Prayer for Those Gathered In Worship bBy Rev. Barbara Pescan
In this familiar place, listen:
to the sounds of breathing, creaking chairs,
shuffling feet, clearing throats, and sighing all around
know that each breath, movement, the glance
meant for you or intercepted
holds a life within it.
These are signs
that we choose to be in this company
have things to say to each other
things not yet said but in each other's presence still
trembling behind our hearts' doors
these doors closed but unlocked
each silent thing waiting
on the threshold between unknowing and knowing,
between being hidden and being known.
Find the silence among these people
and listen to it all - breathing, sighs,
movement, holding back -
hear the tears that have not yet reached their eyes
perhaps they are your own
hear also the laughter building deep where joy abides
despite everything.
Listen: rejoice. And say Amen.
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If you hang around a college campus long enough, especially if you’re a college chaplain, you’ll frequently hear the following phrase, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” Turns out, if you hang around many a Unitarian Universalist congregation, chances are you’ll hear the same. I have a sense of what that means when uttered by a college student. But I have to say, I’m always caught up short when a church-going UU says the same. I have come to think that maybe we’renot sure what it means to be a religious person.
The tipping point came when about a month or so ago, Lexi Capen and I had the following exchange. (Lexi, as many of you know, was raised in this congregation and has turned out to be an exemplary “church lady.”) Unfortunately, I can’t remember the precise context of our conversation but what I do remember is that I had been expressing disappointment in the behavior of a group of people – no one here – that were church folks. I had reason to say something to the effect that I had expected more of them because they were, as I said, church folks. To which Lexi responded that still, these folks were only human … that they were indeed behaving like typical humans. To which in response I said something like, “Yeah, but still we’ve signed up to be here so aren’t we signing up to try to be better than just typical humans?” (Just so you know that’s how I talk – all I can manage - on a Sunday after services.) This could have gone on forever, this little back and forth in which Lexi and I were engaged, but I think both of us gave up, me thinking that instead, I’d turn it into a sermon. Thank you, Lexi!
So, what does it mean this being religious? Why can I unabashedly say, “I’m a religious person. Spiritual, too, by the way.” Why would I - why do I – say the same when describing any one of you? Let’s unpack this question and begin with the conversation I had with Lexi.
I do believe that when you sign up to be part of a faith community, in our case, a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation, you’re saying that you are prepared to attempt conducting yourself in a manner that is better than “typical human behavior.” This commitment is what I’m referring to when I often say that membership is not for the faint of heart. In fact, those who will be gathering together in the Huntington Street Community Room today after services, you who are discerning whether or not to deepen your commitment to this faith tradition and congregation, you will hear me say it again in about 45 minutes. And as I always do, I’ll say it yet again on New Member Sunday. Membership in this faith community is not for the faint of heart. Trying – always – to be good, and kind, and patient, and compassionate – is a challenge. It’s a physical challenge sometimes. Because sometimes it is so tempting to just snap – and sometimes all of us do just that. And when we do, it feels awful. When we lash out in anger or impatience. When we are quick to judge others. When in the face of suffering we refuse to help out of fear for our own emotional or physical safety. It feels awful. And it feels awful because once we covenant to behave differently we feel the difference in our hearts and in our bodies when we fall short. But the more we resist the snapping instinct, the more proficient we become at living in loving kindness.
Many of you have shared beautiful stories with me. Stories that describe how your relational instincts have changed as a result of being part of this congregation and faith tradition. That’s what we’re here for: to encourage and bear witness to that personal evolution. Being religious is to uphold the religious instinct to do better by and for each other. In so doing, we bind ourselves to each other.
As I now move on to another aspect of the meaning of a religious identity, let’s circle back to the root meaning of the word “religious” – to bind oneself to others. A religious person chooses to bind oneself to others. To all others as our Universalist heritage makes clear that commitment to our interconnectedness. The choir sang, “All things are connected. All living things share the same breath. All things are connected, just like the blood that unites us all.” Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” All things are connected. We are all connected to each other.
To illustrate, here’s a story that sadly, is about disconnect. Many of you know that I had the good fortune to take a holiday some weeks ago. On my return flight I flew alone. I had a window seat in a three-person row that I shared with two other people who happened to be a couple. Now, I understand not wanting to talk much to your neighbors on the plane. I understand the enjoyment derived from flying solo and quietly. But still, you say hello, right? You somehow indicate that you recognize your neighbor’s humanity as you’re practically sitting on said neighbor’s lap. From this couple came no such indication. To them, I was apparently invisible. It was quite something, actually. I said hello to them when I arrived - climbing over them and into my window seat. And after that, they never looked at me. I found that I couldn’t quite get over this behavior. It was so cold and so strange.
Unfortunately, as the plane descended I was stricken with that excruciating inner ear pain that sometimes happens when the air pressure begins to shift. I was trying very hard to keep the pain at bay – doing all the little tricks. This went on for some time. Although I wasn’t flailing in my seat, I imagine that it was pretty clear that I was distressed. Neither of these two said a word to me. Nothing. No, “Are you okay?” “Is there anything I can do?” “Sorry you’re having a hard time.” Nothing. So, on top of the stress of wondering if this ailment could somehow turn into a stroke, I felt so lonely on our descent and utterly disconnected from my neighbors who seemingly, I would say, had little to no religious instinct. No instinct to bind themselves to others, in this case, to me.
When I preached a sermon on “help” three years ago, I shared a poem by Julia Kasdork that concluded with these words:
I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
That’s us. Like doctors who take an oath to do no harm and to help always – we learn how to create / from another’s suffering [our] own usefulness, and once / you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
You can never refuse. When one honors the religious instinct to create from another’s suffering our own usefulness, you can never again refuse. In the face of suffering, in the face of injustice – the little ones – the everyday ones - we are called respond. We are all called to behave as did the Good Samaritan of the story. Always. And because we do not refuse, we become more deeply religious.
On the other hand, there are those who call themselves “religious” for whom I would question that identity because they lack the sense of interconnectedness. I recently watched Bill Moyers interview the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. (For those who may not know, Wright is the pastor of Trinity Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Chicago. Trinity is Barak Obama’s home congregation and Reverend Wright was recently vilified for what was named as unpatriotic and vitriolic preaching.) Wright recalled the start of his seminary experience. There he was, a young, enthusiastic Black man in the south, VA, for the first time. There he was, witnessing racism in a way he hadn’t previously. It shook his sense of faith. He witnessed men who believed that slavery was a Biblical directive. He witnessed unabashed racism, brutal in its expression. All from people who called themselves religious. Who called themselves Christian. They were neither. They were racist. They treated others as chattel. They did not comprehend the responsibility to bind oneself to others, no matter their race. They did not comprehend our interconnectedness.
Therefore, I would say, these were not religious, spiritual, or Christian people. In Wright’s words, “The God of the people underneath the deck is not the same God of the people above the deck. There is a perception of God who allows lynching … slavery … hatred. This is a very different God.”
In fact, it is not God. In fact, there are people in this room who would be hard pressed to assign any meaning to the concept of “God.” That’s fine. That doesn’t knock anyone out of the circle of religious perception or community. Not here. The evidence of a religious instinct is not necessarily a belief in God. It is in part, rather one’s sense of interconnectedness.
Which brings us to my final comment on the making of the religious individual. It is in the showing up. Here. For services on Sunday morning. Indeed, “religious” does connote an affiliation with a particular faith community and faith tradition. Many of you have, indeed, so affiliated with this congregation that affiliates itself with a particular – and organized – religion. I am reminded of an experience a colleague of mine shared with me. A bride and groom contacted her as they were in need of a wedding officiate. They began by telling her that they weren’t interested in organized religion and that’s why they had called her, a Unitarian Universalist minister. To which she responded, “Well, how unorganized would you like me to be?”
Some of you may be surprised by or resistant to it, but there you have it: we are an organized religion. As such, we gather every week, as the poet says,
In this familiar place, listen:
to the sounds of breathing, creaking chairs,
shuffling feet, clearing throats, and sighing all around
know that each breath, movement, the glance
meant for you or intercepted
holds a life within it.
These are signs
that we choose to be in this company
have things to say to each other
things not yet said but in each other's presence still
trembling behind our hearts' doors
these doors closed but unlocked
each silent thing waiting
on the threshold between unknowing and knowing,
between being hidden and being known.
The glowing center of congregational life happens here, in Unity Hall, on Sunday morning. We commit to showing up and knowing others and making ourselves known. That is also what it means to be religious.
Spiritual is not religious. In short, spiritual is about the individual and religious is relational. True, one may have a spiritual experience out in the woods, for example. But as a newcomer once said to me, “I can hug a tree but it can’t hug me back.”
Finally, I am suggesting that if as a result of your being here you strive to be a better person than before; if you find that you stick your neck out for others out of a sense of interconnectedness; if you show up here on Sunday mornings then you are indeed, a religious person.
Said the poet: listen: rejoice.
And say, “Amen.”
Amen.
