First Parish Bedford UU

A Sermon by Rev. Maud Robinson

delivered on Sunday, May 25, 2008

at First Parish in Bedford, Massachusetts

 

You realize that I gave Joan the title for this sermon when I still had little idea what I was going to speak about today. Well, I suppose the Patchwork Quilt refers to today’s service in general – bits and pieces I was asked to include and that I’ve been meaning to share with you but haven’t got round to before now. Though, I have an idea that you might discern a bit of patch-working in the sermon too.

 

The first sermon I ever wrote was about Balance. I wrote then: “Most of us have particular lessons in life, which keep coming back and knocking on our doors, time after time; and just when we feel we’ve got a handle on them, circumstances conspire to show us we’ve still a long way to go.  For me one of those life lessons seems to be about “Balance”.  In my journals and other writing this theme comes up again and again, and as with many learning processes it’s often a case of ‘three steps forward and two steps back’ and there are times when I ask myself: do I ever learn anything?” 

 

I wrote that 6 or 7 years ago. Have I learned anything since then? Do you know what – I think I just might have, not least during my year here with you at First Parish in Bedford. This does not of course mean that I always, or even regularly, implement the great new wisdom that I’ve gleaned. But, isn’t that what life is – learning and trying out and failing and forgiving and trying again; and again; and again.

 

Most of you know that there were some misgivings at the beginning of this church year, as your beloved and familiar senior minister high-tailed it out of town and you were left in the hands of this strange, new and only-just qualified acting assistant minister from across the stormy sea. I also had misgiving about serving a largely humanist congregation, a face of Unitarianism which I had little experience of, or knowledge about.  Yet over the past nine months I hope that many of us have grown in our ability not only to tolerate but also to better understand and to respect the insights of those who think and believe differently from ourselves. I think maybe we have been able to grow towards a balance between being true to one’s own most deeply held convictions and being sensitive to differing beliefs of the other. 

 

For me, the learning has been slow and required much input and guidance from others – as is often the case with important learning. I came here with little or no knowledge about humanism. Over the months I have experienced the living out of humanism in this caring community, but the big push came only a couple of weeks ago when I went to visit Jack Mendelsohn, minister emeritus of Bedford. I’d felt a bit intimidated by Jack, and haven’t interacted with him much, but just over a week ago I went to visit him in hospital; we had a great conversation, and I regret that I hadn’t started this conversation sooner. We got to talking about his reaction to my preaching and he told me that he didn’t object to discussion of God, what he objected to was me telling humanists what they are. He continued that humanists of his acquaintance are some of the most spiritual people he knows. I went back to look at the sermon in question and realized that, yes I had offered glib dictionary definitions of humanism without exploring the nuances and variety of interpretations of the term. On Friday afternoon, I speed read a few chapters of Jack’s book Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age .” I found there a clear explanation of some of the nuances of religious humanism, and discovered that much of Jack’s personal profession of faith, outlined in the book, rings true with my own ongoing discernment about the nature of the universe.

 

How easy it is to dismiss things without making the effort to explore them more deeply. And of course we can do this in all sorts of ways – ascribing our own interpretations to other people’s beliefs based on what we think we know about the religion or society to which they belong. But, even if we inform ourselves of the official stated position of an institution, there are undoubtedly nuances within the institution’s understanding of itself that we haven’t grasped. And that’s before the additional layers of varying interpretations and nuances build upon the official position by individuals. In short we need to be very slow to impose our own glib interpretations on to the beliefs of others – as I have been guilty of doing with Humanism.

 

I want to move on and look at some other aspects of church life that can sometimes be out of balance with each other. I’ve been facilitating a series of workshops on practical spirituality over the past few months. We have explored various kinds of meditation and prayer, solitary and communal, however a central theme of the series has been that everything we do can be transformed into a spiritual practice by approaching it mindfully and intentionally. 

 

This word – spirituality is one that doesn’t sit easily with some people. It’s a term which can encompass every effort we make to live life more mindfully, more intentionally, more deeply. It’s a convenient shorthand, and I can’t really think of another word to replace it, but I’m open to suggestions.  

 

  One of the workshops in the series I facilitated looked at the relationship between spirituality and social justice. The balance between contemplation and action, which has been extensively examined in many faith traditions. 

 

In preparation for this workshop I read a sermon which had been preached to the UU Service Committee by Rev William Murray. He writes:

“In every church I know anything about there are two groups of members – those who are devoted to spirituality and spiritual growth and those who are committed to social action. The spirituality people are not involved in social justice work and the social justice folks generally want nothing to do with spirituality. They have two different understandings of liberal religion. However, in my view social justice and spirituality are two sides of one coin. For I believe that genuine spirituality should lead to social concerns and people working for social justice need a spiritual basis or they will burn out quickly. Moreover, spirituality that does not lead to social justice concerns is in my view bogus spirituality. It is simply a form of religious narcissism.”

 

I agree with Murray’s belief that “genuine spirituality should lead to social concerns and people working for social justice need a spiritual basis or they will burn out quickly.” His contention that most UUs devote themselves either to spirituality or to social justice, probably contains more than a grain of truth, however I think he hugely overstates the case. I can name numerous examples of Unitarians who are deeply committed to both: the ardent peace activist and trade unionist in Dublin whose growing embrace of Unitarian Christianity led him to ministry; the Oxford Unitarian who was willing to serve time in prison for her active role in protesting against nuclear weapons in Britain, who highly values silent prayer and the transformative power of ritual; I could go on with many more examples. There are members of this community whom I could name in this respect.

 

We gather here, week after week to experience the pulse of life and meaning that flows amongst us; to experience the strength, comfort and joy of gathered community. That strength and joy, however is hollow unless it enables us to look out at the world and ask the question: how am I called to facilitate the spreading of this pulse of life and hope beyond my self-centered concerns? This is a question that each individual can only answer for themselves. For some it could be marching in solidarity for a cause to which you are committed, it could be fund-raising for a worthy project, or just as importantly it could be joining in the Service that First Parish does at the Bedford community table or the Lowell Transitional Living Centre, or bringing comfort to those in pain and distress in one’s own community or further a field by volunteering at a hospice or hospital.

 

You’ve heard me talking a lot about spirituality over the past months – encouragement to explore practices of prayer, or meditation, or embracing a simpler lifestyle, or about the concept of a unifying source that some call God. I’ve neglected, perhaps, giving attention to the work of the church for justice and equity. I hope that it is implicit in much of what I say – but, yes, I probably need to strive for more balance in addressing more directly the call to action of our faith.

 

I have no doubt that each one of us has areas of our life which would benefit from a conscious effort to re-balance various elements within it. I’ll leave you with this thought: it’s never too late to start – remembering that changes worth making usually require considerable time and effort. If, like me, you find that trying to implement change in your life usually entails three steps forward and two steps back – remember that this results in a nett advance of one step – and a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.