.
A litany for a lived out faith.

I will make a statement:
We celebrate those who live their faith by . . .
such and such.

And then, if you do such-and-such, I want you to stand if you are able,
if not stand than raise your hand high,
be proud, be glad.

And then the congregation will say:
We are living our faith.

When you say that response: we are living our faith,
the folks who are standing can sit.

OK?

We celebrate those who live their faith by caring for the earth, our home,
by giving their time or their money to the Natural Land Institute, the Four Rivers Coalition,
or to similar organizations who work for natural space, clean water and clean air.

We are living our faith.

We celebrate those who live their faith through their daily choices,
who choose to eat local foods, who avoid industrial beef for the sake of the earth,
who walk or ride instead of driving, who choose transportation that is fuel-efficient,
who sacrifice heat in the winter and cold in the summer
to reduce their carbon footprint.

We are living our faith.

We celebrate those who live their faith through their service to children,
who help raise children to be curious, moral, wise human beings,
who keep them safe and healthy,
whether those children are their own by biology, by love, by profession, or by volunteer service.

We are living our faith.

We celebrate those who live their faith by helping to soften the pain and end the causes of poverty –
who work to serve food or deliver clothing, who serve on the board of the United Way
or contribute to its work or the work of similar organizations,
who work to create good jobs,
who build or repair homes so that people might live and work
with dignity and hope.

We are living our faith.

We celebrate those who live their faith by contributing to the beauty of the world
through the arts: who make music and poetry and theater and visual arts,
and those who fund and support the work of artists,
so that our souls might become more alive.

We are living our faith.

We celebrate those who live their faith by working to end oppression and injustice:
who give their time or their money to organizations and causes
that fight racism and sexism, homophobia and discrimination of all kinds,
who stand up for justice and fairness and equality,
who reach out and reach in to their own heart to change the world.

We are living our faith.

We celebrate those who live their faith by making peace,
who work to end violence, mediate disputes, defend the rule of law, promote democracy,
who demonstrate or write letters or pray for peace in our world.

We are living our faith.

We celebrate those who live their faith through service to others;
who serve, in any way not yet mentioned, to organize resources for the common good,
who volunteer their time and bring people together
to learn and grow and serve.

We are living our faith.

What wonderful thing we can be proud of.
We are indeed a religion of deeds, not creeds.
And we celebrate.
We celebrate those who live our faith out in the world,
we thank you and are inspired by you.
Don’t you think all those who stood
deserve to feel proud of what they are doing?
Don’t they deserve our thanks?

6. Living by Loving, Growing by Sharing

7. Stay Tuned

We don’t stand, we move.
We trust the dawning future more,
the world which is before us.

Unitarian Universalists believe that revelation is continuous –
and what that means is that what is holy and wondrous and sacred
is still happening.
This is why we can’t have a creed –
because the meaning of everything is still unfolding,
so how could you say what it all means.
This is why we value reason and science and tentative conclusion
and art and beauty –
because you have to keep investigating to find out what true and real.
This is why we value deeds and hope and love
because the meaning of our lives and the meaning of the universe
it found in healthy, compassionate, mutuality and relationship.

Stay tuned – that’s the last suggestion to be considered for today,
and it’s a good one.

It points us to the future.
It says, things are changing and we are changing too.
It says, your spiritual journey is not over when you decide to become part of this church,
or when you turn 50 or 75 or 100.
You journey is always continuing.
The future is before us.
And we don’t know where it will lead,
not really,
but we take up the journey with hope and promise,
with love and a spirit of possibility.

The road might be muddy and rough,
but we’ll get there,
and we’ll keep traveling
to a horizon which beacons us always forward.