Worship In the Here and Now

I preached this sermon on Sunday, September 25 at the Utah Valley UU Congregation in Springville.

Worship In the Here and Now
I begin with words from Kenneth Patton
Let us worship with our eyes and ears and fingertips;
let us love the world through heart and mind and body.
We feed our eyes upon the mystery and revelation
in the faces of our brothers and sisters.
We seek to know the wistfulness of the very young
and the very old,
the wistfulness of people in all times of life.
We seek to understand the shyness behind arrogance,
the fear behind pride,
the tenderness behind clumsy strength,
the anguish behind cruelty.

All life flows into a great common life,
if we will only open our eyes to our companions.
Let us worship, not in bowing down,
not with closed eyes and stopped ears.
Let us worship with the opening of all the windows of our beings,
with the full outstretching of our spirits.
Life comes with singing and laughter,
with tears and confiding,
with a rising wave too great to be held in the mind
and heart and body,
to those who have fallen in love with life.
Let us worship, and let us learn to love.

For me, the sacred is often present, a palpable sensation in the air that there is something more to life, to what is around me. So in a sense, the concept that we are "worshipping all the time in everything we do" really works for me. Several years ago, I was on retreat at Deer Park Monastery in Southern California, one of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreat centers. In the kitchen, there was a sign above the sink that said something like: “wash every dish as if you were washing the baby Buddha, with that degree of care and attention.” Being at Deer Park, I felt the presence of the sacred and people’s degree of reverence for each other, for the land, all the time. This reverence was everywhere. It was an energy in the air. We bowed to each other when we passed on the path. We ate in silence, savoring every mouthful of food and appreciating that we had nourishing food to eat while others had nothing. We prayed together in the great hall, the silence like a blanket surrounding us; and when the bell sounded, it was a beautiful reminder to be here now; to be present. Whenever a bell sounds at Deer Park, everyone stops what they are doing and has a moment of mindfulness, of remembering. One of our tasks being on retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh was to take care in all things. If we were sweeping the walkway, or cutting vegetables for a meal, or walking back to our room. And it’s hard! Mostly because my mind was often racing ahead or remembering past events, so I was not used to being in the present moment.

What does it really mean to be able to “worship in the here and now?” There are questions we can examine. What is worship for us? What feels worshipful? What is sacred? And knowing us as UU’s, there will be many different answers to these questions. And that’s what makes our faith tradition exciting! And it means that we need to be having a continual conversation about what worship is for each of us. And our answers may change. When we create a service, there are elements that we often include. If you were to walk into a UU congregation in a town somewhere across the country, there would most likely be a chalice lighting. But not always, not every time. And there might be songs from the hymnal, but maybe not. I like the variety and the breadth of how we worship. And it means that it is up to us to create the worship experience that is meaningful for us, today, in this gathering.

Recently, I attended the South Valley UU congregation’s yearly campout, and we had our Sunday morning service outside around the campfire pit. People sat on lawn chairs and picnic benches, and cross-legged on the ground. If you looked up, there was an incredible view of a mountain hillside and blue sky with white clouds, much like the view behind this church. I love worshipping outside! And I am know there were people who really don’t like it and came instead to the church on Sunday to have the indoor, more “traditional” worship. For me, being outside among trees with my feet on the earth feels inherently sacred to me. When I imagine the thousands of people whose lives changed overnight by Hurricane Katrina and the thousands more who were effected by the recent hurricane, I think of how one would create worship in that situation. Sitting in a shelter somewhere with none of your familiar belongings, wondering if God or the Divine, something larger than yourself had a hand in your circumstance. Perhaps wondering who or what to pray to. Wondering what to do next. Perhaps people came together and created worship by simply holding hands and saying a silent or spoken prayer together. The Lord’s prayer and the 23rd Psalm come to mind as words that might be familiar for many people. Though they may not identify as Christian anymore, even as UU’s many of us know and find comfort from those words when we are in a crisis. The image of lying down in green pastures or walking by still waters is very comforting for me.

And we are worshipping right this minute as I stand up here speaking. But what makes it worshipful? Some of the times that have felt the most sacred to me have been when something unexpected happened. I was in the UU church in Burlington, Vermont on a Sunday in December one year and the Reverend Gary Kowalski was offering a sermon called “Redeeming Jesus.” I tend to think of myself as a christian with a small “c”, as Jesus offers me a model of radical compassion and revolutionary leadership that I identify with and value, so I was eagerly anticipating what Gary would say. How would he redeem Jesus for this UU congregation? Well, I cannot tell you anything he said. I don’t know what I heard. I can tell you what happened when he finished speaking. The entire congregation stood up and gave him a standing ovation and many of us were crying. An energy had entered that sanctuary and come through Gary to us. It felt like an overwhelming feeling of unconditional acceptance, of love. And it was incredibly sacred. For me, that experience was worship in the most complete sense of the word. What I believe had happened was that an opening had been created for the Divine, the unexpected to enter. Gary allowed perhaps without even knowing it, that energy to come through him. Something happened. It was a powerful morning. We all left changed by the experience.

Leaving space for that unexpected message or synchronistic piece to happen. That’s what I see as one of the keys to creating worship in the here and now. We can do all the planning we want, but being able to enter this time on Sunday afternoons together letting ourselves to be open to the unexpected allows the spontaneous energy that is worship really happen. One of the reasons I wanted to enter the process of becoming a UU minister was so that my work would be more inherently sacred, I imagined I would be creating worshipful experiences all the time for people. What I discovered is that the key really lies in realizing that all of the work we are doing is sacred. It isn’t just about Sunday “worship time.” Now is the time we worship; now is the time when we light our chalice and feel different, where we let go and allow ourselves to rest. We can’t only have that happen on Sunday afternoons! I don't believe that is enough. As UU’s, one of our commitments as a denomination is to help in creating a more just, more loving world. That is work that needs to happen all the time, in everything we do. And yes, I believe it is vital for us to see Sunday as a time to feel rejuvenated, to remember our connections to each other and the larger world of which we are a part. And I long for a time or space where we can each share how it is we find meaning in our lives every day, in the daily moments of living.

My church experience growing up was that it was always something we did as a family. I grew up liberal, very liberal Presbyterian and United Church of Christ / Congregational, in Washington State, New Hampshire and Connecticut. My family always went to church. It’s where we found community, friends, a home, a familiar place in an unknown environment. We’d move to a new town and one of the first things my parents would do after they found us a place to live was to find a church we could attend. I learned early on that children and people of all ages were important in the congregation. We all participated in many aspects of the services, in the work we did in the community, in religious education. Even though I didn’t grow up in UU congregations, I absorbed the principles and they paralleled the way I already lived and was in the world. Throughout college and beyond formal church wasn’t part of my life anymore, but I was very committed to a variety of social justice causes that kept me connected and committed to the fact that everyone deserves worth and dignity; that we are all interconnected; and that we need to use justice, equity and compassion in our relations with others. I was living our principles without knowing it! I participated in many social justice events during those years – marching for women’s right to make decisions about their own bodies; walking three hundred miles to promote an end to nuclear weapons and encourage peace; working to encourage understanding and respect for bisexual, transgender, gay, lesbian and questioning youth in Vermont. I advocated for services and support for people struggling with HIV and AIDS. And one Sunday, I found the Quakers and the glorious silence of their morning meetings. I needed that sacred space and that quiet to regain my footing and strength for the coming week. What solace I found there between those quiet walls, among those committed people. But I missed the music, and I wanted the deliberate messages of weekly sermons to inspire and awaken me.

Ultimately I found the UU congregation at the top of Church Street in Burlington, Vermont. In that sanctuary, between the white walls of that New England-style meeting house (much like this sanctuary feels here!) I found church and God, and ultimately Jesus again. I reclaimed religion for myself. I realized that I relished in the fact that within Unitarian Universalism, there was plenty of room for me. For all of who I was and am, and am becoming. For what I believe or might come to believe. As a Unitarian Universalist, I knew I would be embraced for my strong and varied commitments to social justice, for my love and energy of movement and other creative expressions of the sacred, for my need to have the freedom to love across the spectrum of gender and to be someone who identifies as “bisexual”, and to be able to use the life of Jesus as a model for embodying radical compassion and revolutionary leadership that I believe is so desperately needed today. All of these aspects of myself were welcome in that UU congregation and I hope and imagine, would be welcomed here.

And I was one of those people who came to church on Sundays and that was almost the whole extent of my involvement then. In comparison to others around me, I was a relatively invisible and silent participant. The work I did during the week as an arts administrator/ presenter took me all over the state working long hours and interacting with many different people, and took a lot of my energy. And I was still involved in many of the social justice causes I mentioned earlier. So church for me was a time to just be. I went through significant transformation sitting in a pew every Sunday during those years. I made the decision I wanted to become a minister during a worship service, but had no idea if that was even possible or what the process was. (If I had known all of the many steps along the way, I can’t say I would have decided to do it!) So those times of worship were life-changing, transformative for me.

I recently bought the UUA Commission on Appraisal’s report: engaging our theological diversity, and have asked myself the question they were grappling with – what do I believe is our theological center? This is the image that came to me a couple of days ago - A mirror and a window both. I don’t believe that our theological center as UU’s is something tangible or solid that we can hold onto or hand over to someone if they ask. How we might answer that question is through the way that we are in the world. So we see ourselves and our rich heritage reflected back to us in the mirror, but we can also look beyond into the larger world. We can see the work that still needs to be done to promote justice in all the ways that are needed; to help in providing services and aid to all those in need; to offer a religious home for people where they can come and breath a sigh of relief. They might say: “I am home, I am free to figure out what I believe; and we are in an environment where my family, my way of being is accepted and embraced, no matter what our gender, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic heritage, abilities, are.” These are big pursuits – to work toward a just and compassionate world, and the principles we espouse are no small task. These things may not be accomplished in our lifetimes. And it doesn’t mean we don’t continue the work. This is what and who we are as Unitarian Universalists. Looking squarely in the mirror and accepting what we see – ourselves, for who we are and what we have done; where we have come from. And looking through a window to the world beyond. Knowing that there is a vital role that this denomination can play; and must offer. In the engaging our theological diversity UUA report, Scott Alexander offers a description of “everyday spiritual practice” as “any activity or attitude in which you can regularly and intentionally engage, and which significantly deepens the quality of your relationship with the miracle of life both within and beyond you.” (pg. 80, engaging our theological diversity by UUA Commission on Appraisal, 2005.) Any activity or attitude – that allows for quite a bit of freedom! That we regularly and intentionally engage in, and which deepens our quality of relationship with the miracle of life. This speaks to our daily rituals or habits, the things we do every day, such as taking a morning walk with our beloved dog, or creating a beautiful meal for someone we care for. For me, the key to worshipping and engaging in regular activity that can remind me of the sacred and larger meaning of life, is to be able to expand the definition beyond what we normally define as “worship.” I think if you asked most of us what we think worship is, it would involve a service much like this one where we engage in a prescribed outline – we sing together, we might have a time to pray or meditate, we listen to words, and hopefully take something away that makes us think, or brings us inspiration. But I don’t know that most of us think of washing the dishes as a form of worship, as I described at the beginning from Deer Park Monastery. Or taking a walk around our neighborhood.

In 1987, I participated in a 300-mile walk for peace and nuclear disarmament through the towns and cities and roads of New England. There were about 80 of us, ranging in age from around 4 years old to people in their 80’s. We were led by Buddhist monks and nuns who kept a steady drum beat throughout the day, and a man held a pole high in the air with thousands of colored peace cranes waving in long rainbow lines. It was an incredible experience and those days of walking together, of being together in a moving community, held by a common purpose, are some of the most sacred days I have ever spent. We would gather every morning in a big circle and look around at each other’s faces, see who we were that day. We may have done a one word check-in of how we were feeling, but I don’t think we always did this. Sometimes we sang, or heard a poem spoken by someone in the circle. Then we filled our water bottles and started walking. Walking for peace. Like Peace Pilgrim, the woman who heard a call at the top of a mountain during the Korean War, to start walking for peace. She walked for the next 35 years, thousands and thousands of miles back and forth across the country. She knew that she was making a difference, and she believed her work was sacred. Worshipping the ground we walk on…What would that really mean? Treating our lives and our work, whatever we are doing or however we are being or feeling that day, as sacred work, knowing that each of us does have a impact on our environment, in the world. The Peace Walk for me was an opportunity to witness and participate in a daily community where hard decisions had to be made by consensus, where incidents would happen that needed to be addressed. But there was an understanding among the walkers that we were doing sacred work; that walking for peace and an end to nuclear weapons was vital and important work.

A few days ago, I spoke to a UU minister from California and she told me: “Telos, I am in Baton Rouge. I have been here since September 7th. I helped to open a relief center here at the UU church. And there is chaos all around me, and there is incredible need. I have never experienced anything like this in my life. And I knew I had to come.” She felt called to go and she went. We all have ministries to offer. You don’t need to be a minister in order to have a call or sacred work to do. By our very daily being in the world as advocates for justice, as witnesses to encouraging more compassion in whatever ways we can, and as stewards of a faith that is so needed now. Unitarian Universalism, coming forth out of a desire to be a tradition where all are welcome, has a message to offer. By worshipping in the here and now, today together and in our work and being in the world every day, we are increasing the presence of love in the world. I’m not suggesting that this way of being is necessarily easy comfortable, especially in an environment that encourages the opposite. But it is work that we are already doing by our very presence.

T.S. Eliot reminds us in his Four Quartets: “With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling / We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time.” This is what worship does for me. I might spend time and energy searching and struggling to understand my life; and then I come to sit in church and I realize I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. And to be with people who can see and accept one another for who they are, who we are right now, today. This is the miracle. This is the reason we come together to worship, here and now.

May it be so.