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March 10, 2002 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

March 10, 2002

Sins of Every Shape, Size, and Color

March is important this year for Christians because Easter is early, falling on March 31st; as a lunar holy day it moves around, sometimes it is late in April, or early as this year in March. Preceding Easter are the Christian holy days, holidays, of: Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter when Jesus is supposed to have ridden into Jerusalem; followed by Maundy (sad) Thursday, this year Passover which was what was Jesus’ Last Supper (lest we forget Jesus was a Jew) also falls on the 28th; Good Friday when Jesus was crucified; and finally, the holiest of all the Christian holy days, Easter, the day Jesus is said to have risen from the dead.

When I was a child, Easter was a big deal. Most people got new clothes, hats were a big thing, patent leather and white shoes could be worn, and the sunrise service when people gathered outdoors if possible to greet the new day with hymns of celebration. Later, there were Easter egg hunts, a big dinner. A great time of celebration. To my fundamentalist evangelical family, Easter was by far more important than Christmas.

Why all this focus on Jesus’ death? Should not that be a bad or sad event? Not to Christians, for the whole focus on Jesus, over time, came to reside in his death and resurrection. As I read to you earlier from Ransom’s work, "Deliverance [from sin] is possible only through Jesus Christ, whose sacrificial death redeems the repentant sinner from the penalty and power of sin."

Sin is the big deal, then, for Christians; that we are prone, even doomed to sin, unless we turn to Jesus. I spent most of my childhood worried about sin. I was a convinced sinner. Every night I worried about my sins, what I had done, or thought, that might make God mad. One of my uncles, a preacher, said God did not get mad at us for sinning. God was sad. I never had the courage to say what I was thinking, which was, when I am sad, I don’t want to send people to burn in hell for eternity. I believed God was easily made mad, so I worried. The fact that I was a quiet little girl, who did nothing more than smack my little brothers once in a great while, should have made life easier for me. It was my thoughts that gave me so much grief. I had sinful thoughts. Like, I wish Becky Oderkirk would drop dead. (Becky was my elementary school nemesis.) Or, I might pretend to have a stomach ache so I would not have to go to Aunt Belle’s house, because I had to eat her awful white cake with boiled icing. She single-handedly turned me against most things vanilla.

I worried because I was told that sin is as much in what you think as what you do—an idiotic concept I now understand. It is worse to murder someone or to think about murder? Sure, the principle is that all bad deeds begin with a thought, but few of us act on our truly bad thoughts. Sometimes the contemplation is cathartic, for most people know that between the first thought and the final deed are plenty of opportunities for considering the consequences.

My uncle was fond of saying that there were more ways to sin than days of the year; sins of every shape, size, and color. While I came to disagree with most of his theology, on this point he was probably right.

While we as Unitarians do not believe that Jesus was God, or that he died for the sins of all humanity, there would be few among us who would deny that his dying for his beliefs was a sin.

For myself, I believe that arguments about whether there is such a thing as sin, or the nature of sin, are mostly self-serving. To me, sin is pretty straight-forward: people do bad things; those bad things are sins. What we leave open to debate usually deals with intention, whether what we did was premeditated or unintentional, or whether we need salvation from sin, and finally whether we need forgiveness for our sins.

Obviously, too, some of us give this issue of sin more attention than others. There is this story about Calvin Coolidge, a man of few words, we are told, to illustrate my point. One Sunday night after he had returned home from church, his wife asked him what the preacher had talked about. The President answered in a word: "Sin." His wife probed further. "What did he say about it?" The president thought a minute and then responded, "He’s against it."

Whatever each of us thinks about the concept or nature of sin, most of us are against most of it.

In the New Testament of the Christian scriptures, in the writing of James (James 1:14-15), we read: "Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."

By this understanding, sin is that which we do that we know to be wrong, yet are enticed by its perceived pleasures or gains. I would say that the Enron leadership committed grievous sins. Why? For greed, for power, for the selfish needs that allowed these people to get as much money for themselves at the expense of, not only anonymous stockholders, but the lower level employees of their company. Pretty straight-forward sinning, that. We recognize this kind of sinning, and hope that those people will be forced to pay for their transgressions; just one of the reasons we have for laws and government.

The shape, size, and color of Enron management sins are twisted, large, and the color of crisp currency green.

What of the sins of people who are not so rich or so powerful? What of the sins of the likes of you and me? What is the shape, size, and color of our various sins?

We can always turn to the centuries old Seven Deadly Sins: Anger, infidelity, greed, wantonness, envy, gluttony, pride. Yet, while any of these have the potential to be sins if carried far enough, I take issue that they are always sins. Anger is sometimes a sin, and sometimes not. There are times when we have not only a right to be angry, but a moral right. I am angry with the Israeli government for not working harder to make peace, for not being willing to allow the UN to bring in peacekeepers, which the Palestinian leadership has asked for repeatedly. I have been angry for being manipulated, or seeing others being manipulated, cheated, hurt. Some things require our anger, but only to prompt us toward peaceful solutions.

Infidelity, wantonness, the sins of the sexual realm, are not always so clearly obvious either. Unlike Jimmy Carter, I do not believe looking with lust in and of itself is sinful; the sin happens later. And, this realm of sin often is a symptom of a larger layer of sins. The sins of neglect, lack of communication, pride, passive-aggressive behaviors that are as much parent of the sin as any thoughts. So sin is often subtle as well as obvious; we tend to pay attention to the big sins, hoping, perhaps that the little ones do not count. But, they do. Just like that thread I put around the boy’s wrists. One thread is easy to break, as one sinful thought or reaction to a sinful condition is easy to move away from, but when I wrapped that thread around his wrists several times, he could not break free without great struggle. Such is the nature of those seemingly little, colorless, ordinary sins.

Pride, gluttony, envy are sins nowadays that have more to do with the damage we do to ourselves, though they can and do impact others. Being overly concerned with ourselves, feeds the ego far more than the body, which is why pride is so dangerous. People kill for revenge—that is about pride; we eat too much, and know that others are starving, that may take a toll on our self-worth in ways that does as much harm to us, even as our physical health is harmed. Envy: wanting, seeking, after what others have is an endless loop of trying to get gratification that never gets satisfied. Some one wants to have not only what the Joneses have, but more, then it escalates to wanting more than richer Smiths, and so on, without ever finding the real value of life that resides inside and never in any financial statement. But, even in that, to want a comfortable life is not a sin, unless we want it at the expense of others, if we do not care about the quality of life for others in the world.

Sin does reside in the way we think, as well; the way we think about ourselves and others; the way we think about what we are doing; the way we do what we do. When the young school teacher in Kansas failed a large part of her biology class for plagiarizing, parents rose up in anger and insisted she be less punitive, they forced the school board to take action, and the school board insisted she be less punitive, and she responded by quitting rather than commit the sin of going against her principles. Sin upon sin. She could have changed the grades, but the sin to her own honor was too great. We call that courage. And what of those parents, who were committing a far greater sin against their children in not teaching them that cheating is not the way to live your life, even if it may often be the way to get ahead.

H. L. Mencken once said: "It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake." I do not really believe that, but it seems a common enough approach to life. We call it cynicism.

We have a much looser notion about sin than former ages. Our Puritan forebears had too narrow a sense of it. Finding that always-so-difficult Golden Mean remains our biggest challenge. The political humorist, Bill Maher, said: "Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease." Actually, he is not entirely off base with that statement, for a good many things that used to be called sins we see now through the modern eyes of medicine, science, psychology as problems to be dealt with, or differences, or abnormalities. Sin is about intention, not about physical differences we might be born with like left-handedness, homosexuality, schizophrenia. Andrea Yates committed an awful crime in drowning her five children, but the crime was not a sin if she was, as we keep hearing from various medical and psychology experts, mentally ill, not able to think in a rational way. She may deserve treatment more than punishment. That is for the jury to decide.

She is punishing herself far more than any form of capital punishment could.

If we sin, as I believe we do, then do we need salvation and/or repentance? That is a trickier question for us UUs. My belief is that you get your heaven and hell right here on earth, and that without the peace of truth in our hearts, we never can have any kind of peace or joy. In some ways the Catholic church dealt the best with human failing by offering the confessional, where you could go and lay bare your soul, receive your penance, and be freed from the guilt that tends to hang over, and hamper our lives.

Somebody mailed this story to me:

A young boy went into the confessional and told the priest that he had thrown peanuts into the pond. The priest thought this was a strange little sin to confess to, but said nothing. The next small boy also confessed to throwing peanuts in the pond, and the next. Finally a very small boy came in, so the priest went ahead and said,

"And did you throw peanuts in the river?"

"No, Father," said the kid. "I am Peanuts."

I am always, and most certainly, open to the need for confession, because confession is good for the soul. Any time you need a mother confessor, you have one right here. Just getting the wrong out in the open, saying it out loud, is often enough to open our eyes to how we can make right that wrong. Or, at least, not do it again. Learn why we did it in the first place. All of these are a part of salvation, from which I think repentance usually takes care of itself. Doing good for others, to atone for the wrong we did to another, is better and more productive than doing nothing at all.

None, not one of us, is free from sin. All of which gave rise to the notion of Original Sin. While I do not believe in the idea of Original Sin as a theological statement, that we all pay for the sin of Adam and Eve, I do believe that we are all born with an innate, driving need to satisfy our basic needs, and our ego is that driving force. According to the great psychologist, Abraham Maslow, as described in his "hierarchy of needs," as we mature and develop we grow beyond the overwhelming control of our ego, and those who eventually grow to the highest level have escaped the bonds of ego, and can think beyond the self to others. That highest level is to "self-actualized. The problem is, way too many people seem to get stuck in adolescence. Me, me, me, they clamor, and never ask, What about you?

The issue for Unitarians is not that we sin, it is what we do about the sin. The sins that affect ourselves, and those we love, the sins that affect the larger community we call the world. The salvation comes in being willing, I repeat-being willing, to acknowledge sin, and to note sin in all its manifold forms. All the sins that happen and come in every shape, size, and color.

So be it

 

March 17, 2002 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

March 17, 2002

Emily Knearl as St. Brigit

Debra Bowers as Brigid

Pagans and Saints: The Story of Brigid – St. Brigit

 

Today is a tradition celebration of the Green; that is, St. Patrick’s Day, celebrated more for fun than for faith, but a sign nonetheless of how important religious symbols and traditions are to a people, even people who do not share the same faith. Even those of us reared in non-Catholic households would probably be upset if St. Patrick’s Day were eliminated from the celebrations we have grown up with and cherish as part of a larger tradition.

It is odd in so many ways that there is such emphasis on celebrating the contributions of a people who were so reviled in this country when they first began to arrive here in large numbers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Yet, they have made a great contribution, changed the landscape, as it were, of our population.

Thus it is that one people influences another, as they come together, begin to share joys and sorrows together, and "unite in difference" as has been the cry of independence since our Revolutionary age founders suggested we could.

All cultures change that come close together, the people change in their knowledge and expectations. All religions change in this way too, for religions reflect the people from which they emerge, and the people to which they travel.

The Methodist Church of my childhood was markedly different from the Methodist chapels in England where the faith first formed under John Wesley’s leadership, and it is different today from region to region, as it is true of our Unitarian faith.

This is how Brigid, and the Celtic Goddess of ancient belief, came to be Saint Brigit of Christian times. Know you can hear their stories.

***

 

Bridget: Pagan Goddess or Christian Saint?

A Play in One Part By

Theadora Davitt-Cornyn
Jo Gerrard
and
Yasmine Gruen


Moderator: In the distant long ago, when religion was never thought of as a separate entity, but was simply the way people lived their lives, goddess religions were a natural evolution of living close to the earth, in tune with nature's rhythms, in harmony with the natural environment, in awe of nature's wrath, and in gratitude for her favors. Fertility and survival seemed to be the two most urgent preoccupations, so the goddess would be invoked and appealed to for these purposes. Women often played a major role in these ancient religions - sadly, now, in contrast to the misogyny found in later faiths.

Christianity was another step along the way, incorporating what we in modern times call pagan religions - sometimes brutally stamping them out as heresies (as was done in the New World), at other times merely absorbing them in painless take-overs such as occurred in Ireland shortly after the arrival of Patrick in 432 CE, as indigenous beliefs were incorporated into Christian theology. The case of Bridget is one of these examples.

(Pope) Gregory (the Great)'s instructions indicate that Christian missionaries were ideally to change beliefs with as little dislocation of popular practice as possible. This policy of adaptation proved to be wise from the point of view of the church because, for the most part, people hold on to cultic practices, that is, to what they feel obliged to do by virtue of their relations to transcendent powers. Cultic practice is inevitably more lasting than belief, the latter being a culture's speculative or mythological articulation of its relation to the divine. If the missionaries could uproot what they considered to be the essential beliefs of paganism, they were willing to overlook the accidentals of the modes of worship until the practices could be Christianized over time. As long as this kind of policy governed missionary activities, the old worship left many traces in medieval Christianity.

Webster's 1962 Unabridged Dictionary defines pagan as: civilian, country-dweller, follower of a polytheistic religion, one who has little or no religion, or who is marked by a frank delight in and uninhibited seeking after sensual pleasures and material goods. It also defines pagan (this is my personal favorite!) as one who prefers a well-ordered dinner to a dissertation on the immortality of the soul.

How many of you might have realized that in its early beginnings, Christianity was considered a cult by its contemporaries?
From Paganism and Christianity 100-425 CE: "The appearance of cults far from their original home…is a prominent feature of life…(for) the first four centuries of the Common Era. But of brand new religions, there are only a very limited number - chief among them is Christianity."

And from Backgrounds of Early Christianity: Christianity in the Ancient World : What about pagan views of Christianity in the olden days? The well-known Roman historian Pliny found Christianity to be only a "…perverse and extravagant superstition."

pause

Moderator continues

Today we bring you a story of transition - how one well-loved pagan goddess was transformed into a well-respected Christian saint. This sort of thing happened often in the early days of the church, as the decision was made by early leaders to adapt and adopt much of whatever the local pagan practices were into the Christian way. It was considered a less disruptive method, and was more likely to have a successful outcome than forcing the natives to lose their former allegiances, and to conform.

Curiously, in Ireland, vestiges can still be found of pagan influence: holy wells - which are simply deep pools of fresh water in roundish openings surrounded by the wild grasses of uncultivated fields - (not anything like what we visualize when we think of wishing wells) and clafouties - which are shreds of cloth torn from a hem to make an offering tied onto a branch of a shrub near a holy well - and other rituals often not spoken of openly, such as in October 1994, when I returned to Ireland for a family wedding after all the tourists had gone home. A cousin's daughter was being married. My cousin's wife and I had been having a lively discussion about Unitarianism, which she referred to as a cult!

Now, this woman always had a very large, conspicuous, Roman Catholic statue of the Infant of Prague in their big kitchen window. On this visit the statue was quite noticeable by its absence. When I inquired where it was, the mother ran from the room with her hand clapped over her mouth and one of the daughters explained: "Oh, it's out in the garden under a shrub, for good weather on the wedding day tomorrow." Now, that's an ancient pagan belief, but the mother was too embarrassed to let on, as the Roman Catholic church in Ireland would frown on any display of such heathen behavior!

Since we have no one else today who can speak for the pre-Christian inhabitants of Ireland in the days of Druids, Firbolgs, and Formorians, perhaps we can ask our guests to introduce themselves.

Moderator: Turning to Goddess Bridget Would you like to start us off?

Goddess: Thank you. I have been called Brighid or Bride, or Brig, and I am a triune goddess from pagan Ireland-triune meaning I have three aspects: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. As Maiden I am inspiration and poetry, as Mother I am a midwife and a healer, and as Crone I am responsible for hearth fires, smithies and crafts. I have brought some of my symbols: here you see the lighted brazier representing my fire aspect, a pitcher and chalice for my association with water and healing, some corn and a Brigit's cross for my fertility and earth aspects, a wolf, snake, swan and vulture -- though I did not bring my sacred cow-and a shining mirror to the other world, one of my talismans.

Additionally, my association with smithcraft makes me a warrior goddess, and as such I wield a spear and arrow. Imbolc, February second, is my sacred day, and on this day the fires were tended with care and fueled with special woods, including a rowan rod that was placed in the heart of the fire. If such a fire pleased me, in the morning the household might find my mark in the shape of a goose or swan's footprint near the hearth, and such a family would find themselves blessed in the coming year, generally with exceptional fertility in lambs, crops and even human children.

Let me read a brief section from The Goddess Obscured

Saint Brigid shows an incredible likeness to the Celtic Goddess from whom she takes her name, Brigid, the great guardian of fertility and the land. Though by the Middle Ages [I] was primarily associated with poetry, healing, and artisanship, etymology and scraps of mythology establish [me] as having been primarily a matriarchal deity. Like most Celtic goddesses, [I] was intimately connected with topography, particularly with sacred waters and wells. Prayers and sacrifices would have been offered to [me] (and other topographical goddesses), though the druidic liturgy and oral formulas were not set down by the medieval monks who recorded the mythology. Instead, they recast [my] legends and perhaps even some of [my] ritual (such as processions and pilgrimages) in a manner acceptable to the church.

Moderator: Turning to Saint Brigit Then you also have an association with Imbolc...

Saint: Yes, I do.

Folk culture… preserved the links between [me] and [my] pagan forerunner. The folk traditions surrounding Imbolc highlight these affinities. Straw and grain from the previous harvest are central to Saint Brigid's Day celebrations. Until modern times, on Imbolc/Saint Brigid's Day, a small quantity of specially preserved seed grain was mingled with the first crop to be sown. The straw or stalks of the grain seed were blessed with holy water, hung up in houses, or set in the thatch of cottages. A sheaf of oats, a cake of bread, or a dish of porridge was placed on the doorstep the night of Saint Brigid's Day as a grain offering to [me], [as I] was believed to be abroad. Other cakes were placed outside the window to provision a hungry traveler.

Additionally, when I was a saint, official Christian-later Catholic-doctrine limited me to the patroness of Ireland in conjunction with Saint Patrick, and the patroness of Dairy Workers. One of the many legends about my tenure at the convent I founded in Cil-Dara is that my cattle could produce enough milk to fill a lake; one churning could fill several baskets with butter. The Christians did keep my festival very close to Imbolc; they moved it back one day to the first of February, but shrugs that may have been because the old festivals were often celebrated starting the night before, as the Goddess has mentioned.

Here, let me read my entry from The Lives of the Saints, which is official Catholic Doctrine as published in the mid-1950s gets up to point out significant locations on the map as speaking

[I am] known as the second Patron of Ireland and "the Mary of the Gael." Born in County Louth near Dundalk about 450 CE, [I] showed signs of sanctity from [my] youth. According to a legend, [I] asked God to take away [my] beauty in order to escape marriage and pursue [my] religious vocation. And when [I] received the veil from St. Mel, [my] beauty which had given way to deformity returned.
[I] founded the first convent in Ireland at "Cil-Dara" (The Church of the Oak), now Kildaire, over which [I] presided many years. [I] also established communities in other parts of Ireland, and by [my] prayers and miracles exercised a potent influence on the growth of the early Irish Church.
[I] was generous and joyful, vehement and energetic. [My] one desire was to aid the poor and needy and relieve those in distress. One of [my] friends once brought [me] a basket of choice apples and saw [me] distribute them to the crowd of sick people thronging about [me]. The friend could not refrain from exclaiming: "They were for you, not for them." [I] simply said, "What is mine is theirs." [I] died in 523 and was buried in Downpatrick in the same grave as Sts. Patrick and Columba.

Moderator: I see. You said when you were a saint?
Goddess and Saint both nod
Saint: Yes, that's right. Since I had fulfilled my purpose in helping Saint Patrick to convert Ireland over to Christianity it was determined that I was no longer necessary, and since there was "no proof that I had even existed" I was decanonized in the 1960s in the wake of Vatican II.

Goddess: Not that it was very surprising that the Vatican would make that decision: after all, when they took over my stories it was only because I was a popular and well-loved Goddess among the people, and many Irish Catholics still venerate gesturing to the saint her - us - me - as a Saint. They even re-lighted my sacred flame in Cil-Dara not once but twice. Once in the 1500's, and once again in 1993.

Moderator: to the Saint So you don't claim any existence of your own?

Saint: Good heavens, no!
[My] associations with the grain plant and the seed must predate the Celts' conversion to Christianity. …customs connecting [me] with tillage and sowing at Imbolc surely reflect the linkage between [me] and the Celtic goddess from whom [I] got [my] name. The etymology of the word Imbolc, the agrarian customs and activities associated with it, and its date in the agricultural year all suggest that a pagan tilling and sowing ceremonial was transformed into the Feast of Saint Brigid, and that the pagan mother goddess, whose symbolic "belly" or "womb" was envisioned as producing the season's crop, was superseded by the Christian saint who, until modern times, was honored at Imbolc/Saint Brigid's Day with baked grain cakes and stalks of grain.
Not only that, but look at the similarities of the stories that are told about the two of us, considering that the Goddess' stories came long before mine.

Goddess: For example, it is said that I was born at sunrise, and that when I was born a tower of flame that reached from the earth to heaven burst from my forehead.

Saint: And, for my part, when I traveled to the nunnery at Telcha Mide to take the veil with a group of virgins I held back from Bishop Mel, at which time a pillar of fire rose from my head to the roof of the church, prompting him to call me forward to be the first to take the veil. Not only that, but he read over me the form of ordaining a bishop - which did get him in trouble, though he claimed it was given to me not by himself but by God. Since I had been ordained as a Bishop, I could appoint other bishops, and all those bishops I appointed were goldsmiths.

Goddess: Which leads back to me - as goddess of smithies and crafts goldsmiths were certainly under my care. And then there is the matter of the sacred flame, as well.

Moderator: How so?

Goddess: Well, my sacred flame at Cil-Dara was tended by nineteen virgin priestesses, who were called Daughters of the Flame - meaning me, of course. Each girl represented one year of the Celtic "Great Year," and for the twentieth year, no one tended the fire and yet it continued to burn. No male was ever allowed near my flame, nor my priestesses. And when Christianity took over...

Saint: ...It was said that I began a convent at Cil-Dara - the first in Ireland - and that the fire was tended by myself and nineteen other girls. And, no male was ever allowed to enter the convent, which led one bishop to supposedly issue an ultimatum - that we would accept a male protector and overseer, but I refused. grins at Goddess, who grins back Sounding familiar? Not only that, but when I died, each surviving nun took care of the fire - one each for nineteen days - and on the twentieth day the fire was left alone and miraculously continued to burn, and it was said that I tended it. There's also the matter of the Goddess Brigit's two-faced Nature.

Goddess: Shrugging I only think that's significant because of the number of myths that are told about you and how God removed your beauty until you took the veil - either because you had asked Him to or because of some accident that occurred. I rather think that it's a flimsy association, though, since half my face being dark and ugly and the other half being white and beautiful probably had more to do with the traditional association of women with the moon.

Saint: nodding Probably.

Goddess: Let us not forget, though, that we are both associated with childbirth. I was said to attend every birth, and there are some legends that associate you with the birth of Christ.

Saint: frowning That's one of the stranger myths about me, though, since I supposedly was a contemporary of Saint Patrick - he's supposed to have baptized my father and mother - and I'm also supposed to have founded the convent at Cil-Dara, which happened in the third century CE - and my birthdate according to official Catholic doctrine, I remind you, wasn't until 490!

Moderator: To the two women Curious. Well, ladies, thank you very much for your insights today.

turning to class

It has been said that religion is the universal human response to the twin conditions of the awareness of being alive, and having to die. Those are but two stories of human understanding and grappling with these essential elements of human existential pain.

Where we find ourselves today is on the threshold of another advancement, into what could be called a post-Christian era... reuniting us with our original pagan roots, so that we might incorporate them into our understanding of human progress from those times of superstition, due to lack of scientific awareness, to today, while bringing back the valuable essences of primal earth-centered connectedness, and interdependence, hopefully in time for religion to have a more positive impact on our planetary health.

 

March 24, 2002 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

March 24, 2002

Transporting the Congregation

This annual Pledge Sunday sermon is always something of a special challenge. How do I as your minister make the point that we need your financial commitment to this congregation if we are to continue to move forward toward the hopes and dreams that we share for having a vibrant, visible, religious home in this part of the world where we live and work?

Each year I ask myself what this spiritual home of Mill Creek congregation means to me, and how would my life be different without it. That is the main focus of every "sermon on the amount" as Frank MacArtor, our Finance Chairman, likes to call it. Every year some new understanding comes to me about what all this business of the congregation, literally, the business, has to do with our desire for a place to be together in a common challenge toward the growth of the mind, the body, and especially that essence of us that we call the spirit.

This past summer, as I was I was putting together the rough outlines that are the beginnings for the coming year’s Sunday sermons, I found inspiration in what might seem a most unlikely place: A car dealership.

It was while my husband, Tom Riley, and I were in the process of getting me a "new"--at least new to me, actually used--car, and we were sitting in the dealership office waiting for some piece of information, that I realized I always feel panicky about these automobile negotiations. And, why I am very grateful to have a spouse who loves spread-sheets and the researching part of the car-buying process, with much the same passion that I approach cooking. Neither of us can stand or would want the other’s passion. If I never set foot in a car dealership again, I would not weep; and he feels the same about kitchens—as long as we both have cars and food, that is. (These sorts of complimentary strengths make for great marriages.)

Back to the dealer showroom—I sat there looking at all the beautiful brand new cars with all the fancy bells and whistles, and my mind wandered back to my very first car: A 1959 Studebaker Lark. For those who have not made the acquaintance of a 1959 Studebaker Lark, it was roughly the shape of a boot box. Had the road handling quality of a Sherman tank. Was probably designed by someone with years of burial vault design experience. It had never been garaged, was in fact owned by an old man from Meridian, Idaho, my home town, was a faded, flat, dirty blue, with the driver’s side window that required two people to get it up if it ever was rolled down. Since it had no air conditioning, it was often rolled down. My father knew the man, knew the car was poorly driven and maintained. My dad was very mechanical as most farmers are, and thought he could take care of any problems, and okay-ed the purchase.

The only power option was the engine: no automatic transmission, no power brakes-windows-seats-mirrors-sunroof. Entirely manual, a three speed shift on the column—not cool at all. And it cost me the entirety of my summer labor in our orchards, of $100. And, I loved it! I named her Bluebelle. In fact, all my cars have been named. I figure anything I spend that much time talking to, disclosing my deepest fears and failings to over the years ought to be recognized. George Carlin said, "You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive."

I have only briefly been in the wonderful position of using public transportation; for, coming from a rural area, no such thing was available, and most of my life has been in the suburbs, just like here in Hockessin, and I only occasionally go to cities where I can take a subway or bus.

Since I was thirteen years old, I have had a driver’s license. In Idaho, we farm kids were all driving tractors and pickup trucks as soon as we could hold a straight line, so as an agricultural state, young people at age thirteen could get a daylight-to-dusk driver’s license. I got Bluebelle when I was sixteen, so for the vast majority of my life, I have been dependent on cars.

Sitting in that flashy showroom, surrounded by new cars--astounded by how much they cost, I was able to stand back from the dreadful expense, even of the used car we were buying, and think about what it would be like if I did not have a car.

One of my principles regarding my children and cars, was that they had to have a kind of Bluebelle experience. That is, their first cars had to be clunkers; old, safe, but not absolutely reliable, for I think without my first couple of clunkers, I would not have felt the unbelievable joy of my first new car. I have never gotten over the fact that when my daughter’s class graduated high school, one of her best friends got a brand new Mercedes sport coupe from his oil-wealthy grandmother. Now what did that kid have to aspire to in the future? Both my children had plenty of scope for their aspirations with their Honda Civic clunkers, not to mention a whole passel of great stories to tell about their first-car experiences.

Driving is something most of us pretty much take for granted. Usually, the only times we think much about it, are those when our cars temporarily refuse to work for us; or we have an accident; or some other situation arises, like travel, when we have to depend on taxis, or public transportation, or rental cars which often are unpleasant for one reason or another. (I always seem to get the ones that either were occupied by cigar-smokers or had a box of tacos left on the back seat during a heat wave.)

When my last car started developing front-end problems (whatever that is!), I was brought back to that place of worrying about whether I would get to where I was going or back home without incident. My husband, with his fierce Dupont safety training, decided we better bite the bullet and get a newer, safer model. As a part of this process he did his research on what were the safest, most efficient, etc., then we went on the rounds, test-driving one then another. I have always been so intimidated by this process. Can we really afford it? Maybe my old car could be repaired again? Will this be a good decision? Can I have one with cloth seats, which I prefer? Will I have buyer’s remorse? All the questions of doubt, fear, uncertainly that plague us anytime we are making a real commitment—especially one involving our money.

Ultimately, of course, we are driven by our deeper desires and needs. If I want to do my work, I must have a car. If I want to do other things that give me great pleasure, like visiting Longwood Gardens, or seeing my twin grand-daughters, I need a car.

Driving is about far more, you see, than the car. The car, even when she’s named, is still just a car; it is what the car gives me in the way of freedom that I value so dearly.

Driving is about getting from one place to another. Like all of you, I have many places to go, people to see. Unlike the village days of my great-grand-parents (none of whom ever owned a car, and relied on horse and buggy), we have farther to go, and more people to see who are not all located around us with in a ten mile radius. We accept that driving has in most instances become a necessity.

Driving is also about control. George Carlin also noted about some of us drivers: "Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio?"

I usually do want to be in the driver’s seat, have the option to drive when, where, and how I chose. In fact, many people can hardly stand not be to in the driver’s seat. I know I usually am more comfortable as the driver, and I hear this from others, too.

All of which relates to this Sunday’s Pledge Drive. We have a congregation that wants to go from here at CACC to the Polly Drummond site we chose for our new building. Before I came here almost seven years ago you had already mapped out a plan, the why and how, for this to happen, though you did not know the when and where parts yet.

In the thirteen years since our founding, we have been in what I would call the good, reliable, used car stage. We have not had the vehicle we hope one day to have, but she, our UUSMC vehicle, has mostly been very reliable. Sometimes, she’s broken down and we couldn’t do some things we wanted, but she has been well-maintained by us, her loving congregational owners, and we have gotten a lot of mileage out of her so far.

In this transportation metaphor, most important are the occupants, those whose spiritual journey needs this congregation. Back in my showroom imaginings, I remembered the early days of my driving, when my friends and siblings wanted to go with me, but not my parents. Most of my friends without cars, who got regular rides, would give me a dollar here and there for gas, which cost less than twenty cents a gallon back then. Some would give more, some less. My little brothers I carried for free, expecting one day they would do turn-about’s-fair-play, plus being too young to earn any money. However, I had a couple of friends who never gave me any money for gas, and it was odd that they never felt any compunction about calling me for a ride. I would even drop hints: "looks like I’m about out of gas," or "I hope I have enough gas to get to the game." These school friends took advantage, but I could not turn my back on them.

In our UUSMC congregation we have many corollaries. In transporting our congregation, you who are the decision-makers, decide what we will do, where we will go, how we will function. Every one of us has at least one role. My hope is that we will see what that role is/what those roles are and see how we help in moving the congregation from one year to the next, one place to another.

Now this is a shared experience, so during the course of thirteen years of all the people who have come and gone or came and stayed, each one has at one time or another been the Driver, the Passenger, a passer-by, maybe even a pedestrian observer. This morning I am asking each one of us to consider those roles.

These are always changing roles, even mine, for I, too, am a member of this congregation and use the fuel of my vote. But, lest anyone make the mistake, I am not THE Driver. Here at UUSMC, we have congregational polity, which means you do the business of this congregation through the Board of Trustees you vote in at the Annual Meeting, and through you votes for decisions that affect the whole congregation such as to accept the goal budget. You call your ministers, you hire your employees. While I am called to be your spiritual leader, I am not "the boss"—you are. You are the ones who decide what kind of congregation we will be, and where we will go. I do not have the keys, as it were, to either lock you in or out, or start it up or turn it off. My role is to support and further your decisions.

I have a story from someone who told about going for their first new car:

When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a young mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver's side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. "Hey," I announced to the technician, "It's open!" To which he replied, "I know - I already got that side.'

Now I want you to think of the roles you have had here at Mill Creek, the role or roles you have now. Further, I want us to consider how we come to our thoughts on giving.

In this extended metaphor, I see the drivers as those who are committed to the congregation most whole-heartedly. Drivers serve on committees, serve a term on the Board, attend services and functions, make their pledge, and vote at the Annual Meeting in May.

Sometimes, members are passengers, riding along, perhaps not able to drive, or not wanting to drive, they may or may not pay their way. Sometimes, members are passers-by, who come for a short time, maybe are even quite active for a short time, but then go on their way, for one reason or another.

Sometimes, members or friends (as we term those long term regular visitors) are pedestrian observers, who neither want to be active nor committed, but may want to hop aboard when they need to get somewhere in a hurry: like those people who call up for help when they are in need (and we want to be here to help them), or those who want a wedding, funeral, or child dedication services provided by you through your minister.

It is entirely possible to have been in all these roles over time, but what counts always, will be those who take their commitment seriously.

My son is now in the Air Force, has a reliable used car that he left for Mom to care for until he gets his permanent posting. (It is good to be a child with a loving parent!) He has been telling me about this new Honda he wants to buy when he gets posted, one with all the bells and whistles; for a young man of twenty, a new car is one of the greater spiritual experiences. I know that, but, of course, Mom says things like: What about insurance, maintenance, storage when you overseas, theft, etc? Poor boy, to have his dream dampened by reality from a loving parent! But, this, my son, is how you become a man with joys and sorrows, and the responsibilities of manhood.

This Mill Creek congregation wants a home of our own, and we, as intelligent adults, are more than ready to acknowledge that what we want will cost us a certain amount of real dollars. I hope that we each can find a way to give according to our desire and concern for the health and long life of this congregation we love. And, I certainly recognize, and know from experience, that we are sometimes in a better financial place than others, that there are times when we need to rely on generosity of others and find different ways of being generous with our time and other resources. With the expectation that we will take on that role when we can.

I have always been moved by the teaching of John Wesley, founder of Methodism, who once said about this thorny issue of money: "Make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can." I have tried to make this my path since I was a Methodist, and find that this is good sense that goes far beyond any one denomination, and one that I repeat as a challenge for all of us today: "Make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can." For it is what you each do, that adds up to where we all get to go. So be it.


 March 31, 2002 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

March 31, 2002

All New and Improved: God in the Second Millennium

 

I started noticing some years ago, perhaps with the aid of some comedian like George Carlin, I don not remember what sparked the incident, but I was watching TV with one of my children, and an advertisement for Tide detergent came on announcing that Tide was "all new and improved." Somewhere in the back of my "little gray cells," I recalled that ever since the 1960s Tide had been proclaiming itself "new and improved." I wondered: Have they never gotten it right? And, how much can you improve a basic soap product like Tide anyway? As far as I know, most of them still have phosphates, one potentially undesirable element, fragrance—and even "fragrance free" is a fragrance, sometimes color particles, but it is still basically soap.

Once you start to notice things like this, they begin to leap out at you like those wonky pictures that look like a repeating pattern, but if you squint or look beyond the picture, as it were, you see another picture. So it was, that suddenly many of the products I remember from my younger days have periodically been promoted as new and improved. Usually, all that seems new or improved is the packaging. So why this full court press by product companies to continually make their products "new and improved"? Why is there not a push for what I actually find more appealing, like, "tried and true" or "ever reliable" or "still good as ever"?

The most logical conclusion I can come up with is that the producers have decided that American consumers gets bored with, or tired of, older products and are in constant need of a new angle, a different, newer, better, flashier twist on an existing product. Or, that the younger crowd wants something different than their parents had or used.

Have you seen the new green and pink ketchups? Evidently, these tastes exactly like plain old red ketchup, but young people find the bright colors of ketchup appealing. Unless the food on my plate is a green vegetable or herb, I generally find green on my food a danger sign. Although, I suppose you could jazz up some aged meatloaf with green ketchup and serve it to the family as "all new and improved meatloaf." Some how, I do not think my family will fall in with that.

Maybe I am a bit old-fashioned. I love to go through the Vermont Country Store catalog, for they make a specialty of finding those old products that people are devoted to like overall aprons, cotton under slips, Heaven Sent cologne, or Cashmere Bouquet and Lifebuoy soaps. Things we remember from 40s and 50s, primarily. Still, while I do love many of the things from the past, I also love many of the new things, or some of the revisions of the old, especially packaging, like ketchup in plastic squeeze bottles instead of glass.

I suppose that in fact most things are at some point "new and improved." Maybe most for the better, I am not sure, but I am keeping my eyes open for when I think a product is really "new and improved," and not just "improved": there is a difference.

Some one said to me when I mentioned this "new and improved" phenomenon, that really almost everything is either new or improved. Like clothes. There really are not too many clothing items that have not been around for quite a long time. Jackets, shirts/blouses, trousers, dresses, robes, shoes, socks. They get improved with newer products, like patent leather that does not require shining; or polyester/nylon/rayon that make clothes not wrinkle or last longer in some cases. I have read that one day teeny-tiny computer chips will be in our clothing to makes us warmer or cooler depending on the ambient temperature. A garment like that will be truly new.

God has been around for a long time, at least the concept of God has been. I expect God to be around infinitely longer. The concept of God, though, I expect to change, as indeed it has been changing all throughout recorded human history, and no doubt before. In fact, we might consider that each different way that God has been presented down through time is a religious variety of "new and improved"—all based on the needs of people at a given time.

Today, for the sake of brevity, I am solely concentrating on the Judeo-Christian understanding of God as shown in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, also known as the Old and New Testaments by Christians.

Today is the Christian celebration of Easter: the day when Jesus is believed to have defeated death, to have risen from his grave, and in this became the savior for all humanity.

If we stand back from this event and place it in the scope of history, it might be that this is one of several moments when God was made "new and improved." Though, throughout the area of the Middle East and Europe, there had long been gods and goddess of springtime rebirth in the old world religions, this particular death and rebirth story is only new in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

But, let me start at the beginning: the Creation story of Genesis in the Hebrew scripture. In my "Brief History of the Bible" classes I taught last month, I pointed out that the first story in the Bible is really not the oldest story. It is dated by Bible scholars much later than other Old Testament texts. Still, it is where the King James Version, all collections called Bible begin, and even non-Bible readers generally know the first line: Gen.1:1- In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

God then goes on to create Adam and Eve, and it is clear in this creation story that God is in the Garden of Eden. He walks in the garden, he goes looking for Adam and Eve when they are hiding from him after eating of the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. (By the way, one of the improvements in the story was to turn the word fruit into apple, but the Hebrew texts just say fruit. Perhaps the image of dates, cherries, or cumquats was worrisome to later translators.)

God then gets angry and punishes Adam and Eve and forces them out of paradise. Perhaps you recall this story:

A religious education teacher asked her students to draw a picture of their favorite Old Testament story, and as she moved around the class, she saw there were many wonderful drawings being done.

Then she came across Johnny who had drawn a man driving an old car. In the back seat were a rather scantily-clad man and woman. "It's a lovely picture," said the teacher, "but which story does it tell?" Johnny seemed surprised at the question. "Well," he exclaimed, "doesn't it say in the Bible that God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden?"

Should you think I am treating God too lightly, let me quote Garrison Keillor, who said: "God is a great humorist. He just has a slow audience to work with." And, from H. Aaron Cohl, who told this joke:

"Laughter is God's gift to mankind," proclaimed the preacher ponderously.

"And mankind," responded the cynic, "is the proof that God has a sense of humor."

God begins, then, in Genesis as a Creator, then quickly becomes a destroyer, as Jack Miles says in his book, God, A Biography. Death enters the picture, evil becomes a larger force, God destroys all the people except for Noah and his family, and two of all living things, as the story says.

God alternately moves in and out of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures, and with every movement, God becomes something different, either watching over the people, destroying, a friend sometimes, a liberator at others. God is never a static, unchanging God. God, in fact, changes far more than the people of his creation as they are shown in the scriptures.

People, unfortunately, do not get the "new and improved" label very often. In fact, people are regularly shown to be the same old sinners who pay attention to God for a while, but then go right back to their sinful ways. Although, sometimes one of them recognizes his or her sinfulness and turns back to God, who sometimes welcomes them and sometimes does not. Adam and Eve did not get a chance for redemption, as a case in point.

God in the earliest books of the Bible is a God who wants his chosen people, the Israelites to build a great nation. That is the sole focus. Obedience to God enables that nation-building, and when they forget God, their nation suffers and they are over-run variously by Babylonians, Syrians, and others. They get sold into slavery. All of which, the prophets point out is God’s punishment.

God is then a Liberator, a Lawgiver, a King, a Conqueror, at times Executioner, as well as Holy One, as Miles points out.

As Jack Miles, and many other Bible scholars have pointed out, God progressively moves out and away from people. From the early creation when God walks with people, God becomes a deity once removed. In the story of Moses, God is in a burning bushing, then a column of fire that guides the Israelites on their forty-year journey. (This story must be taken metaphorically, for what sense does it make that if God is guiding them, it takes forty years to go a distance that today we could fly in a small plane in a couple of hours.)

God by this time is no longer walking with humankind, but speaking to them through chosen prophets like Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and such. Still, God acts as a counselor, as we read in the Psalms and Proverbs. Some people are attuned, we might say, to the voice of God, the understanding of God’s intent and purpose. But, God is not doing this on a personal level. The idea of a personal God is a much later improvement.

There are times when God seems to be gone, out of the universe for a while, has abandoned his creation, taken a sabbatical from humanity. (All understandable.) In these phases, as Miles puts it, God is variously, a sleeper, bystander, recluse, or puzzle (as in Job or Ecclesiastes).

God clearly is, if not always in some stage of "new and improved," certainly "different" than he used to be. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures God is called upon to meet the different and changing needs of the people of Israel, and the question that Miles raises, is: "Does God lose interest?" However, if God does lose interest, then it is only for a short time.

One of the great beauties and, to me, most significant aspects of the Ultimate Reality the Bible called God, is that there is some understanding of a Wholeness of Creation that is understood around the world and in all cultures.

I like the story from Confucianism that tells about four blind monks describing an elephant: one at the trunk, one at a leg, another at an ear, and another still at the tail. Each describes the elephant by what he can know of it. This is the dilemma of humanity, says Confucius, that we can never know the whole of God. We can only know part.

If we think about the restriction of human beings in knowing a creator, omniscient and omnipresent, then perhaps it begins to make sense that God, or whatever we can know of anything god-like, is only what we know at any given place and time. Therefore, God will be "new and improved" according to our place in history, in the world, in who we are and what we seek to know.

Christianity took the God of Abraham and revisioned it as the God in Jesus, a savior, and with a new mission. No longer is God just working with a Chosen People, but has become accessible to all people through Jesus. Though, as the words of some of the New Testament epistles (letters) make clear, this had be worked through by the disciples and followers, for some thought that Jesus’ message was only for the Jews, but others wanted to work it out so the Gentiles (all the non-Jews) were included. Here, God has not been so much involved as he has been the CEO, delegating the work to followers. Yet, another aspect of God as times change.

But where is God today? How has God been "new and improved" for the second millennium since the advent of Jesus? Part of this question is answered by sectarianism. Since the mid-16th Century with the Reformation, the Protestant Christians have been in an almost constant process of finding a "new and improved" understanding of God. Sometimes they claim that they are moving back to the "real" God relationship, but they are not in point of fact; the most they can really claim is a "neo-primitive" or "retro-Scriptural" depiction of God. Some times these groups have moved, and continue to move, toward the disciplinarian, authoritarian, lawgiver God. Others move toward the "friend" or "loving parent" God. Occasionally, the pre-Judeo Christian God/Goddess is revisited in pagan or nature religion, but even so, it is as seen in the modern understanding of those facets of the Creator. One notable phenomenon, has been the New Age religion that began to emerge in the 1970s and rose to media attention in the 1980s; still, even these have their parallels in the other periods in Western history. The focus on guardian angels, a previous existence, expectation of post-existence/s, a kinder, gentler God, all have been around before.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister who left his pulpit to find religion in the world of nature, to see God as "transcendental" not to be boxed in, said that "everybody worships something." I believe the understanding of that Ultimate Reality that we are drawn to, the God that we believe in, has everything to do with what we need, either as individuals or as a people.

After the terrorist acts of September 11th, God’s name was evoked in a dozen different ways, but principally as either "comforter," or "avenger."

As Unitarian Universalists we each have the responsibility for searching our hearts for what we need of or desire of God. I can assure you that we will not all come to the same conclusions. My greatest need of God, and for God, is God as love, for it is in the Love that is in all humanity, that God that I see our salvation, our protection, and our comfort.

Someone once said to me that we have about as much chance of understanding God, as an ant has of understanding us. I agree with that, if we see or understand God as some being out beyond the stars. On the other hand, if we understand God as the essence of all things, in all things, of all things, then that constancy of Love is a very viable way to know God.

We are a long way from the God of Creation, or the God of Genesis, or the God of the Easter story. But we are ever present in the world of hate, indifference, or caring and love. I believe our spirituality, as we can know it as UUs, is to turn from the hate and indifference toward the caring and love. I chose the God of caring and love, and hope that we will see this as the "new and improved" deity of the new age we call the Second Millennium. So be it.

 

READING:

This is It

and I am It

and You are It and so is That

and He is It and She is It and It is It

and That is That.

O It is This

and It is Thus

and It is Them and It is Us

and It is Now and here It is

and here We are so This is It.

--James Broughton

 
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