Sermons

We Were Made For This

Meghann Robern

Color_Stripe

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Listen to the sermon here:

We Were Made For This

or watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook

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I’ve gotten lots of questions about what today’s sermon will be about. I’ve deflected all of them — partly because, well, I wanted people to show up. And partly because, I think, I wasn’t sure where on the spectrum between pastoral and prophetic I was going to land. But here’s the thing: from this pulpit, I cannot endorse candidates. But I can absolutely speak to issues, especially ones directly relevant to our religious tradition, and I can talk freely about already elected officials. I want to be clear right now, at the beginning of this: I love you. I love all of you, with your depth and your nuance and your glorious divinity, and the parts of you you wish you could forget about, or hide. I love you. And as a human being, naturally, I like it when you like me. But I’m also one of your ministers. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I were trying to please everyone in the room. So buckle up.

In Unitarian Universalism, we also have something called the freedom of the pulpit — the right of the minister to speak what they believe to be truth to power. What often gets forgotten is that this freedom of the pulpit goes hand in hand with the freedom of the pew — the sovereign right of those listening to agree or disagree.

And here I come to the crux of the issue at hand in our culture this week: it is assumed, in our tradition, that we will have a diversity of beliefs. It is HOW we communicate about and through these differences, how we treat those who are not exactly like us, that binds us together as Unitarian Universalists. This is a legacy we UUs have not always lived up to — but that doesn’t mean that we should give up trying. One of our most popular hymns is Rumi’s come, come, whoever you are, but one of his most important lines of the poem has been cut from the version we sing: “Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times, come.”

Now is the time for us to renew our vows, to our covenants of behavior and to our principles of action, because it became pointedly clear Tuesday night that much of the rest of our country has forgotten, or never learned, how to be together.

A few weeks ago, one of our members preached a controversial sermon on the inherent worth and dignity of every person in the face of great evil — the freedom of the pulpit. While she was preaching, someone was overheard to say, out loud, “She should throw herself away.” That is not the freedom of the pew. That is the kind of divisive response that has led us to this awful moment in our history, where a man who has incited violence, hatred, bigotry, racism, and openly admitted to sexual assault has been elected to the highest office we have. Say whatever you will about the electoral college, the fact that the popular vote was even close enough to allow the electoral college to override it makes me ill. The fact that almost half of eligible voters didn’t vote, by choice or by voter suppression, makes me ill.

I have friends, people whom I trust with the lives of my children, who voted for Donald Trump. I know there are people in this room who voted for Donald Trump. I’m both capable and willing to to discuss with civility and genuine interest the reasons those votes were cast. But make no mistake — the inherent worth and dignity of every person is not the equivalent to the inherent worth and dignity of every opinion. People are going to die because of this. In the last five days, there have been over 200 incidents reported of hate crimes directly linked to people feeling empowered by Trump’s election and the validation of his horrific rhetoric. Those are just the ones we know about.

People’s lives are at stake now. I am all for rooting out corruption in government, but not with an administration that believes climate change is a hoax perpetuated by China, that women should be punished for having an abortion, and that being gay can be cured with electroshock therapy. That’s only the beginning of the list.

It is not enough to look at policy platforms or party affiliation and ignore the person who will be taking the office. It is not a responsible choice to ignore the impact of electing a man who calls himself the “law and order” candidate while we display a Black Lives Matter sign on our lawn. “Law and order” is the spin white people put on the New Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and the epidemic of systemic racism in our criminal justice system. If you missed our Palmer lecture about this, it’s posted on our website. Want more? The documentary “13th” is streaming on Netflix, right now. Lives, families, of people of colour have been destroyed in this country for decades, and it became clear on Tuesday night that the system is going to continue.

I know this is a dismal picture I’m painting for you. For some of you — our members and friends who are people of colour, queer, women, and so on and so forth — this is more of the same. The fear that you have already lived with every day. For some of you, this reality is new, and it’s weird and really really uncomfortable, and it is so tempting to retreat back into locations of privilege to avoid that feeling. Even those of us who are part of one group under constant attack — for instance, me, as a cisgender queer woman — may find it easier to conserve my resources to protect myself. I can retreat into my whiteness, my education, my class status, as insulation.

But my resistance will be intersectional or it will be worthless.

I am part of the interdependent web of all existence, and that means I am in relationships. That web means those relationships are with strangers as well as with family and friends. My resistance to the status quo, to the patriarchal idea that any man can just grab me by the… well, you know. It’s a word we reject in our UU sex ed classes. My resistance to being grabbed by any part of my body, as a woman, must be intersectional with resistance to racism, transphobia, bigotry, Islamophobia, and all the other dis-eases burning through our communities.

So where do we go from here?

These words from Clarissa Pinkola Estes are a start, for me:

Ours is a time of daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to caring, visionary, civilized people. You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris, the bald faced audacity that some are engaged in while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, this mother earth, is breathtaking. Yet I urge you, ask you, gentle you . . . to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is, we were made for these times. Yes. For years we have been learning, practicing, been in training for, and just waiting to meet, on this exact plain of engagement . . .

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts, or by whom,will cause the critical mass to tip towards an enduring good and transformative shift. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts great and small, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on earth to bring justice and peace, but small determined groups and individuals who will not give upduring the first, second, or hundreth gale.

The good words we say and the good deeds we do, are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the love and life that brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you may write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and tied to the pier, it is safe, there can be no doubt.  But that is not, what great ships are built for.

Each of us is a great ship. I truly believe that. But some of us, at this moment in time, have taken more damage than others, and we see no end in sight. It will require a fleet of great ships, working together, to bring about an end to the storm. It will require this sanctuary, this community, to commit to being a safe harbour when any of us need to resupply, to repair. It will require us, all of us, to keep each other safe, and to build the next generation of great ships in our children and youth.

I believe this can be done. I believe you, every single one of you, can contribute to make it happen. I believe that our world needs us, Unitarian Universalists, more than ever. I believe if we are willing to live into our seven principles — not as beliefs, but as calls to action — and to fully commit to our covenants of how we will be with each other and in our greater communities — that we can hold our government to account for the lives of the people. The moral arc of the universe only bends towards justice when we bend it.

You may have seen the safety pin meme going around. The idea is that, if one is wearing a safety pin, one is identifying as a “safe” person, someone who can be trusted by those who are in a vulnerable position. There is a lot of controversy around this idea. White pride people are telling their followers to wear safety pins to lure people of colour into trusting them. Leaders of colour are calling it out as yet another way that white people soothe their conscience without taking direct action to change the systems that lead to harm and violence.

You may have also noticed that I’m wearing one. And so is Rev. Jason. We’re offering them here today to anyone who wishes to take one. But I’m asking you, if you put one on, to remember it not as a symbol for others but as a symbol for yourself. That every day you wear that pin you have pledged to rise up, to speak out, to literally put your body in the way of harm. This is not something to take lightly. This is something that requires thought, training, and planning. This requires you to be willing to protect a black man, a trans person, and a Muslim woman with equal commitment. Wearing this pin means you are willing to get involved with organizations like Showing Up for Racial Justice, with Black Lives Matter. It means you are willing not only to come to the aid of a stranger, but to also risk your existing relationships when people you know make jokes at the expense of others,  jokes that perpetuate the hate against people we claim we want to liberate.

The safety pin also represents something else, as explained beautifully by the Rev. Kendyll Gibbons: “A safety pin is also about holding things together, maybe just barely, as best we are able – about improvising in the presence of brokenness and failure, and trying to keep the fabric of our connections from being completely torn apart.  It’s about doing what we can with the resources we have, even when they are far from ideal.”

I don’t expect anyone here today to take a pin, nor do I expect to see you wearing it if you do take one. Perhaps you want to take one and keep it with you, to reflect or meditate upon its meaning, as you discern your role moving into the future. Whatever you decide — you are still part of this community. You are loved. You are wanted. You have something to contribute. And we will figure out what that is, together.

The other item we have to offer today is a piece of sidewalk chalk. UU minister Ashley Horan, of the Minnesota UU Social Justice Alliance, has started the movement of Neighborhood Love Notes. She is asking people all over the world to take chalk, and to leave messages of love and support all over their communities, and in particular in front of places where people are particularly vulnerable, like Islamic mosques. So we invite you, as you leave this sanctuary today, to take a piece of chalk with you and spread our message of love.

Our closing hymn today is “America the Beautiful”. Jason and I chose this intentionally, because it contains within it hope, and the promise of grace, at the same time it speaks to our history of patriarchy, theft, and genocide. We cannot learn from our terrible mistakes if we pretend they never happened. In this sacred space, this sanctuary, we have descendants of these pilgrims, and those indigenous people whom the pilgrims decimated. In this sanctuary, we have those for whom brotherhood has always been a welcoming word, and those for whom it has oppressed and excluded them from the most basic of human rights. In this sanctuary, we have people who believe in God, people who believe God is a he, and people who believe neither of those things. For some, God is irrelevant. For others, divinity is many gods, of many genders.

This is the work we have to do, and the promise held within this song, including its devastating flaws. We are a multitude, and we are always seeking to grow, to listen, to learn, to be better, and to make amends. We invite you to sing this song, in its entirety, and to recognize when the words make you angry or uncomfortable. Our history as a country is bloody, and cruel, and oppressive. But just as we adapt our language to answer the call of love, so too can we change our vision to be more worthy of its promise.

May it be so.

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We Are Groot

Meghann Robern

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We Are Groot

Listen to the sermon here:

We Are Groot

Or, watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook

Groot Hat

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When I was initially working on this sermon, as evidenced by the description of the worship service from January, I thought the focus should be more on our first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person. But the more I’ve worked through it, the more I’ve found this story to be about the seventh principle — the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

That’s quite a mouthful. You’d think it could be shorter, you know, maybe just “the interdependent web”. But humans sometimes aren’t that good at recognizing the bigger story, especially when we’re in pain, or mad, or afraid. And us Unitarian Universalists in particular, sometimes we like to believe that we’re exceptional to the point of being set apart from others, removed from the things that we think we’ve rejected or left behind as our tradition has progressed. So we need this big mouthful of a reminder that we are deeply, deeply set into this web of existence, whether it’s moving us to joy or to sorrow.

The interdependent web of all existence. Even the pieces we don’t like.

The interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. We are intimately, inextricably connected to the people we dislike. Dare I say it, we are inextricable from those we hate.

We are a part of those who we try to shut out and disown as not being us.

This brings me to the reading, often titled “The Faith of the Canaanite woman”. I think it should have a subtitle: “In Which Jesus Is Wrong.”

I love this story. It’s one of the best stories for a perfectionist, overfunctioning person like me who’s spent years learning that mistakes are inevitable, that we are flawed beings always learning how to be better to each other.

And there’s lots of different interpretations of this story in Christian exegesis, and lots of different ways of working the text so that Jesus is still perfect. Perhaps those versions of the story speak to you, and that’s perfectly ok. One of the things I love most about Unitarian Universalism is that not only do we embrace different stories, we embrace different sides of the same story. We say, “Yes, and.”

So this morning, we’re focusing on the idea that Jesus was wrong. He gets called out on it, and instead of doubling down in his wrongness, throwing a tantrum, or any other deflecting behavior, he says, “Oh my gosh, you’re right.” And then he makes amends.

Think about the power dynamics here. A desperate women from an oppressed, systematically maligned population shows up asking for help for her child from a healer. This healer, who knows he could ease this child’s suffering, says, “No, I don’t think so. You’re not the right kind of people. In fact, I’m not sure you’re even a person. You’re like a dog.” (Which, I just want to point out, I know for many in this congregation, is not an insult. But apparently it was for Jesus. That’s another sermon).

And this woman, who has already made herself vulnerable just by showing up and begging for help, doesn’t back down. She says, “Even dogs get scraps from the table.” Even dogs are part of the household.

Even if I’m willing to debase myself to agree with your assessment of me as less than you, I’m still a part of the interdependent web and you should respect that.

I am willing to believe in you and your power to save my child. Why won’t you believe in me?

And there it is. Jesus realizes that he actually knows nothing about her life, or what difficult choices she had to make to survive. He has judged her worth solely on her identity as a Canaanite. He reacts like a bigot.

Now, this is not to say that the Canaanite woman is perfect. We don’t know anything about her, or her past behavior. She could be toxic in any number of ways– but not just because she’s a Canaanite.

And that’s the point of the story — that in this moment, it doesn’t matter. In this moment, right here, she is asking for help for someone she loves from someone she knows can help at no risk or loss to himself. Whatever she may have said or done in her past is irrelevant.

So how does this tie in to Guardians of the Galaxy?

I love genre stories, because they help us get understanding about our own lives by removing us from it. When Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on the original Star Trek series, was considering leaving the show, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked her to stay on. He told her how important it was for black people, especially young black children, to see themselves on television as something other than a servant. Star Wars tells us a story about the search for identity and resisting imperialism. Superheroes awe us with their powers while teaching us how to process the power of our emotions and actions in the world.

And sometimes, those heroes are anti-heros. The Guardians of the Galaxy are our Canaanites, and unlike the Canaanite woman from our others story, we know all about the history of this motley crew of criminals.

Peter Quill, con man and thief. He was kidnapped from earth as a young boy, after the death of his mother, and maintains emotional distance from those around him as a protection.

Gamora, thief, assassin for hire. Her family was killed in front of her when she was a child, and she was “adopted” by the man who did it. He turned her into a living weapon. She is fighting to both survive and find a way out.

Drax, a man consumed by a need for violent revenge after the slaughter of his family. He solves problems with brute force.

Rocket. He’s a freak, a mistake made from the progress of science without the temper of ethics. He is, more than any of the rest of them, alone in the universe, carrying memories of torture and abuse and living with the constant ridicule and mocking of those around him every day. He is cruel, and angry.

All created by the systems in which they existed. All have had to live for most of their lives with no one validating their inherent worth and dignity, so they are forced to carve it out for themselves, often resorting to brutality, fear, and avoidance rather than right relationship.

And yet, when push comes to shove, when they realize that they can contribute in a meaningful way to the larger community, to the survival of the very people who malign and oppress them, they rise to the occasion.

And then there’s Groot, the giant tree-being. Groot enters this story as Rocket’s muscle, giving him physical and emotional support in a world that created him and then abandoned him. While Groot can only vocalize the words “I am Groot,” he understands everything said to him. Groot becomes the force binding them together, the one among them who can create beauty amongst ugliness.

All of this is important for the moment that made this movie worth a sermon. You have to know how awfully these people have been treated to understand how huge it was for them to join the fight to save the world that had abused them. You have to know how criminal their choices have been to understand the risk they took by contacting the NovaCorps, the military and police forces of the first planet to be attacked.

You have to know how little they think of themselves, how little expect from their lives to understand how shocking it was that Groot sacrificed himself to save them. In that moment, when Groot uses “we” for the first time, he is using his power to heal those he cares about. He is telling them, you showed up, and so you are worth saving.

So where do you find yourself in this story?

Maybe you’re one of this mercenary crew, asking for someone to believe in you, to believe that you can change the world even as it’s trying to tear you down. Maybe you’re one of the NovaCorps, having to decide whether or not to give these people a chance despite their history.

And yes, I know that there are people, that there are relationships, that are so toxic we must, one-on-one, break those ties, for our safety and for the safety of others in our care. I’ve had to do this myself. There are people I will never let back into my life. One person cannot take down a Ronan, bent on destroying everything them just because they can. And people like this do exist.

But these toxic, destructive people remain part of our interdependent web. Even if we can’t be in direct relationship with them, we will always be in indirect relationship with them, and so by pouring love and and kindness out into that interdependent web of all existence, we can support them from a distance. Intimacy is not always required to provide care.

A large, healthy system, like the one this congregation has worked so hard to become, is strong enough to take a risk as a community when the risk is too great for one single person to bear. Like the criminal protagonists and the NovaCorps, we are stronger when we work together to fight a common enemy for the good of all. Like Jesus, we have the power to heal those who come to us, who willingly join with us.

And here’s the really difficult part of the story for us to bring into our daily lives. After the Guardians defeat Ronan, after they save the planet, and stop the spread of destruction to the rest of the universe, NovaCorps erases their criminal records. Builds them a ship to replace the one they lost in the battle. And then lets them go free.

They are given a clean slate, and the chance for a new beginning. The past is forgiven, but not forgotten — there is an understanding that if they break this new covenant, there will be repercussions. But until that happens, they will be treated like any other member of the community. I love this, because it’s not a magical panacea that erases everything about their lives and personalities.

Your past is always a part of who you are. Their personalities have not changed, but now? Now they have a vision of the future in which they are empowered to make better choices, despite the systems of oppression that have formed them. The sequel hasn’t come out yet, so I’m sure we’re going to see some bad choices yet to come. They’re flawed. We’re flawed.

But as the story of the Canaanite woman tells us, even Jesus was flawed. Groot was flawed. We can be flawed and still be powerful beings co-creating the universe, one choice at a time. We can still recognize the respect the ways in which we are connected to one another, from our closest friends and family to strangers on the other side of the globe.

We are Groot.

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Ten Days of Returning

Meghann Robern

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Ten Days of Returning

Listen to the homily here:

Ten Days of Returning

Or, watch and listen to the homily on Facebook

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I spent this summer working as a chaplain at Vanderbilt. And one of the most heartbreaking encounters I had was with a person I’ll call Alex.

Alex had been admitted for observation, as they had a lot of medical problems with as yet no concrete source. And without knowing why Alex was suffering so much, the doctors couldn’t treat them. And over the course of my many conversations with Alex, they confided in me, through uncontrollable tears, that they believed their physical suffering was a punishment from God.

I’m sure you can imagine what my gut reaction to that was. But my job as a chaplain was to listen, to help a person through their own theology, not to convert them to mine. So I asked Alex to tell me why they believe that.

“I’ve done awful things in my past,” they said. “I used to sell my body, as a prostitute. I did drugs. I was so sinful. And then one day, one of my clients, told me they loved me and wanted to marry me. They brought me to Jesus. They saved my life.”

Knowing that they would be admitted to the hospital for several days, Alex had brought comforting mementos. Their partner had died, but Alex showed me their love letters and wedding photographs. They played me voicemails from church members that they’d saved, messages of love and support. And the tears just kept flowing, because of that unspeakable thought that God is punishing them for past transgressions.

By all accounts, Alex’s conversion was genuine. Their participation in church life after the death of their partner was very clear, and that community knew their life story and welcomed them wholeheartedly. This sense of punishment was not coming from the people who had taught them religion.

So I nudged a little bit, asking them to think about the contradiction between how they describe the forgiveness freely given to them by their partner and their church, the forgiveness they clearly believed Jesus had given them, and this plague on their body they also feel was sent by God.

“I know Jesus loves me, and has forgiven me,” Alex said. “I know my love and my church has forgiven me, truly. <beat> I just can’t forgive myself.”

And there it is. That immense power that each of us has within us to define our reality. For better or for worse.

Tonight at sundown is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and the entrance to the Ten Days of Teshuvah. Now, in our Western culture, teshuvah is often translated as “repentance”.

Using repentance, on its own, is not a bad thing — it’s about recognizing one’s faults and committing to improving our behavior when we’ve done wrong. In our faith that is built on covenants, on making promises to one another about how we will be with each other in community, it’s important to be able to change for the better.

But repentance has a lot of emotional baggage that comes with it as a word in our culture. Sadness. Remorse. Even shame. There is the implication that when one repents, those parts of one’s life are erased, forgotten, or at least that they should be. That is where Alex was living. The other people in their life, the ones who taught them about love and forgiveness, were recognizing their whole self. They saw Alex’s past as an integral part of who they are, as part of the entire life that led them to be a loving partner and devoted member of a community spreading love and generosity in the world.

But Alex can’t escape the thought that they needed to be perfect all along. That to be worthy of that love and acceptance, that they need to somehow purge these experiences that have helped to make them who they are today. Alex is fighting being made whole in love.

According to many Jewish linguists, a more accurate translation of teshuvah for Western culture is “returning”. Not only does it carry less baggage than “repentance”, but it implies a cyclical, ongoing process around a centering point. Instead of a cutting off from the the past, teshuvah becomes about integration, and wholeness. In order to truly live out our full potential as human beings, we must be willing to recognize all of our past as part of our selves.

I talk a lot about how our Universalist heritage calls us to radical hospitality and loving those who we want to hate, usually in the context of others. Today, that radical hospitality and reaching out in love is for ourselves. These ten days of teshuvah, of returning, are an opportunity for us to say “I am loved. All of me.” All the forgiveness in the world from others means nothing if we’re not willing to forgive ourselves.

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Jeanne D’Arc

Meghann Robern

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Jeanne D'Arc

Listen to the sermon here:

Jeanne D’Arc

Or, watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook

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Joan of Arc. The name has passed into legend around the world, the Maid lifted up into sainthood. Her story has been re-imagined, retold, and adapted over and over again, from Mark Twain’s novelization of the historical records in France to the modern day setting of the show Joan of Arcadia. Surely, the life of Joan of Arc qualifies as words and deeds of prophetic people which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love — one of the adopted sources of our Unitarian Universalist faith.

What does hearing her name bring into your mind? Was she an illuminata commanded by God to save France from annihilation? Was she mentally ill, suffering from hallucinations and caught up in the superstitions of her time?

These are the kinds of questions that follow her legacy around in these modern times, and I believe they detract from it. It does not matter whether or not her voices were from God. What matters is her choices, her actions, and what she inspired in the people around her. For a girl whose name calls up so many questions about the truth of vision and the nature of religious devotion, the details of her life are known in unquestionable detail through records of the Hundred Years War and court transcripts of her multiple trials.

Visions or hallucinations, she first saw her angels while working in a field. Though she had no contacts, no training, no resources, she defied her father —who testified that he would have drowned her himself rather than see her go to war — and made her way through the wrecked countryside to the seat of the local nobility, where she petitioned again and again to be sent to the Dauphin — the French prince who had been driven away by English aggression. When Joan came into his life, he was about to flee France altogether.

Each step on Joan’s path is the same as the first, with only the names and places changing, and the threat to her life increasing. At each fork in the road, from her village, to Vaucouleurs, to the Dauphin’s castle, to her first trial at Poitiers, to the siege of Orleans, all the way to the king’s coronation at Rhiems, she faced the crushing doubt of powerful men, the mocking laughter of her fellow citizens, and grueling examinations, both verbal and physical, of her worthiness to just to speak, much less act. And each time, without fail, through the perseverance of her words and deeds and her unyielding faith, she turned every single one of them to her cause.

At first she held power just as a mascot for the people of France to rally around. After the Victory at Orleans she was placed in charge of tactical decisions. She was given special dispensation by the Church to wear men’s clothing, equipped with personalized armor and her own war banner. In the span of just a few short weeks, she rose from being perceived as a delusional peasant girl to a general-in-chief on the fields of battle.

To quote 19th century Hungarian President Lajos Kossuth, “Since the writing of human history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the age of seventeen.” And she did not just send her army into battle — she joined them. One story is told of how Joan took an arrow in her neck and kept fighting until they had won.

What is even more significant is the actions she inspired in the soldiers and farmers who fought those battles. In real war there is the march, the nightly camps, the councils of war. It was during this downtime that she taught the peasant army a better way of life, of the orthopraxis that must follow any orthodoxy. She sent the whores away, outlawed gambling, and made each of them promise to stop swearing. She told them not that God would win them the battle if they raised their swords, but that battles would be won only when they gave their life to God’s commandments.

Right action had to be performed in the world before the world would return any semblance of righteous victory. She did not just reclaim the land of France; she reclaimed its souls as well.

Her life was one of relentless, hyperfocused vigilance on her mission. Regardless of whether or not she had hallucinations or true visions of the saints and angels of heaven, it was the faith imparted to her by her community that enabled her to leave her home and find her way through one barrier after another until she could crown the rightful king of France.

When Chelsea, today’s worship associate, and I were discussing this service, and where we wanted to go with all the many possibilities that come out of Joan’s life, she lifted up the unification of tribes at Standing Rock to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. What we learn from Joan, she said, is that it doesn’t matter how things have been done in the past. It doesn’t matter what entrenched systems of power or oppression or warfare have been at work, nor for how long.

When the heart of our vision calls for us to rise up and claim a better world, we must do so. For Joan, it was freeing her people from the ravages of a hundred year war, a war that existed longer than the memories of everyone alive at the time. Just think — no one could remember a time when they were not at war, and this young girl said surely, we can know such a time again.

But Joan’s story does not end with the coronation. It continues on into tragedy. This is the part everyone knows. She’s burned at the stake, nineteen years old. What doesn’t always make it into the retelling is that she was captured by the English, and the King of France — the man who owed this girl his crown — refused to pay her ransom.

He abandoned her in most dire hour of need, and she was sold to a kangaroo court bent on destroying her just to send a message. From this point on, in the hands of the enemy, everything was rigged against her. In the end, the English had to resort to lying to convict her. Because she couldn’t read, they convinced her to sign a document relinquishing her right to wear men’s clothing, telling her it said something else. And so, the next time she put on men’s clothing, they set her on fire.

The worst part is that, at the end, when she saw that she was truly, actually going to die, that she had been abandoned by the country she had saved and that there was no one else willing to help her, she recanted. She broke. The community that had given her strength was nowhere to be found, and so of course one human being cannot carry so much herself without being destroyed. This is the blessing of the gathering community. This is the power of our covenants — our promises of how we will be with each other. It’s not about being nice.

It’s about support, and love, and hope that we will care for each other through the best of times and the worst of times.

I turn to the words of Iyuskin American Horse and his people. The words of the hundreds of First Nations tribes that are gathering, right now, at Standing Rock, putting aside centuries of conflict among each other to fight for a common purpose. It does not matter what has been for the last hundred years or more, of the iron grip that white colonization and white corporations have had on the land and the people for so long. The protectors of land are rising up together to say no more. We will not do things this way anymore. And what they are protecting is not only sacred tribal land, but also access to clean water. Water is life, for them and for you and for me. Water is life for our children, and our children’s children. Water is the future.

Like the Unitarian Universalists who answered the call to Selma in the 1960s, UUs, both laypeople and ministers are also travelling to Standing Rock and asking the local protectors how they can help.

But, of course, not all of us can go to Standing Rock. And that’s OK. Each of us is capable of contributing to the greater vision in our own way. Joan may have left home to go lead an army and stop a hundred year war, but we might not know anything of her story if not for her mother. Remember, she’d been thrown away by the French and convicted by the English. Joan the hero entered our cultural consciousness because of her mother, an uneducated peasant woman, with no power. She petitioned, again and again, for her daughter to be retried posthumously, so that history would not remember her as evil. And eventually she succeeded.

Each of us has different gifts to bend the moral arc of the universe, different ways we can choose to live out the vision of a better world. Joan took on war. Iyuskin American Horse is taking on big oil. Joan’s mother took on bureaucracy. The Reverend Robin Tanner, UU minister, goes out on the streets of Charlotte every night and puts the peaceful protesters up on Facebook live, showing the world their singing in their grief. All of these people, working against huge, entrenched systems of oppression, and doing so in the best ways they know how. Each of them adds to the effort. Joan could not have taken back France without earning the support of her army. Joan’s mother could not have vindicated her daughter without someone finally supporting her bid for a retrial. Rev. Tanner is supporting the protestors, and we in turn support her and the protestors by witnessing what is happening.

Words and deeds of prophetic people, as a source of our faith, calls us not just to learn about the prophets of our history, but to remember those lessons so we do not repeat our mistakes. Joan of Arc teaches us that we must rise up with the prophets of today, and stay with them, in whatever ways we are able, in order to change the world for the better.

May it be so.

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The Revelator

Meghann Robern

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The Book of Revelation. It’s a letter written by a person who called themselves John, meant for seven communities in Asia that had gathered around a belief in Jesus Christ. Unlike today, when Christian identity is linked with power and empire, Christian communities (even before they were calling themselves Christians) were subversive, anti-establishment groups fighting just to survive, much less thrive. Living in the shadow of the Roman Empire, which required imperial religious devotion in all aspects of life, including commerce and livelihood, many resorted to hiding in plain sight. They kept their beliefs about Jesus internal, while their actions supported the divinity of the Roman emperor and his authority over all because it kept them alive.

Enter John, the Revelator. Not the same John to whom the fourth Gospel is attributed, or the Johannine letters. A different John. He’s a Palestinian Jew, living among the Jesus communities in Asia, and he is so angry at his people for their collaboration with the empire that persecutes them, and so afraid that the message of Jesus, his messiah, will be erased, that he cannot truly express how he feels in everyday, conversational language. He is so overwhelmed he cannot even rely on traditional rhetoric like what Paul used in his letters. John can only communicate the depth and agony of his truth through manifesting visceral gut reactions to his fantastical and often grotesque imagery. The four horsemen of the apocalypse. The beast rising from the sea. The dragon sweeping stars from the sky with a flick of its tail. The woman clothed in the sun, with the moon at her feet.

The imagery of John’s epistle is so powerful it has moved past Christian culture and entered the consciousness of the American secular experience. It’s the basis of numerous pop culture endeavors, like television shows, and referenced in many more. I would argue that it’s used as a founding cosmology in the creation of our art more than it’s used as a Christian sacred texts in modern churches. Many mainline Christian pastors are afraid of trying to exegete it, like English majors tiptoeing around James Joyce’s Ulysses. It’s powerful at an emotional, reactive level. And one of the hardest things to deal with about Revelation is its violence.

Miroslav Wolf, a Bible scholar and survivor of the genocide in the Balkan peninsula claims that: “In the worldview of Revelation, there is no power great enough to stop the beasts from wanting to be beasts.” There is no power great enough to stop the beasts from wanting to be beasts. What do we do with that as Unitarian Universalists?

I think we have to go back to King, the authentic King, the one who understood that non-violent action does not mean it is not disruptive. Non-violent action, civil disobedience, must be disruptive, must make Rome agitate, for it have any effect. But King’s call to non-violence is also deeply rooted in Universalism, in demonstrating that those who hold the power in an oppressive system are just as much victims of that toxic environment as those who are oppressed. That we are called to love even the beasts who want to be beasts. That love is how we show beasts that they do not have to be beasts to belong. As UU Rev. Anita Farber-Robertson says: “My Universalism is fierce. It has no patience with a theology of scarcity.”

King also lays out for us a historical record of what he calls “creative extremists”. And it’s important to note that these leaders of change were not themselves perfect, nor were their messages always perfect. John’s resistance to religious imperialism did not intersect with resistance to patriarchy — his fantastical visions rely on caricatures of the historically oppressive roles of women — mother or whore. Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal” but left out the white women, the black lives that kept his household, and the economy of the Southern United States, running on slavery of human beings. That historical erasure of the humanity of black lives affected all people of colour as this nation formed its identity. It’s a legacy with which we are all still struggling today. Revelation is resistance.

To resist, we must acknowledge that our pasts are imperfect, and we are imperfect, and that’s okay as long as we are willing to keep learning. It is incumbent on us to learn from the mistakes and misunderstandings of our histories so that we can always be evolving into the people the visionary future needs to create itself. We will always be imperfect, because we will always be creating something new. We make each other better by learning from each other and the diversity of our experiences and our belief. We covenant together to more than the sum of our parts in building the future.

Revelation is resistance to the status quo. Revelation asks us to consider how we navigate questions of fidelity to covenanted communities of mutual love and support, leading to action on justice issues, when we live in a culture that demands unquestioning fidelity to imperial projects. In modern times, that becomes how do we navigate a covenanted agreement to make our seven principles, statements of hope and vision, the reality in this world that demands we agree to private prison industrial complex, the oppression of black lives, Muslim lives, Latinx lives, queer lives, and so many more. There are, right now, thousands of people supporting the First Nations protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock, protesting for the sake of the future of clean water for our children and grandchildren. Those thousands of people are being ignored by the mainstream media while they report about a gas panic due to — wait for it — a broken gas pipeline polluting everything around it. The cognitive dissonance is staggering. Revelation 13:4: “They worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”

We are, all of us, under the thumb of New Rome, my beloveds. And Revelation is resistance. Our seven principles are resistance.

I’m a huge fan of Nadia Bolz-Weber. She’s a Lutheran pastor who also happens to write some really good books. And it turns out that once upon a time, she tried to be a Unitarian Universalist. She decided it wasn’t for her because, for her, we UUs “have a higher opinion of human beings than I have ever felt comfortable claiming, as someone who both reads the paper and knows the condition of my own heart.” She claims that we rely too much on “hopefulness and positive thinking.” And this not a claim unique to her.

I offer to you today that we should not ignore or dismiss such judgements about us, but rather use them to fuel our drive to make our vision reality. I am willing to claim that hopefulness and positive thinking are central to our Unitarian Universalist identities, but they are not how we get things done. The hope is why we work for a better world. Love is why we work for a better world. The how is always changing. Revelation is resistance.

Our seven principles are not belief statements. They are statements of vision and mission around which we, as members and congregations, covenant to preserve where they exist and to make a reality where they are not. It is often very, very hard work, and more about confronting our own flaws of perception than is it about our own “awesomeness”.

Take, for example, our first principle: we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. From a belief standpoint, we can recognize all around us, every day, how people are not shown, nor demonstrate, inherent worth and dignity. The difference, however, is that as UUs we are also willing to learn about, and then recognize, the systems of oppression that teach people to fear and hate each other. And, as we learned from the trolls in Frozen, “people make bad choices when they’re mad or scared or stressed.” When the systems keep people from having access to food, to shelter, to health care, they live in fear, and they make choices based on fear. I’m not sure those decisions can be called choices at all.

The covenant of our seven principles is about recognizing the divinity of others. And only when we have done that can we truly recognize the divinity in ourselves. That we are worthy of love simply because we exist. That each of us is enough, just as we are. That living into the worth and dignity of every person includes living into the fullness of our own individual potential as we help others live into theirs. Revelation is resistance, resistance to the old order, resistance to the empire, resistance to systems of oppression that harm all of us with their poisonous ways.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous image of the moral arc of the universe bending towards justice is, in fact, paraphrased from the writings of Unitarian Theodore Parker. King understood that that moral arc bends towards justice because people bend it. That moral arc requires our thoughts and prayers and our actions. And this community is a perfect example of how necessary a faith in hopefulness and positive thinking is to how we hold together as a congregation, as a larger denomination, despite our multitude of differences. Our sources of faith are numerous, but we share a vision that we can make people’s lives better, including our own; that we can ease suffering, including our own. That vision relies on our covenant to work, to love, together. Our differences make us stronger because they encourage us to learn from each other.

The Book of Revelation shows us a world of anger and fear, where violence is inevitable and divine retribution is the only escape into New Jerusalem, into the new world order. And if all we do is wait for someone better than us to change it, that’s what the world is and will continue to be. Because there is no one better than you, right here, right now, as part of this community. There is no one better to change the world.

In the words of Black Elk, sung by our choir today, “I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children.”

We are the revelators. We are the creative extremists that King said the world needs.

Throw off the fear. Throw off the hate. Bring on the New Jerusalem.

Revelation is resistance.

May it be so.

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We Ask the Church

Meghann Robern

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We Ask the Church

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We Ask the Church

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I used to be a screenwriter. Almost ten years ago, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, right when my career was about to take off. I’d sold a project to a big studio AND it was being made, which doesn’t always happen. You’d be surprised how many successful screenwriters there are who’ve never seen something they wrote made into a movie. But they get paid for their work, thanks to the guild.

But because it was my first project, and it had been optioned but not purchased, and production hadn’t started, when the strike began, I was in this sweet spot area of having a lot of industry buzz around my name, but not yet enough “units” to be eligible for guild membership.

And before any of you ask, I’ll only tell the name of my movie to whoever takes the Program Council Chair position.

So one day, while my day job boss was down on the picket line, I get a call from my agent, Howie. Now, I’m sure that many of you have a very particular personality in mind when you think of a Hollywood agent. Howie is an exception. I’m pretty sure if I called him today he’d still talk to me.

So Howie calls me up, and after some checking-in small talk, he gets real quiet. “Meghann,” he says, “are you a member of the guild yet?” I said “No, I’m not eligible until they start production.” Silence. Then he says, “As your agent, you need to know that I can get you work right now.”

And what he’s not saying, what he and I both understand without having to say it, is that not only could I get work, but I could get a lot of work. More than any other fledgling writer could reasonably hope for at this point in their career.

And I had one of those moments that technically only lasts a second or two, but encompasses what feels like decades of thought. I remembered that I grew up with food in my belly and consistent health care because of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the American Federation of Musicians. In that one second I recalled all the conversations I’d overheard in recording sessions about scale pay, and how my parents never questioned that someone should be paid fairly.

I thought about my boss, the man who had taken me under his wing, treated me fairly, and given me every opportunity to move into my own career. I remembered that the money I’d already made from this movie was only in my bank account because of this guild that was on strike.

I knew, in that one second, that while I may not be a member on paper, I was a member in spirit.

“I’m sorry, Howie. I can’t cross the picket line. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“Good girl,” he said. Then he hung up.

And I never worked in Hollywood again.

I tell you this story today because it’s my example of what “labour union” means at a personal, spiritual level and not just politics. UU minister Rev. Aaron McEmrys, who was an organizer before following his call to ministry, describes it perfectly for me. He says,

I choose to use the word, “union”, because it best describes what happens when groups of individuals come together in a spirit of mutual support, respect and love. In this sense, the concept of union is one of the most beautiful and important “spiritual” words in my vocabulary. Whether people are organizing through the “official” mechanisms of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) or through “unsanctioned” means – they are nonetheless organizing themselves into a relationship of “union” with one another, where “an injury to one, is an injury to all.”

Rev. Aaron also teaches UUs about our long history of supporting labour movements in this country. William Ellery Channing, in the 1830s, said that all people had the same “tremendous potential” regardless of economic class, and that the exploitation of workers was denying them their ability to fully manifest that potential. Theodore Parker preached on poverty and its direct ties to abuse of workers. Over a hundred years ago, John Henry Holmes wrote a description of that same link between systemic poverty and worker injustice that could have been written today:

Poverty, in this age as in every age, in our country as in every country, is primarily due to the fact of social injustice – that employment cannot be had by those who are ready to work; that employment even when regular is not paid enough to enable the faithful and efficient workman to guard against illness, to protect his widow from dependence, or to provide for his own old age; that insufficient wages force thousands of families to crowd into unhealthy tenements, to eat insufficient food, and to wear insufficient clothing, thus paving the way for physical weakness and disability; that accidents rob the wage earners without compensation from society; that taxes are inequitable, throwing the chief burden upon the poor instead of upon the rich; that natural resources, which are the basis of all wealth, are in the hands of a few instead of under the control of society at large, and are thus exploited for the benefit of the few and not for the sake of the common welfare; that the distribution of wealth is grossly unfair and disproportionate – in the final analysis, that society is organized upon a basis of injustice and not of justice, and is permeated by the spirit of selfishness and not of love. (The Revolutionary Function of the Modern Church (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1912) pp. 100-101)

Heartbreaking words, because they still ring so true. And yet. Hearing it so perfectly summed up, it becomes so thick and dense that I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of it. How am I, one person, supposed to help, especially when I’m as tied up in it as everyone else?

After the writers guild strike came the economic crash. My boss had to let me go. I had a new baby, a house I couldn’t sell, and I couldn’t find a job to save my life. Eventually my unemployment insurance ran out. And I know, without a doubt, that we would have ended up homeless, with Prudence in foster care, if it weren’t for our family’s economic privilege.

We had people not only willing, but also ABLE to support us in a time of great need. My family of musicians union members now included Josh’s family of teacher unions. Once again, my life, and the life of my child, was sustained by the ongoing work of the labour movement.

Even finally following my lifelong call to ministry — the years of seminary, moving here to serve as your intern minister last year– was only possible because of the economic privilege given to me — GIVEN to me, not earned by me — by union workers.

The quote I chose for the order of service today is also from Cesar Chavez, one of the co-founders of National Farm Workers Association. A devoted Catholic, he specifically reached out to religious communities for support, asking them “to sacrifice with the people for social change, for justice, and for love of [sibling]. We don’t ask for words. We ask for deeds. We don’t ask for paternalism. We ask for servanthood.”

And yet, I know that fear that tells us to cross picket lines — fear of hunger, fear of losing our children, fear of homelessness. I know some of you here in this sanctuary are not just living with these fears as a possible future but are also living the reality of not knowing where next week’s food will come from, or where you’ll be sleeping.

I also know the fear of activism. I’ve thought about what I want displayed on the back of my car, and whether it will bring violence to me and my family. I’ve stayed out of protest situations wherein I felt the risk to my safety was too high. And I reconsider those decisions every day. I carry guilt for those decisions every day. I know that the fact I even have a choice is deeply rooted in my privilege. I’m not sure I’m as brave as Shaie’s mom, or as many of you here today.

But what I do know is that the more of people’s stories I hear, the more I know about people’s lived experience, the braver I become. Bravery doesn’t mean the fear goes away — it means going ahead even when we’re afraid. So let’s continue to listen to people’s stories, and to make safe space for those stories yet untold.

I also know that when I’m faced with a task that feels overwhelming, insurmountable, I have to find a way to make it smaller. I break it down, into little pieces, that I can conquer one at a time. And this is where our choices come in.

This is where solidarity, where Cesar Chavez’s call to servanthood and deeds looks like joining a boycott instead of joining the front lines of the protest itself. Where Shaie’s mom did as much to support the farm workers by telling their story to her daughter as she did by putting that bumper sticker on her car.

We cannot live into affirming the worth and dignity of every person and the interdependent web, two of our seven Unitarian Universalist principles, if we cannot stomach the reality of where our fruit comes from.

We cannot claim that we believe Black Lives Matter if we don’t see how Black Lives are forced into poverty through unfair labour practices.

We cannot venerate the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a civil rights leader if we ignore his call that workers’ rights are civil rights.

So how is each of us willing to live up to this call?

What choices do we make, every day, no matter how small, that bend the arc of the universe towards justice?

How can we deepen our relationships with those around us, to strengthen the web that holds us in love?

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Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

Meghann Robern

This is the text of a sermon given at First UU Nashville on May 8th, 2016.

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Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

The Wizard of Oz started out as a harmless showman in our world, one who entertained people with tricks and illusions. Then he crashed, literally and figuratively, into a whole new persona. To the people of Oz, he appeared out of the sky, in a vehicle none of them had ever seen before, and so they ascribed to him power equivalent to the only other sources of great power they knew — the Witches of the four directions.

His story is still important for us today because he shows us the nuances of the human condition, and how a good person can still make bad decisions out of fear. On one hand, the Wizard embraces the leadership thrust upon him, and uses his showman skills to genuinely care for those in his new community — building them a safe, sustainable city in which they thrive.

On the other hand, when he believes that these witches who have “real” magic will eventually discover his tricks and destroy him, he also uses that power out of fear. He sends Dorothy, a young girl, and other beings of Oz — the scarecrow, the tin man, the lion, into imminent mortal danger in order to save himself. He deems their lives to matter less than his, in the guise of protecting his legacy, when deep down he knows the citizens of the Emerald City would do just fine without him now.

The Wizard of Oz captured the attention, and the fear, of the citizens of Oz when he crashed his balloon — something they’d never seen before, a catastrophic event in their midst. They witnessed this man not only survive, but walk away unscathed. They projected power and authority on to him, and made him their leader. In the same way, the conflict and fear from the War of 1812 led Andrew Jackson to become a national hero, and he also had power and authority projected on to him. The first time he ran for president, he won the popular AND electoral vote, but with more than two candidates running, there was no clear majority. The other candidates colluded together to give John Quincy Adams the majority.

This gave Jackson more than enough ammunition to claim that the election had been tainted through government corruption and conspiracy. His political persona shifted from national hero to a man of the people, fighting a war against the establishment that had stolen the presidency. Four years later, campaigning on this narrative, on this “spin”, he won by a landslide.

When I was in school, here in Tennessee, we were taught that Jackson was a populist President — about how his election was a victory for democracy, how commoners were invited to the White House for his inauguration, how he took on the elite who were stealing power from the people. We were taught that he and followers founded the Democratic party, that he fought against the earliest attempts by states like South Carolina to secede from the Union. It wasn’t until I reached AP US History in high school, and I had a teacher who brought in The People’s History of the United States as a counter-narrative to the state sanctioned textbook, that I learned about Jackson’s pro-slavery platform, or how he was instrumental in the passage of the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears.

And the latter was not some kind of regretful political compromise, like we see our heroes do in the gritty reboots of our modern stories. Jackson went before Congress and used his showmanship, his charisma, to spin a tale to white colonial America of an oppressed population who should be grateful for their oppression. He said, “Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement.” This from a man whom whole generations were taught was an unequivocal hero. He may have been heroic, in certain times and places. But he was handed power and he used it, along with his powers of persuasion, to ruin lives instead of protect them.

A different kind of Wizard from our history is P.T. Barnum, who was a lifelong Universalist. Contrary to popular belief, he did NOT say “There’s a sucker born every minute” — that was one of his competitors. Rather, Barnum’s principles are better summed up in his treatise on Universalism: “We believe that holiness and true happiness are inseparably connected, and that believers ought to be careful to maintain order and practice good works; for these things are good and profitable unto men.”

He was unapologetic about his desire to make money, but always tried to align his ventures with providing services to his local community and to the country at large, because he believed it was the right way, the only way, to do business. And yes, in his mind, in his religious faith, all the museums and shows he created were community services equal to his contributions to education and to Universalism. His museums and sideshows were created to offer humanity the experience of wonder, to inspire dreams of what might be possible. He wrote, “I base my hope on the Word of God speaking in the best heart and conscience of the race -the Word heard in the best poems and songs, the best prayers and hopes of humanity. The ages have been darkest when this hope was lowest.”

None of this is to claim that he was a perfect human being. Like all of us, he was a product of his time. This same man who was an adamant abolitionist also fought to keep people from having access to birth control. Ralph Waldo Emerson hated him, going so far as to claim that one of Barnum’s bankruptcies was proof of gods. But we as human beings are not all or nothing packages. Like the Wizard, like Jackson, like Barnum, we are neither black, nor white, not even grey, but rather a constantly shifting, living mix of all the colours of our human experience. Whether you call it the Word of God, or choose what our UU humanist origins describe as “the belief and trust in human effort,” the thought that we can make a difference even when we are not perfect all of the time binds us together in faith. We just have to find a way to make decisions out of love instead of fear.

Ultimately, the Wizard realizes what a horrible mistake he’s made in sending Dorothy to kill the Wicked Witch of the West. When she discovers his secret — that he has no “real” magic at all, they still insist that he honour his promises anyway. And so, the Wizard returns to the only skillset he’s ever had — showmanship — and uses his wordsmithing and clever props to draw out the qualities that the scarecrow, the tin man, and the lion had actually had all along. Up to now, they have lived in fear — fear of not being smart enough, not being brave enough, not being emotional enough to survive. The Wizard takes away that fear by enabling them to see a different truth about themselves, one that leads to authentic wholeness, even as that truth is born out of deception.

I was so moved by Andy’s words, because of their honesty. He’s afraid. I’m afraid. I know some of you are afraid, too. I’m also angry, angry at how I see people’s fear being used to create more fear, to manipulate, to scapegoat, in all aspects of our culture right now. The news cycle, our modern narrative, moves so fast that we can barely fact-check something that comes across our Facebook feeds before we’re hit with another inflammatory meme.

People with agendas of control are hijacking larger movements that offer people hope: hope of jobs, health care, access to education. And before you assume that you know which “side” I’m talking about, let me be clear — I’m talking about all sides. The people you think are on the “other” side are just as afraid as you are. They’re afraid they’ll never work again. That they’ll lose, or never have, a home. That they’ll lose their children, or never be able to afford having them in the first place.

It is thousands of years of genetic memories that teach us to demonize, de-humanize those with whom we find ourselves in conflict, because when they are not-us, we can safely categorize them as a threat. That is how humans survived the millennia — with categories. This plant is safe, that plant is not. This tribe is an ally; that tribe is a threat. And yet humans are also hard-wired for compassion — we can see this in our babies and young children. It’s the most profound act of love, of our Universalist tradition, to witness something beyond that instinctual categorical thinking. When all of our human history works to convince us that putting people into boxes keeps us safe, it’s dangerously radical to live into the idea that love wins.

The modern populist revolt is happening on both sides of the political chasm, and we are called to reach out across this great divide and say, “You matter to me.” All the fact-checking and debunking in the world will not ease our suffering until we give witness to these people, our Samaritan neighbors, who are afraid. And yes, that includes the ones who are spewing racist hate speech, or deeply sexist rhetoric. This is the hardest task of our Universalist heritage — living into our covenant that every person has inherent worth and dignity — even those who are trying to take that worth and dignity away from others. And yet our world need this from us, desperately.

The life of Andrew Jackson is a warning of how easily the one claiming to be the saviour of the people can turn into an enemy of true freedom and justice. And seeing how the story of his life has been handed down in different ways, depending on one’s context, shows us how hard it is to ever find truth with a capital T. We must take the narratives we’re given, and instead of believing them at face value, test them against the rubric of our Unitarian Universalist call to build beloved, sustainable, welcoming communities in which people care for each other and thrive. This is how we find authenticity. This is how we embrace a multitude of truths that celebrate our diversity as a strength, not a weakness.

Even as I say that, I’m still afraid. But here, with you, I know I’m not alone. Even when I doubt myself, I believe in YOU. I hold tightly to that, knowing that even when we are afraid, when we are tempted to make terrible choices in the midst of our fear, together we will keeping calling each other back to covenant. This is how we ensure that love wins.

May it be so.

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Good Friday

Meghann Robern

This the text of a homily given at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison on March 25th, 2016.

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The supreme irony of the whole crucifixion scene is this: He who was everything had everything taken away from Him. He who was perfect was totally misjudged as “sin” itself (Romans 8:3-4). The crucified Jesus forever tells power and authority, and all of us, how utterly wrong we can be about who is in the right and who is sinful (John 16:8). All human solidarity and sympathy was taken away from Him and He finally had to walk the journey alone, in darkness, in not-knowing, as most humans finally have to do.

Jesus hung in total solidarity with the pain of the world and the far too many lives on this planet that have been “nasty, lonely, brutish, and short.” After the cross, we know that God is not watching human pain, nor apparently always stopping human pain, as much as God is found hanging with us alongside all human pain. Jesus forever tells us that God is found wherever the pain is, which leaves God on both sides of every war, in sympathy with both the pain of the perpetrator and the pain of the victim, with the excluded, the tortured, the abandoned, and the oppressed since the beginning of time. I wonder if we even like that. There are no games of moral superiority left. Yet this is exactly the kind of Lover and the universal Love that humanity needs.

What else could possibly give us a cosmic and final hope? This is exactly how Jesus redeemed the world “by the blood of the cross.” It was not some kind of heavenly transaction, or “paying a price” to God, as much as a cosmic communion with all that humanity has ever loved and ever suffered. If he was paying any price it was for the hard and resistant skin around our souls. — Richard Rohr

For many years, I didn’t understand Easter as a Christian holiday. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jesus. Christmas was easy for me to understand. But to a much younger version of me, Easter as a holiday that celebrated the death and resurrection of someone I believed to be a man with a message, well, I found it corruptive. I blamed Easter for so much of Christianity manifesting as a death cult of personality and of miracles that no longer happen in our world, as opposed to a religion that should be speaking truth to power and easing suffering wherever it might be found.

And then I went to a Christian seminary. I made dear friends, whom I respect, and who love Easter. So I listened.

They taught me about the rituals of their churches, leading up to Good Friday. How they empty their altars of artifacts and symbols until only the Spirit remains. How that emptiness in a place of worship and community leads them to lament — He’s leaving. He’s leaving. He’s leaving. They taught me that this day is not the holy day of a death cult, but is part of the larger story about how people, and communities, learn to cope with and to live with profound grief and loss.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus confronts the reality of what he knows will come to pass — his execution. He had a moment of choice in his past, when his dear friend John the Baptist was killed — a choice to continue their work of resistance to empire and fighting oppression, or to walk away, and be safe. It is at this moment that Jesus knows, if continues down this path, he will die, because what he asks of people with power and influence is not something they are willing to hear. What matters is how much change he can manifest in the world before they kill him to shut him up.

And so, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he despairs that he has no more time. He does not want the burden of death, nor does he want to abandon his work or the people who follow him. Even in this time and place, so near to the end, his disciples cannot stay awake for him when asks. “Father,” he pleads, “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” He is willing to die, has been willing to die on this path, but it is in this moment that he fears for a future without him to lead the way. His disciples continue to fail, unable to stay awake, unable to wait with him and pray, And they are us.

The first time I realized that, I was heartbroken. No one wants to imagine themselves as the sidekick, always paling in comparison to the hero of the story. And yet, Jesus is the hero because, ultimately, he believes that despite our brokenness, despite our failures… we are just as good, and as worthy, as he is. “If this cannot pass unless I drink it, “ he says, “your will be done.” We cannot stay awake, and yet the care and justice of the world is passed into our hands by someone who believes we can, who believes we will stay awake.

My Christian colleagues taught me that the lessons of Easter are about forgiving the most unforgivable of sins — not because Jesus sacrificed his life as some kind of payment for all time, but because each of us has failed time and time again. And despite our brokenness, Jesus took up that cross because he knows we can be better. He asks us to be better, relentlessly, for our entire lives.

Because I believe what he learned, as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, is that he wasn’t enough by himself. His disciples were followers, not teammates. He died because one person, alone, is not enough to tear down the oppressions of empire and corruption. His death was not about sacrificing himself for some cruel sense of atonement, a bargain of blood with a hateful God. He died because he could go no further, and he died with hope that his disciples, now apostles, would resurrect him not in body, but in word and deed. Jesus’s death teaches us that the Kingdom of God, in which all are free from suffering, is found in building sustainable communities that work for a better world.

No matter how many times we fail, we must always find the strength, somehow, to pick up the pieces and try again — not for our sakes, but for the sakes of others. Jesus died with his mission unfulfilled. His resurrection happens not just on Easter, but on every day that we are willing to reach out our hands, without expectation, without judgement — with just loving intention and strength of will — to learn, to create, and to listen.

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Bodies In Motion

Meghann Robern

Bodies In Motion
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Listen to the sermon:

Bodies in Motion

I’ve been blessed to spend time this week with Suzanne and Arnie Reed, who were lifted up in our Joys & Concerns this morning. Since I’m new to this congregation, Arnie’s been telling me wonderful stories about how they came to this community, and about why he loves Suzanne so deeply. And the more he spoke, the more I felt like Suzanne’s life had a place in our services today. When I asked Arnie’s permission to share with you all today, he said, “Oh yes! People need to know about Suzanne’s generous heart, It’s what drew her to First UU Nashville, and changed the way I look at life. It’s the ‘pay it forward’ philosophy put into everyday practice.”

Now, I don’t want to get too much into the pay-it-forward aspect, because Jason and Valerie will be digging into that next Sunday. What Cindi and I wanted to offer up today was an exploration of the multitude of ways we humans experience grace, and how that affects our bodies and our actions as we move through the multiverse of our lives. There is no one universal definition, nor one “true” way to have it enter our lives. What ties all these different graces together is what we do as human beings once we have had such an experience, and we learn what that is through the stories we tell.

Our first story, “The Umbrella Sanctuary”, is the pay-it-forward good deed. It’s a concrete action that has an immediate effect, and continues to ripple outward. We don’t know why it rains, but we can offer you shelter. Sanctuary.

Our second story, about “Amazing Grace”, is the story of a paradigm shift in perspective, a dramatic turn that leads a man to question the very foundation of the culture and economy in which he exists, a foundation that provides food and shelter for himself and his family. He survives a great storm, a natural disaster, that forces him to confront his own mortality and the limited life span in which he has to offer anything to the world. When confronted with death, he chooses to focus on the known life before death, not a life after it.

For Arnie, angels aren’t cherubim or the heavenly host. They’re the people who show up when he needs them — the ones who pick up the mail and mow the lawn when he’s holding his wife’s hand in the hospital. He feels grace from his community showing up and doing the little things so he has more room in his life to care for his wife. And when he talks about Suzanne herself, he describes how she taught him to be a better person just by watching her interact with strangers on a daily basis. Everywhere they go, he says, she finds something kind to say to complete strangers — their server at a restaurant, the cashier at store. She goes out of her way not only to notice the people around her, but to make their day better if she can. In Arnie’s stories, over and over again, I hear how Suzanne lives out Unitarian Universalist principles by offering moments of grace, and now he tries to do the same thing because he’s been so moved by how she’s lived her life. Each person is worthwhile. Be kind in all you do. Help each other learn. Search for what is true.

And then there’s the grace we experience when getting to know each other, and when we’re learning the ways in which we think differently from each other even when we share values. My favourite story about this comes from my own family. One day, when they were first married, my grandmother, a Southerner, saved up and brought home a beautiful steak for her new husband, who was a Yankee. She took that steak, and she beat it, battered it, and deep fried it, because where she was from, that’s what you did with steak. My grandfather ate every bite of that meal, because he understood how much it had cost and how much thought and effort had gone into making it. And it was only after dinner that he offered up an alternative way to think about cooking steak. For them, compromise was never about sacrifice, but about showing the other person that they matter. That they are worthy of grace simply by being.

This story is one of many about my grandparents, and how they lived their life together as a series of infinite kindnesses, both to each other and to those around them. They offered grace into the world, through awareness and understanding. I don’t know how they received grace. I never thought to ask them before they passed, and that’s something I’ll regret. But I think that desire to know is a want from the seminary nerd in me. What I *need* to know, to work towards being in right relationship with those around me, is the effect they had in the world around them, regardless of its source. How they put their bodies in motion to manifest their values.

The worship theme for this month is Grace and Safety. I feel like it’s often when we are experiencing grace that we feel the most safe, and it’s through that sense of safety, of sanctuary, that we can bring more grace into the world. And, when we are willing to manifest grace, we draw others to us who are willing to do the same. Over a decade ago, the grace this community offered to people who identify as queer, by being a Welcoming Congregation, had the added effect of drawing people like Suzanne and Arnie, who wished to be allies, through your doors and giving them a spiritual home.

So, in the spirit of Cindi’s meditation, I’d like to offer up an alternative to the traditional New Year’s list of resolutions, because I think we tend to set ourselves up for disappoint and a sense of failure that way, which is the opposite of grace and safety. What I’d like to suggest instead is a list of New Year’s Possibilities. For me, it might read something like this:

What if I tried to greet my family in the morning *before* my coffee instead of waiting until after it? What would that demonstrate to my kids?

What if I tried to be less messy at home?

What if I tried to make sure always to have a few dollars in my wallet in case I meet someone in need?

Now, if you’re paying careful attention, you’ll notice that not only do these examples all start with “what if” — the grammatical introduction of possibility and imagination — but they also include “I tried.” I know Master Yoda tells us that there is no try. Just do, or do not. But sometimes I think this lesson, while it does have its place and time, is can be too harsh. Sometimes, trying has to be enough. Sometimes, the most important grace we can offer in the entire multiverse, is the grace we give ourself.

May it be so.

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