The Thriving Church
Rev. Matthew Johnson-Doyle
Sunday, March 21, 2010

Readings Taking Hands by Victoria Weinstein
The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Message: The Thriving Church

I want to know
if you can be with joy
without cautioning us
to remember the limits
of being human.

Those limits of being human,
they are always out there,
aren’t they?

Shouting, distracting us
from the possibility of being with joy.

Making us hesitate,
in that brief moment,
before we might say yes . . .
hesitating.
Oh, yes, I’d like to be with joy
but I’m only human,
and we say
ye ye oh, maybe.

Yes is a bridge too far.

I want to know if you can be with joy
without cautioning us to remember the limits of being human.

I want to know if you are ready
to say yes,
say yes to life and love and truth.

Don’t hesitate.
Don’t think of everything that could go wrong.
Say yes.

Say it!

Say it again!

There is a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke,
entitled the Cathedral.
It goes like this:

There was birth in this groundwork.
In the moment of joy and yes,
when adventurers, pioneers
came west, left behind their New England comforts,
and came to the river,
and built a town –
A Unitarian, Thatcher Blake,
A Universalist, Daniel Shaw Haight,
helped to found Rockford.
One on each side of the river.
And there was strength and surge in this towering,
Thomas Kerr and Charles Parker Connolly
and the rest who built, who said yes.
But then this town fell on hard times,
and so did this church.
Let’s be honest with each other, OK?
I’m not trying to blame anyone.
I don’t care about that.
Sometimes these things just happen.
Life hesitated in the hours’ tolling.

Somehow, folks forgot how to say yes,
and got good at saying I don’t know if that’s a good idea.

You weren’t alone.
Over the last generation,
hundred of thousands of churches
across this country declined in membership.
Many closed their doors.
Conflict, putting politics above mission, and an unwillingness to change
these were the causes.

What impresses me most about this church
is the strength of your core leadership.
The folks for whom this church matters.
Who know in their hearts, in their bones,
that this church and this faith is worthy of greatness.

You decided that you needed pretty radical change.
This is what attracted me to this church:
that in your materials
you recognized that the phoenix comes out of the fire,
that you knew that you had to change
how you worshiped
and the words you used
and what you meant by them
and how you made decisions
and how you treated each other
and the stranger,
that all these things would have to change
for the sake of the mission,
for the sake of making a difference
in Rockford and in the lives of the people who might seek you out,
who might need, desperately,
a religion for their whole lives,
and who might come here,
and need you to be with joy without hesitation.
I thought that was pretty great.
So I said yes.
And I think I was pretty upfront about who I was,
and what I believed in:
that I believed that we are the stewards
of liberal religion,
a religious tradition worthy of our wealth and our time and our love,
a tradition of reason and spirit, of hope and justice
of meaning and beauty.
A tradition we dare not – dare not – keep from others who need it, who want it,
whose lives would be richer for it.
And you decided to say yes to that vision.
So here I am.

But you know what?
I’ve only ridden a horse a few times,
and I don’t own a white one.
Let alone a suit of armor.

For the last almost two years I’ve done everything I can
to teach you to take charge of your church.

This is what the thriving church looks like:
the church where everyone does their part,
where people say yes,
where ministry is the work of every member,
where things are humming,
where people step up,
where people are nice to each other,
more than nice: where they are graceful with each other,
where people will stand in the center of the fire
and not shrink back,
where we sacrifice the actual for the possible,
the present for the future,
where we can be with joy
without continuous reminders
about the limits of being human.
This is what the thriving church looks like.

We do this together.
You think I’m going to get all the way out on the gangplank
all by myself?
No sir. No ma’am.
You are coming too.

Let me tell you about the thriving church.
And I’m not making this stuff up:
this is based on my research and observation
my service to a church in Colorado which doubled its membership
in the five years I was there –
my study over the last two years
of some of the strongest Unitarian Universalist churches in the country,
we traveled to these places, in Tulsa and Albuquerque and St. Paul,
and saw what they do,
so let me tell you about the thriving church.

Let me say, first, in case there be any confusion:
these places are not thriving because they are growing in membership REPEAT
They are growing in membership because they are thriving. REPEAT
Strong churches grow.
It is a consequence of being a relevant force for good
in the world and in people’s lives.

The thriving church embodies the spirit of love.
They use the word love to describe what church is about,
that it shapes their loves, helps them love the right things:
beauty instead of power
risk instead of safety
truth instead of conventionality.
They talk about how love is the spirit of their church,
and they treat each other that way.
They don’t fight about petty things,
at least not very much.
They treat their leaders – the volunteers and the staff members –
with respect and care.
Not just to their faces, but behind their backs, too.
They love to worship and to learn and to serve and to be together.
They love their church and their faith,
and they are so glad when someone else does too.

The thriving church is the learning church.
They invest their time and their money in spiritual growth,
for all ages.
Children are treated neither as a nuisance nor as a bauble for public display,
but treated as spiritual learners,
whose religious questions and journeys and lives are worthy of our attention.
The church that treats children this way
attracts parents who want their children to be treated this way,
and the parents also get to connect:
to other parents and to a faith tradition that sustains and inspires their own adult lives.

The thriving church is the serving church.
It is a place where people volunteer gracefully.
It serves the world, loves it,
and connects the passions of the gathered community
to the needs of the wider world.
It challenges people.
It stands on principle when genuine religious values are at stake,
yet it avoids at all costs identifying itself with partisan struggle.
The thriving church is willing to risk losing itself
for the sake of its good news.

The thriving church is the connecting church.
It values its history and it builds its future.
It makes space and funds for student ministers,
and supports international partners,
and sees itself and its leaders as resources for other churches.

The thriving church stands towards the future.
Without making technology an idol,
it embraces the technological future,
the wired world.
It welcomes without controversy or struggle
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
It embraces racial and ethnic diversity and the global world.
It is synergistic, blending the ancient and the modern
in word and music and everything else.
The thriving church tries new things.

The thriving liberal church, in particular,
stands with pride between secular materialism on one hand
and reactionary fundamentalism on the other;
it embraces the great variety of the religions of the world,
all of them, including the Christian faith,
without apology or amendment.

The thriving church, most of all, is the courageous church.
It doesn’t hesitate.
It plunges in.
It says yes.
It believes in its future.

My daughter just turned three.
After she had been at her grandmother’s for a weekend
a little while ago,
she came home and, starting, I think, an art project,
she said to me:
This is going to take work, Daddy.
Well, sure, Rosie.
No, Daddy, she said.
You have to say, what kind of work?
So I said, what kind of work?
She shouted with glee: Team work!

I guess that’s from a show she watched while she was gone,
but it is a good lesson for a three year old to learn.

The thriving church takes work.
Now, you say, “what kind of work?”
team work!

This is the work of spiritual generosity:
it is seeing the possible instead of just the actual
it is graceful kindness to each other,
seeing the best instead of the worst,
it is having a greater love for your values
than for your comforts,
it is risk-taking, out-loud-laughing, big-heart-loving life,

it is knowing that the gifts given unto you:
life, time, wealth, wisdom,
are not given unto you for your use,
but so that they might flow through you back into the world,
might be shared with others.
That’s spiritual generosity:
and I have seen it among you,
and our future together depends on it.

I’m ready to say yes.
But you’ve got to say yes too.

Say yes to being a growing learning community,
and investing in our children and youth and their parents.
Say yes to being a connecting church,
supporting an intern minister and helping our brothers and sisters in faith
in this country and around the world.

Say yes to being a serving church
which stands up for justice,
and in particular, a church which stands up
in our time and place
for racial justice and for excellent public education:
core Unitarian Universalist values which need
to be shouted from the rooftop
and the work for which needs to be seeded and secured by money.
Say yes to being a courageous church and a welcoming church,
where we value our faith enough to share it,
where we refuse to turn people away
where we will do whatever it takes
to build for tomorrow a nobler world
than we have known today.
Say yes to being a church of the spirit of love,
where we are graceful and kind to each other,
especially to those who serve this institution as best they can.

Over the next six or so weeks,
you will have a chance to say yes.
A chance to say yes and be a team.
To make a fair share gift – a teamwork gift –
to this church for the coming year.
You’ll get a phone call or chance to talk, person-to-person
with another church member.
Answer the call. Literally, answer the phone.
Say yes.
Be kind and responsible to these volunteers.
Think about the church you want to see,
and what it takes to make it happen.
Reach past the actual for the possible.
Great things have small beginnings,
there was birth in this groundwork,
so don’t hesitate,
keep building, transcend the limits of being human
for the sake of joy and love.

This is such a vital moment for Unitarian Universalist.
You know, on Thursday afternoon
after I finished the first draft of this sermon,
I posted on facebook that it was a doozy,
and that it was about the thriving church and saying yes.
And Peter Morales,
the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association,
and a real actual friend – not just a facebook friend,
commented two words: Preach It!
And that got me thinking about his campaign and his motto:
that Unitarian Universalist can be the religion for our time.
The religion for our time:
today’s spiritual seekers are eclectic:
they are inspired by Buddhism and Christianity,
by art and by ancient prophets,
and they seek a religion without creeds and doctrines,
a religion that is about their lives and about their children’s lives,
a religion that suffers no hypocrisy
and is not hide-bound by its former glory days.
We are uniquely positioned to be that religion.
Theologically, we are there.
We just need to be courageous enough,
joyful enough,
hopeful enough,
to claim the future that is ours.
We just need to say yes.

What is essential is invisible to the eye.
What is essential is invisible to the eye,
so says the fox to the little prince.

listen: listen to the sounds of breathing,
shuffling feet, clearing throats,
listen: rejoice.

We have gathered together, with courage and hope and love,
and what is essential is invisible to the eye.

We’ve processing the survey results,
where we asked you a bunch of questions about worship,
including what do you love about it;
and folks said the music, and they said the sermons,
and they said the part at the end where we hold hands and sing together.
A lot of folks said that.

And when I read that piece by Vicky Weinstien, about taking hands,
I thought of us and what we do.

We come here as we are, needing,
like Vicky and the unnamed man at the retreat:
needing renewal and healing and fellowship
we come here as we are,
living in the limits of being human.

And something amazing happens when we reach out:
whether we feel fingers or not,
something essential and invisible to the eye
which happens when say yes to life and love and truth
when we can be with our own joy
we can overcome even seemingly impossible obstacles.
We transcend, even for a moment, the limits of being human.

Are you ready?
Are you ready to put aside your limits,
to place with reverence your past behind you,
to reach out to the new and the now,
to be a people who say yes
who say welcome
who say what kind of work?
teamwork!
I believe in the future of this church.
I believe in the future of this city and this region.
I believe in the future of Unitarian Universalism and liberal religion.

The future awaits.
Let’s go.
Don’t hesitate – not now, when everything is before us,
don’t hesitate.
Begin.