"Soaring Hopes, Serving Hands"

A sermon by Bill Neely
Summer Minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Rockford IL

Sermon

"Soaring Hopes and Serving Hands"

Bill Neely

It has been noted that in some parts of the world, a Muslim who wants to know if you are a Muslim will not ask, "Are you a Muslim?" She or he will not ask if you're a follower of Islam or even ask if you have declared the Shahadah, the first pillar of Islam, the statement of faith required of every Muslim that there is no God but God and Muhammad is God's Prophet. They will not ask if you surrender to God to find peace, or any other conglomeration or variation of the usable definitions of the term, "Islam" that one comes across. Rather, in some parts of the world, a Muslim meeting a stranger and trying to determine the religion of that new person will ask, "Do You Salat?," meaning "Do you observe the second pillar of Islam?," meaning "Do you intend every day to pray five times to Allah?"

Meaning, do you intend to follow a strictly choreographed ritual of cleansing, so that you might be more pure before you then abide by a strictly choreographed system of vocal and embodied prayer? Five times a day, do you intend to break from your routine and in humility and faithfulness, intentionally approach the Holy center of your life? Whether alone or in community, five times a day, do you intend to prostrate yourselves before that which is of Ultimate concern, will you lay your body on the ground before that which means the most to you in your life? Five times a day, do you Salat, do you turn away from your daily duties and dare to approach the Eternal? Five times a day, do your practice your faith, do you practice Salat? Do you practice?"

And it was almost fifty times a day! The traditional story that speaks of how this ritual came about is one in which Muhammad had a vision wherein he was visited by the angel Gabriel. Gabriel takes Muhammad to heaven to meet God and on the way, Muhammad meets Jesus and Adam and Moses and some of the other prophets before him. Muhammad eventually meets Allah where the young prophet is instructed to lead his people in offering fifty prayer services every day. On his way back to earth, Muhammad passes Moses who asks what happened in the presence of God. When Muhammad replies that he and his people have to pray fifty times a day, Moses, known for debating with God, replies that fifty times is way too many, impossible really, and that Muhammad should go back before Allah and get the number lowered.

Muhammad does, and Allah does lower the number, but not enough for Moses, who convinces Muhammad to keep going back before Allah to get the number of prayers demanded continually lessened. When the requirement is cut to only five prayer services a day, Moses still thinks that is too many, but Muhammad refuses to try and get it any lower. Like the child negotiating her way toward eating less of an unpopular vegetable, perhaps Muhammad senses that further negotiation will only increase the demanded requirements. He sticks with five, the ritual sticks with Islam, and fourteen centuries later more than a billion Muslims worldwide identify significantly, and some centrally, with the very structured spiritual practice.

When I heard all of this for the first time, I immediately imagined meeting someone at a party or some function and suspecting that perhaps they were Unitarian Universalist. Maybe they had a coffee cup glued to one hand and were talking about Garrison's latest show. Maybe they were humming a protest song or had a two-year old wearing a t-shirt that says, "This is What a Feminist Looks Like." Maybe they were talking about the kids they tutored after work or the food pantries that they coordinated for the neighborhood. Maybe they were talking about being inspired by arts and angered by politics and were getting fiery and feisty at the thought of it all. Who knows what it might be, but in my imagination, something triggered the thought that perhaps these were my people, my sisters and brothers in faith, fellow Unitarian Universalists with whom I'm eager to travel this road of life. And I imagined wanting to confirm this, wanting to know for certain if we shared a religious affiliation. And I imagined trying to ask that question by centering it in a practice-meeting someone whom I suspected was a Unitarian Universalist and asking, to find out if they were, "Do you practice ..." and I was challenged to finish that question.

Prayer won't really work-we don't have a prayerful ritual at the center of our shared faith. Some of the ambiguous terms that we use often came to mind as well-hospitality, generosity, terms like those. But those terms are often used more in aspiration than affirmation, they're things we do already but would like to do better. I also ran into difficulties trying to think of a question like, "Do you ... seek" and "do you ... question" approaches that we do value but ones that lack the affirmation of a central spiritual relationship that a more concrete practice might affirm. As Unitarian Universalists, do you intend to practice ... and the closest I could come was "service," while my heart kept wondering about "prayer".

There's a popular covenant in our faith that takes a few different forms and is offered at many of our churches at some point during most years and at some churches every week. You're probably familiar with it, it's the "Love is the Doctrine (or Spirit) of this church ..." covenant. There are a couple of versions in our hymnal alone and one of them declares that service is the prayer of the church while another calls service the law of the church. The association of service with prayer has always spoken to my heart as a sort of active engagement in the interplay of the Holy and the work of the world.

Prayer meaning service has, since I've become aware of such a thing, enchanted me with visions of hands clasped together opening up to hold their share of the work of the world. Praying hands doing necessary work, becoming serving hands, doing more necessary work, and the line between prayer and service smearing and smudging until one isn't quite sure where service ends and prayer begins, or vice versa. The service, the work of the world that we are called to do, is seen as a burst of light from the divine spark within. The service is known as a drop of hope from the rivers of justice and compassion that we might one day submerge ourselves in. The prayer turns us inward, closer to a deeper connection with that of most meaning in our lives and service propels outward, sometimes having little to do with our own choosing, as we become instruments of an eternal Mystery luring us toward greater unity with life. In the heartbeats of days, prayer is the first beat, service the second.

Many of the artists among and within us have a way of embodying this turning inward and turning outward, and in those processes we can see effects on the larger world. We see it when the guitarist or sax player or singer moves beyond the technical aspects of offering music and begins to create in accordance with the eternal rythym of life. We see it when we view a photograph of an arresting image, believing that in that moment, the photographer captured a small piece of a beauty that never fades. We read it when the words of a poet moves us to tears and sometimes, we're not even sure why. We read and read and re-read the poem, drinking with our eyes words that connect us to some timeless truth that we didn't even know our souls craved. In times of joy and times of sorrow, these songs, photographs, and poems can connect us to wells of strength beyond those of our own individual lives. They can tie us into the common holiness of the common human experience. And other people's work, becomes our prayer as we find ourselves mouthing words that we did not write and remembering images that we did not capture.

And it's not just artists. The work of Dr. King, of Mother Theresa, of Geoffrey Canada, of Marian Wright Edelmen, of Mel White becomes our prayer, too. The service of the those glowing, beaming, justice-minded people who inject light into wells of despair and isolation, light keeps shining, even after their death, becomes the prayers of innermost aspirations. For how many times in your life, as you've thought about racial justice, as you've thought about nonviolence, as you've thought about working toward the creation of the beloved community here on earth, has the image of King thundering away in Washington DC, or writing while alone in a Birmingham jail cell, come to mind, calling you closer to something of unparallel importance in your life. Fueling the fire that rages inside at the injustices afforded to so many. Fueling the fires blazing in your heart at your own memories and knowledge of what it feels like to be demeaned and marginalized. Fueling the fires of hope burning within that cry out, "we are broken, but we might be made whole." The serving hands of these prophets help our hope to soar beyond the limits of our own individual vision.

I recently spent some time working with juvenile boys in a correctional facility in Minnesota. I was offering a heavily-modified version of the Unitarian Universalist religious education program, Building Your Own Theology to between three and seven kids, aged about 13 through 18. We would chat often, before and after and sometimes during the sessions about their lives, about what was going on in their homes and families. Some of the boys were newly incarcerated and some had been there for a while. Some saw their families regularly and some hadn't seem them in years. One boy in particular spoke about not having seen or talked to either parent since he had been incarcerated, more than a year before I met him. This kid was probably fourteen or fifteen. I asked him how he coped with never seeing his family, to which he responded, "At least we have our grandmothers."

I thought he was talking about his actual grandmother, but he wasn't. He was talking about a group of elderly women who live in the area of the facility and regularly visit the incarcerated boys. They've been doing this for a long time. The women know that some of the kids never see their families and some are locked up far away from where they live. So the women come in and visit the boys as adopted grandchildren. I asked the young man whom I was talking to something about how he felt when he got a visit. And this street-smart, hardened, kid, who had all the answers to all the questions and offered them while looking right into my eyes, often a touch defiantly, looked down a little and said more softly, that's it's nice to get a hug sometimes. Volunteers and employees of the facility are not allowed to hug the boys, and the boys can't and don't hug each other, but allowances are made for the grandmother's who serve as surrogate families. And the grandmother's physical embrace of these boys is sometimes the only loving, respectful, safe touch that these kids know. And to this point, I had been worried, in my time with them, that I wasn't doing the curriculum justice-that I wasn't satisfying their thirst for knowledge. But what they thirsted, was touch, was love, was connection.

Prayer as service is well-suited to offer the world many necessities. It's well-suited to perform the acts of justice and equality of which we're so proud. It's well-suited to bring sustenance to people living on the edge and options to people of limited choices. Prayer as service is well-suited to work in accordance with our morality of interconnectedness, our own moral compass that points toward the direction of the greater good, not just individual success.

But too often, prayer as service forgets the inner work needed to fully integrate the motivations and fruits of that call to service into one's life. Prayer can be the service of the church, but the prayer of the individual still needs to exist, needs to thrive actually, needs to be practiced, and needs to chip away at understanding and embodying the work of whatever we consider to be that which animates our lives, by whatever we call it. Particularly as it relates to service, the prayer of the individual still needs to explore confessions of brokenness even as it affirms that we are perfect imperfections. Humility and possibility held in the same clasped hands. Reality, and hope, mouthed by the same moving lips. Some time away from the service of the world so that we might service the relationship with whatever idea or understanding we have of existence. Some time away from the service of the world so that we might risk being transformed by more fully embracing whatever it is that calls us to serve. For the idea or presence or understanding or Source that is calling us to serve, is calling us to deeper connection it as well.

When I first attended a Unitarian Universalist church, I knew I needed a church that was big on service, and that hasn't changed. I knew I needed a church that allowed for belief in ongoing revelation and that hasn't changed. I knew I needed a church that valued freedom and diversity and that hasn't changed. What I didn't know was that I needed a church that would help me be touched. That would not just support me, but challenge and compel me to approach that which underscores the reality of life and death. That would challenge and compel me to transform from someone called to do service to become someone who dares to ponder and approach the timeless Mystery that is doing the calling. A church powerful enough to take a cynical college kid, book smart, angry at religion over it's complicity in justice-denying, quickly losing faith in politics and most forms of civil discourse, unsure of his place in this world, and affirm not just some gifts that he can offer the church and community, but also affirm the core of his being at its deepest, most holy level. A church that affirms the holy in me, even when I couldn't and sometimes still can't, feel its touch. I've been saved a few times in life, by different people in different places, and that was one of them.

The work of the world has always and will always call out to us for engagement. We have always and will always find a piece of the Holy in the service of the world. And the hopes and work of the notable prophets and the everyday heroines will continue to lift and fuel the service of our hands. And the two will continue to dance together, hope leading to service, and service leading to hope, both calling generation after generation to do the work of salvation in this world. But may we in this day, have the courage and conviction to embrace the Source that calls us to action. May we seek these embraces as the touch we need to make more real the affirmations of divine sparks and inherent worth that we acclaim. May our practice be service, may our practice be prayer, may the two, together, imbue our lives and the world with meaning and touch.