covenant – bodily integrity

The Dark Yin of the Soul

October 8, 2017October 10, 2017Meghann Robern

Watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook:

“It is easy to admire someone of grace and elegance, to have one’s eye caught by the sleek drape of a skirt or by a sidelong glance across the room. In certain circles it is possible to live through an entire affair which is composed of nothing more than brittle witticisms. But the love of the spirit comes when the dark yin of the soul is exposed in the lover’s sight; vanities, insecurities, those tender crevices that hold the potential of real pain.” That quote is from a short story by Bruce Sterling, called “The Beautiful and the Sublime.” I couldn’t tell you now what the plot of the story is to save my life, but this quote has stayed with me for over ten years.

And while we’ve had this topic planned for weeks, thinking about how and when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, or to receive the vulnerability of others with love, now we are examining these patterns of our lives in the wake of a mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the largest in US history. The death toll currently stands at 59 people, with 527 injured.

And to those of you who think that something like this could never happen here in Canada — you’re wrong. It wouldn’t be next week, of course, or even next year, or in five years — laws take time to be changed –but unless we dig deep into the reasons why white men are taught by our embedded systems that this is the only “solution” to whatever they are experiencing — this toxic culture will seep across our border. It has already begun — just two months ago we experienced racist, facist graffiti painted all over our city, not just our sign, the same day that a white supremacist plowed a car into people protesting hate in Virginia. That was not a coincidence.

And while it’s so important in our dominant white culture to recognize the need for vulnerability, to learn how to let other people in to our tender crevices, where we are raw and sore, Sterling’s use of yin and yang in this metaphor gives us insight to a layer deeper than what he merely writes on the page. The essence of yin and yang in Taoism isn’t that one is necessarily better than the other, but that they each part are the larger whole. They need each other to exist, and humans, as part of the larger multiverse, are neither yin nor yang inherently but contain both within each of us. Balance is what brings us harmony, and because we are living beings, staying in balance is a constant process.

So here we are. Diversity is one of our strengths, and yet it brings with it complexity and the potential for real harm. And remember, diversity includes gender identity and expression, class status, education level, physical ability, cognitive ability — the list goes on. We are, each of us, a unique collection of locations on a multitude of spectrums. That’s pretty amazing. But it also means that sometimes, we have to be as intentional about making room for others around us as we are about living into our own potential. Our reading today, by Lao-Tse, speaks of the space within, the empty places, as being the most useful. Sometimes, listening to another’s pain is just as important, if not moreso, than sharing our own. The problem comes when we always do one at the expense of the other.

And here is where awareness of our systems and what the dominant culture is come into play. Some of us are taught that we take up too much space just by existing — women, people of colour, tall people, fat people, etc. When we attempt to share equal space, we are told that we are asking for too much. That’s why you’ll hear the common counter-argument to feminism is that feminists are actually seeking superiority, not equality, which couldn’t be further from the truth. When one is accustomed to certain privileges, equality can often feel like an attack.

And even our metaphor today, of yin and yang, isn’t immune from sexism. Yin is traditionally identified with the feminine, while yang is the masculine. In our dominant Western white culture, to be emotional, to be vulnerable, to be sensitive is attributed to the feminine, and is more often than not framed as a bad thing — as weak. You hit like a girl. You scream like a girl. Man up. You don’t have the balls to do that. In our dominant culture of toxic masculinity woman can wear pants but men still cannot wear skirts. And if you’re genderqueer? You risk life and limb just by going outside your home.

The late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has been using his platform of privilege on his show to rail against the atrocities of the current US government, including how their health care system kills people. He has cried on camera, in front of millions of people. In retaliation, someone has purchased bus bench ads, attempting to attack Kimmel by calling his show “The Estrogen Hour” — implying that this feminine hormone, and that demonstrating genuine emotion for the deaths of millions of Americans, is somehow a bad thing.

So I would offer to you today that finding ways to be vulnerable with each other, to develop emotional intelligence about how we feel and why, is a form of resistance to the status quo. Acknowledging the global majority cultures that embrace our emotions as valid sources of experience is a form of resistance to white supremacy. Learning how to be vulnerable, to embrace the dark yin in each of us, will not only make us better at being human with each other — it will also heal the world. It will save lives.

But what does it mean to “learn to be vulnerable”? Can’t we just do it by talking about what’s hurting us or bothering us at any time?

No.

We cannot become yin at the exclusion of yang. We must seek balance. We cannot go around bleeding on those around us all the time, because then we have failed to make room for those who are also bleeding — sometimes their wounds need more immediate attention than our own. And while all our blood may look the same, our wounds are in different places and are of different degree. Someone who is bleeding from stepping on a nail has very different needs from someone who’s been shot. Just because we acknowledge that all of us bleed, that all of us have wounds, doesn’t mean that our suffering is the same. It doesn’t mean that all our needs can met in the same ways.

The Rev. Sandra Fees said, on the topic of learning to be one’s true, authentic self: “This means revealing what we so often try to keep hidden from others and allowing ourselves to be seen. Now I want to make an important distinction here. This is really important. Being seen is not the same as dumping ourselves on other people. It is not about oversharing deeply private information with people we don’t know or barely know. Being vulnerable requires having good, appropriate boundaries and trust with people in one’s life. The idea is to build deeper connections, not to bare the soul to a stranger or passing acquaintance. When someone share their deepest struggles and secrets with someone they just met, that has more to do with desperation, attention-seeking, and pain than being oneself. And it is unlikely to lead to any kind of deeper connection and intimacy. It is more likely to lead to an experience of alienation. […] True vulnerability requires some thought and consideration.”

So here we are. Right now, I realize, at this point in the sermon, the message seems to be “Be vulnerable, it will save the world, but don’t be too vulnerable, or you’ll mess everything up for everyone.” No pressure.

So authentic vulnerability requires thought and consideration. What does a congregation do with that? It’s true, of course, but at the same time this is also supposed to be our caring, supportive community. Unitarian James Luther Adams once said, church is where we practice what it means to be human. Being human is hard. And practice means not we’re not getting it right the first time around. Practice means getting better by doing it over and over again.

And the way we do that, with this multitude of different people with different life experiences, is by holding to our covenants — the ones we make as a larger community, and the ones we make in our smaller groups within. And those covenants will need to be rewritten and renewed, as we learn more about how to be together and make room for each other. Nothing is carved into stone, because that would hold us back from our evolution.

And, you have me. Right now, I’m the one you can bleed all over until the blood clots and you can move towards balance once again. It’s one of the most important roles I have as your minister — to hear your stories. All of them. You can bleed on me.

And to make sure the whole congregation’s needs are met the pastoral care team and I are working on rebuilding and restructuring this part of our church’s ecosystem — to recruit and train pastoral care associates who will listen and support you when you need to be vulnerable.

But even then, I’m not psychic. And, neither is anyone on the pastoral care team right now — that I know of. I know I’ve only been here two months, and that’s not a lot of time to build up trust. So I’m going to keep working at it. But I also need you to reach out to me, to be vulnerable even in the asking to be heard. I know from personal experience that that is one of the hardest things to do. And I believe in you — in your capacity for love, in your willingness to be loved, and in your commitment to making the world better for everyone else around you.

On this Thanksgiving weekend, as we here give thanks for this community in which we gather, for the earth and the sea and the sky, and for the ties that bind us to each other, remember: “it may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you. You better somebody love you, before it’s too late.”

May it be so.

Viola Desmond Goes to the Movies

October 1, 2017October 10, 2017Meghann Robern

Watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook:

I cannot, in good conscience, offer you this sermon today without pointing out that I am a white woman in 2017 speaking to you about the lived experience of a Black woman in 1946. I am claiming her story in the fulfillment of my work, using it for my own ends. No matter how well-researched, or how well-intentioned, my sermon is, I am still a white woman interpreting and retelling the personal experience of a Black woman. That fact will be hurtful to some, possibly many. Possibly even in this room right now. Impact always outweighs intent.

And, at the same time, it is the very least I can do as an ally to indigenous peoples and people of colour (two identities between which there is much overlap), it is the very least I can do to use my power and privilege as minister of this congregation to share this story. To be intentional with our full worship team about lifting up the voices of those who have been marginalized and oppressed.

In preaching about Viola Desmond this morning I am trying to dismantle systemic racism while at the same time continuing to participate in it. It is a complicated question that does not have a one-size-fits-all answer, and it relies on both things being true in order to be authentic.

I’ve been a runner for a few years now, and one of the things that happens is you find yourself part of the online running community. Groups where people share stories, tips, and generally support each other. One of the things that was given to me by a member of the online running community was when a Black man shared with us what he has to do to stay alive as a Black man running in the streets of his home.

He always, always, without fail, wears the brightest, most neon clothing he can find — from the sweatband on his head all the way down to his toes. He puts on reflective gear, so that headlights will make him known in the dark and the attempt to be visible can be recognized even in the daytime. He wants to be seen, so that no one can argue he was trying to hide or look inconspicuous. He always wears a shirt from a race he’s done in the past, so that on first look people can get that extra piece of information before judging him. He does all of this, because in his experience when people in our dominant culture see a Black man running, they assume he’s running away from the scene of a crime, and to protect his life he has to make them think something different.

That is not my experience as a runner. It never has been, and it never will be. And I think that everyone here, regardless of how you have been racialized in your identity, can agree that it would be preposterous to argue that because my experience was different, that therefore his isn’t true. And yet, this is what happens every single day to people of colour, both inside and outside this congregation. The pervasive abuses of systemic racism that continue in our modern, dominant culture are not hearsay to be debated. They are documented fact. Here is just one: in Policing Black Lives, Robin Maynard says:

“Black communities live in a state of heightened anxiety surrounding the possibility of bodily harm in the name of law enforcement. A genuine fear of law enforcement officers exists among many in the Black community, a response that is rational given the circumstances. In a society where many white Canadians think of the police as those who protect their security, Black people, quite legitimately, largely fear for their for their security in any situation that could involve the police. Parents, in particular, have expressed a genuine concern for the physical safety of their loved ones.” (Maynard 102)

“Though police killings, like other forms of systemic racism, are frequently justified by invoking Black criminality and “dangerousness,” this does not stand up to scrutiny. Criminal involvement does not, by any means, provide moral justification for police killings. However, police use of force also does not correlate to rates of Black criminality: while most white persons involved in incidents of police use of force have criminal records, this is not the case for Black Canadians. Instead, it is race that impacts police treatment: in one study, it was discovered that when responding to “minor offences,” police drew their weapons during arrest four times more often when arresting Blacks than any other group. Black people continue to be killed by police in situations that could have been de-escalated by other means and often due to police interventions that would not have even occurred had they been white. (Maynard 107)

We have covenanted together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That is not the same as the inherent worth and dignity of every opinion. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, is welcome to join us in this community, but to stay they must be willing to do the work of examining their sustaining beliefs, and their choices in the world. When we fail to hold people accountable for their beliefs that lead to the destruction of those that are not like them, we are failing our core Unitarian Universalist principles. White supremacists will not find a home here. Neo-Nazis will not find a home here.

Making room for everyone does not mean that we ignore those who are using that room to hurt others. Being freethinkers doesn’t mean that we are free to use oppressive language and to choose oppressive actions. Freedom from dogma and creeds does not mean freedom from ethical accountability. None of us can claim to be living into our full potential, or claim to be nourishing our spirit, when we are at the same time ignoring We can and should be better than this — not only to truly honour the diversity we have among us today, but to ensure a better future for those who will come after us.

Our choir today, singing the words of Unitarian Universalist Dr. Ysaye Barwell, asks if any of us would harbour, or maybe even become, a Harriett Tubman or Sojourner Truth, those fierce women of colour in the fight against slavery in North America. Would any of us harbour, or maybe even become, a Thomas Garrett, a white Quaker who helped innumerable Black people escape slavery on the Underground Railroad. This is a question for everyone here, because systemic racism poisons all of us. Viola’s sister, Wanda, describes how many people of colour expend great effort to stay out of trouble, to stay under the radar, because of the danger of being noticed.

She herself describes how she was aware of her Blackness by the time she was in junior high, and that she was ashamed of her sister for getting arrested. Viola, who only wanted to be able to see a movie in focus, and tried to pay for the proper ticket, and was forcibly dragged out of the theatre by two men as she clawed at her surroundings. Her own sister was cultured to be ashamed of rising up to defend oneself against racism. Even now, when people of colour protest peacefully, pay attention to how they are described by the dominant media — uppity. “Doing it wrong” “An inconvenience.” That is a legacy of a culture in which slaves ought to know their place.

And I know, I know, some of you are right now squirming in your seats and figuring out how to tell me after the service that sermons should be about the spiritual, that this is too political. Well, this is spiritual work. Viola Desmond is going to be the face of our new $10 bill. And yet, still, in 2017 people are dying because of the colour of their skin, and they are crying out for help, and they are being ignored because the majority of our culture can’t handle multiple experiences of the same thing. Because it is, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, incredibly hard to do so.

Why? Because the story we tell of our individual life, the narrative sum of our experiences, is the definition of who we are. Being able to form a coherent self-narrative is one of the ways we heal from traumatic events. So when we are asked to validate a different narrative, one that often contradicts our own, it feels threatening. It feels like an attempt to erase us. So we get defensive. This is spiritual work, because it affects our spirit, the stuff that makes each of us, us.

And when we feel threatened, when we feel defensive, we often forget to take into account the bigger picture — which includes a power analysis. When two individual accounts of reality conflict, and those involved will only allow one to be “The Truth,” then the one that has more power will win. Remember the saying, history is written by the winners? And one wins in a conflict by having more power — more money, more resources, the “right” assigned sex, the “right” size body, the “normal” skin colour. And here’s the other thing that’s so hard for us to understand, because it cuts right to how we define ourselves — it’s possible to have privilege and not have privilege at the same time.

I have immense privilege as a white person. I am marginalized as a woman. I have privilege of class, due to the pure luck of my birth. I am marginalized as a queer person. I have privilege due to my level of education — which is also linked to my whiteness and my class status — and I am marginalized due to my size. Holding different experiences of the same thing in tension with each other means that someone else having life struggles doesn’t diminish my own — but if I am going to be a true partner, if I am going to truly live into our shared UU principles and shared values, I have to acknowledge multiple realities as true. I have suffered immense pain in my life due to my size.

When I go running, I have to keep eye out for people throwing things at me because they think it’s funny to see a fat woman running. I’ve had horrible things shouted at me, been called awful names. But never, not once, have I been afraid for my life. My suffering is not negated by my fellow runner’s suffering as a Black man, and I can hold my painful experience as valid while also naming that his has been much worse. The real question is — how can we help each other find freedom in this world by changing it for the better? This is what it means to be intersectional.

Each situation, each choice, must be examined, must be held accountable to the larger work of dismantling systemic racism (and classism, and sexism, and ableism, and, and, and). And, I firmly believe that if there is a religion in the human experience that is capable of living into that tension, of holding multiple truths in a loving embrace and asking what’s next — it is Unitarian Universalism. We have failed at this many many times. But the promise, the potential of world-changing healing is there… if we are willing to take certain risks. But the how and when of those risks will be distinctly different depending on our racial and other social identities.

Those of us who are white will be asked to do very different things than those of us who are indigenous people and people of colour. Those of us who are white will need to always remember that we can go places, do things, say things that people of colour cannot without risking life and limb, much less freedom. White people are less likely to die in jail, or even die during arrest. And for those of us who are people of colour — the white people, myself included, are going to mess up. White people are going to continue to say awful things and make bad assumptions and forget to decenter themselves and their whiteness as they do this work of breaking down these systems and I’m so very sorry it won’t change overnight. But as I said to you a couple of weeks ago…. Perfect is the enemy of good. Perfect is the enemy of better. We can’t wait until we’re perfect to do the work. None of us will survive that long.

We Unitarian Universalists are a covenantal people, no matter what our colour. We are bound together by the promises we make to each other about how we are going to build and sustain this community, about how we are going to teach the larger world what it means to believe different things but to still care about each other. The seeds are already within us, within this community. This is spiritual work, for the betterment of all. As we go forth today, remember — there is more love somewhere. There is always more love somewhere. And we’re gonna find it. Together.

May it be so.

Gratitude and Generosity

September 17, 2017October 10, 2017Meghann Robern

Watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook:

Today’s service grew out of a learning group in this congregation devoted to stewardship. They met throughout last year, and as you heard in our meditation today, their experience was much more than just memorizing facts from books and videos. These dedicated members of our community learned as much about themselves and each other in their shared journey as they did about expanding their visions of what it means to build, sustain, and care for this congregation and the work it does both inside and outside its walls.

This, to me, is a living example of the Buddha’s message from our choral prelude today: Be ye lamps unto yourselves; be your own confidence; hold to the truth within yourselves as to the only lamp. Live your lives with love and passion in a world that craves to heal. With your hearts warm and embracing, care for those who long to feel. Truth and light and understanding help us mend a world of woes. From our hearts and from our souls be ye lamps unto yourselves; be your own confidence; hold to the truth within yourselves as to the only lamp.

And then, in our reading today from James Baldwin, we are reminded that while each of us hold the truth of our own lamp — the lived experiences and sustaining beliefs that help each of us navigate our lives — we do not exist in vacuums. One of the base elements of our historical Universalism is the radical idea that since we would all be equal in heaven, therefore we must, we must, strive for equality in the here and now. Today in our tradition, we do not share a communal belief in heaven, or even any afterlife at all, but we do share the legacy of that communal value — that this community gathers to change lives and make the world a better place for all. We do it with our bodies, with our minds, with our hearts. And, since none of us can remove ourselves from the currency-based society in which we exist, we also do it with our money.

And now, I wonder, how many of you cringed when I said that last line. Maybe even winced. Don’t worry — this isn’t a stealth kickoff to the pledge drive. That’s still in February. But talking about money openly is often taboo. The dominant culture teaches us that it is uncouth, inappropriate, that we open ourselves up to judgement and shame if we venture into that territory. I would offer up to you that this money taboo, so pervasive in our modern lives, is born out of a culture of wealth and privilege that did not want to be held accountable for hoarding their resources at the expense of those who had less than them. And I am not speaking of individuals here. I am talking about the systems at large. By creating a culture of stigma around talking about money — how to earn it, how to save it, how to spend it, how to redistribute it to serve the greater good — entire generations have been cut off from learning the best possible ways to care for themselves and for others. When we cringe at the mention of money in church it is because we have been taught we shouldn’t do that, when in fact the opposite is true. This congregation exists entirely on the generosity of its members and friends — unlike other many churches we do not receive money from a governing body — and so we need to talk about what that means year round.

And this is what the stewardship learning group has been doing — they have been engaging in the work of undoing the entrenched systems that keep us from being the best people we can possible be — with our treasure as much as our time and our talents. Your household budget is a moral document. The church’s budget is a moral document. This congregation is an employer of staff, really excellent staff with whom I am proud to work, and our salaries are a moral statement about the value of sustaining this community.

The church is not the building and the building is not the church, but the House and the Sanctuary are where the church does its work. The choices we make about caretaking our beautiful and historic buildings make moral statements about who we are and how we live into our values. When this congregation built the Sanctuary, an elevator shaft was put in. There is still no elevator — we keep putting off that expense. This means that two entire floors of our space are inaccessible. This is heartbreaking for those already among us who struggle with mobility. It is devastating to a church that wishes to be welcoming, and yet cannot welcome a child using a wheelchair to join their faith development group downstairs. And the only way we can ever change that, the only way we can ever learn to be better in all parts of our lives — not just our minds and hearts — is to talk about it openly. Without shame. Without judgement.

Because what I really want to tell you today, is that you are amazing. Our newcomers who came here for the first time — you came here into a group of strangers for a new experience, and that is amazing. Our visitors, who have been here more than once, offering more of themselves to this community. You’re amazing. Our congregational friends, who find themselves coming back, again and again, engaging with the precious Unitarian Universalist idea that diversity is our strength, and that makes each service a little different. You’re amazing. And our members. The lifeblood of this community, the spiritual and religious heirs to three congregations and 125 years of Unitarian Universalism in Winnipeg. You bring your joys and sorrows, your blood, sweat and tears. You bring your voices, in speech and song and poetry. You bring your senses — not just ones of our bodies but also those of our hearts — sense of justice, sense of bravery, sense of covenant. You are amazing. I moved here, bringing my family on a journey of over 2000 kilometers, because you are amazing.

And amazing doesn’t mean perfect. I’ve spent many years, a lot of therapy, and a lot of spiritual direction on letting go of my tendency towards perfectionism. Perfect is the enemy of good. Perfect is the enemy of better. I want to return to the words of my dear friend and colleague, the Rev. Theresa Soto from our opening this morning:

I know that people
Have told you that before you can give
You have to get yourself together. They
Overstated the value of perfection by a
Lot. Or they forgot. You are the gift.
We all bring some broken things, songs
and dreams, and long lost hopes. But
here, and together, we reach within.
As a community, we begin again. And
from the pieces we will build something new.
There is work that only you can do.

If we spend all our time working towards perfect, we will wither and die, having done nothing at all. The real work is in our relationships with each other, which will be always changing and shifting, as life does. This congregation will not always look and feel like it does today, but if we commit ourselves to a culture of stewardship, we can ensure that it will inherit our shared values and the legacy of our covenants, our promises to each other. And this is the real test of sustainability in a community — are we willing to devote ourselves to the lives of people we have never met, and may not ever meet? Whether they are people suffering and in need in our community today, or the generations to come after us in this congregation — how are witnesses for them, as Baldwin tells us we are? How are we creating now a safe harbour for them away from the roll, as in the anthem sung by our choir? What is the work that only you can do, your precious gift to the world, and how can we help you do it?

Ultimately, though, a culture of stewardship and giving — in all aspects of our lives, not just our wallets — comes back to us in a sense of fulfillment. No matter what some people have tried to claim, human beings are not actually hard-wired for selfishness, and that way of life is not how we thrive. Pervasive, unrelenting selfishness may allow some few to control others through hoarding wealth and the power that wealth offers in our modern culture, but it stunts our growth and limits our potential. And I’m not talking about living an ascetic life, like monks, unless that appeals to you. I don’t want people to give up much-needed vacations or other opportunities for joy. I want to help people thrive, not just survive. And it has been proven that the more people talk about money and how to handle it, the more resilient they are when it comes to making good decisions about it — finding a balance between their needs and the needs of others. And when we give to others, as we are able, we are forging a connection with them, we become part of their story and they become part of ours. Without connections, we are nothing.

And, “as you are able” means something different to every person. For some, five dollars is a drop in the ocean. For others, five dollars might be the difference between the luxury of a bus ride home one day or paying rent this month. No matter where you fall on the financial spectrum, you are welcome here, and you are welcome in how our community lives into the circle of gratitude into generosity into gratitude, and on and on. Let us be intentional in learning how we care for ourselves and each other, and always remember that together, we can be better than any one of us alone.

May it be so.

With a Lion at Her Feet

January 29, 2017March 16, 2017Meghann Robern

Listen to the sermon here:

With a Lion at Her Feet

or watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook.

Thekla. A young woman, caught up in a culture wherein she is denied all control over her life. Her mother makes her decisions for her, and she is engaged to a man who believes he is entitled to her submission — something which is validated by all those around them. Thekla has been denied affirmation of her inherent worth and dignity.

But then, she is given the chance to hear the teachings of Paul. She hears someone speak of love that rises above all injustice, of equality that knows no sex or gender. She hears a voice telling her that she is a person and not a thing. For teaching her this, Paul is thrown in jail. Think about that. Think about how powerful words can be, and how dangerous they are to people who hoard and abuse their power.

Regardless, Thekla has tasted freedom, freedom of her heart and freedom from her chains. Neither her mother nor her betrothed find that they can control her anymore, and while Paul is merely imprisoned, Thekla’s own mother asks for her to be burned. People oppressed by a system are most often taught that they must collaborate willingly in the system in order to survive.

Now, I know this story has some miracles in it. I’m not asking you to take them literally. What I want to do is invite you to consider them as metaphor for the immense power of the religious community to love, and protect, and change the fabric of the world around us. Thekla is saved from the pyre by an outpouring of rain; we learn that Paul and his people were actively praying for her deliverance.

What would it take for us to become the rain — single drops, each of us, overwhelmed by the magnitude of putting out a raging fire. And yet, when joined together, we become a downpour, extinguishing fires of hate and injustice. Rabbi Shana Mackler, of the Temple, taught me a saying that has become essential to my spiritual life this last week. “Pray as if everything is up to God. Act as if everything is up to you.”

Prayer, of course, means different things to different people. And maybe you’re not the kind of person who finds prayer to be very useful in your life. But I would offer up that because prayer can take so many different forms, and that one of those forms is to act as a direct conduit to our conscience, that maybe it’s not so irrelevant to all of us in these times. The Sikhs go to daily prayers because they believe that hearing and chanting the words of the Guru Granth attunes them to the needs of the universe each day. Prayer can be engaging with our personal gods, or with our still, small voice. However your personal spiritual journey has, and continues to unfold, prayer is not about quieting and soothing the mind, like meditation, but rather is about actively engaging your inner self to help choose the course of your outer life. This religious community offers up a mission, and shared values, to help guide us in this constant discernment.

Pray as if you are part of something bigger than yourself — a world that encompasses far more than one person’s experience. Act as if loving that world, and all the people in it, begins with you.

Let us return now to Thekla. Reunited with Paul, they travel to Antioch, where a powerful government man first tries to buy Thekla from Paul, and then, finding that she is not owned, immediately forces himself upon her in a public street and in broad daylight. He just grabs her and starts kissing her. Apparently he can’t help himself. She fights back, in the process ripping his clothes and knocking his crown off his head. Once again the world in which she lives is trying to make her into an object, and she finds the courage to resist from the love and empowering message taught to her by her religious community. Even though, once again, she finds herself under arrest and sentenced to death, while the power figure trying to control and objectify her, trying to make her less than human, is allowed to continue as a public figure and government leader.

But Thekla will not be silenced. She will not be contained. She not only believes that she has inherent worth and dignity, but she has also been told this, and shown this, by her religious community. She preaches about it to all who will listen, including the people of the house where she is kept locked up until it is her time to be thrown to the beasts.

And here we have another miracle. The lioness, the fierce beast meant to kill Thekla, most likely starved and abused by keepers in order to increase the violence of the demonstration, walks up and lays at her feet. Another creature, trapped in the system, decides to say, “Not this time.” They try again the next day, and not only does another lioness refuse to attack, but it protects her from the other beasts released into the theatre.

“Not this time.”

In this story, the beasts are not less than humans, but merely a different aspect of creation. They represent the diversity of this world, and the fundamental, interdependent web of which we are all a part. The lions have not necessarily heard Thekla preach, nor have they been converted. They simply see an injustice being perpetuated, one tied to their own captivity and oppression — because we are all tied to each other — and they rise up in solidarity.

“Not this time. And never again.”

Now, here’s the part that I love, and that has led to institutional western Christianity to run away screaming from this text.

In the midst of all this — a theatre of execution games, wild beasts running around, crowds of people, half of whom are screaming for her death while the other half are so moved they shower her with gifts thrown from the stands — in the midst of all this, she sees a tank of water, and says, “Oh look! This is a perfect time to baptise myself!” And throws herself in. She baptises herself. She doesn’t need Paul, or anyone else to declare her fit for it. She doesn’t need someone to bless the water. She doesn’t need someone else’s hand to be involved at all.

When this story began, she was a person trapped, with no autonomy over her life except to sit at her window, waiting for her mother or her future husband to make decisions for her. It is through hearing a message of love and acceptance, for everyone, not just some, that led her to make her first escape. It is through experiencing how that religious community lived their message, in deed as well as in word, that empowered her to claim her personhood, even when it was threatened. It was knowing that she was not alone, even if they were not physically by her side, that allowed her to know she could create herself however she wished, as long as it could be held over and against the values of love and justice she had been taught by her religious community.

Freshly baptised, and with the beasts dead around her, and half the crowd cheering for her, the powers that be are forced to let her go. She returns to Paul, and he tells her to go forth into the world and to preach of what she knows. She spends the rest of her long life doing that, and becoming a healer. She brings the religious community with her wherever she goes, working to heal those around her of their fear, anger, loneliness. She lives a life of compassion and strength, offering comfort and love to those who need it the most. She prays as if everything is up to God, and she acts as if everything is up to her.

So here we are, now, almost two thousand years later. While we may not cleave to Thekla’s Christianity, we can absolutely relate to her experience of how a community built on love and justice can heal us and empower us to live in the world. The Acts of Paul and Thekla was a text written to justify women as religious leaders and preachers, but it is ultimately, for me, about personhood. Replace her identity as a woman with any other oppressed identity — being black, being Muslim, etc. — and little about the story changes. How do we, as Unitarian Universalists, live into our legacy of a religious community built on love and justice?

Today we are welcoming new members. They have decided not only to participate in the shared ownership of and responsibility for this congregation and its ministries They also are promising to uphold and live into this congregation’s mission. Being a part of this religious community, in addition to our seven UU principles, means answering a call to create community, nurture spiritual growth, and act on our values in the larger world. We are not, as many claim,a community in which you can believe or do anything you want. We are a community in which we celebrate the diversity of our lives, and the diversity of our spiritual journeys, and we are called to believe only that which our conscience allows us. What we claim in this space, when we are gathered in safety, means nothing if we do not also live into it when we are separated, and the beasts are coming for us and those around us.

This congregation is a sanctuary. That means it is a place where those who need safety are met with protection. That those who have been hurt and battered outside our walls will find healing. That those who are tired and weary will find rest. That those whose voices have been silenced will be encouraged to share their stories. That those who are lonely will find companionship. That those of us who, like Thekla, have learned that they are worthy of love just because they exist, will in turn teach it, show it, to those of us still struggling to love ourselves.

May it be so.

The Gift of Sweetness

November 27, 2016March 16, 2017Meghann Robern

Watch and listen to the homily on Facebook

I have a question. How many of you currently go to school? What do you do at school? You learn new things, right? Things you didn’t know before.

Now, in order for me to be one of your ministers here, at this church, I had to go to a special school called a seminary. And I was very lucky, because I lived close to a seminary that dedicated itself to lots of different religions in addition to the Methodists that had started it. They partnered with the school that trains Jewish rabbis and cantors, and the school that trains Buddhist leaders. They even helped create a school to train Muslim leaders! Even better, these relationships between the schools meant that there was diversity among the students in all the classes. But, they didn’t stop there. Learning new things is so important to my seminary, that they require every single person who is training to be a minister, like me, to take classes in religions that aren’t ours. I couldn’t finish my program unless I learned about something totally new to me.

Now, because of my great seminary, I had a lot of options to choose from. Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and more… and I chose Sikhism. Does anyone here already know something about Sikhs?

One of the reasons I wanted to study Sikhism is because I believed they truly practice radical hospitality, something which we UUs try really hard to do. Did you know that every Sikh temple has rooms that anyone can stay in, at no charge, for up to three nights? It doesn’t matter why you need a place to stay — they will give you a bed to sleep in and a roof over your head. They also feed everyone after every prayer service. Even the Golden Temple, the holiest gurdwara of Sikhs all over the world, in India, serves thousands after prayer three times a day, entirely on volunteer effort. They form their religious community around radical hospitality of food and shelter for all.

And what about the story of Ukko and the woman who didn’t want to share her bread? The more she kept for herself over what she needed, the smaller she got. Now, we all know here that being small in body isn’t necessarily bad — small people can have great big hearts. But the smaller the loaf she made for Ukko… the smaller her heart was. And even when she began frantically giving more and more of the bread away so she could be herself again — it was important that she not give everything away. She still kept what she needed to feed herself and her family. Community doesn’t mean giving until you have nothing for yourself. Community is about giving and sharing to sustain everyone, including yourself.

Then Marguerite told us the story of the people seeking a new home. They asked to share space, and they were initially told they would take up too much room, that they would overflow the bowl and cause resources to be lost. But their leader decided to offer a different way of looking at joining this community. Instead of being a burden, instead of causing trouble… what if their presence instead made something new? Instead of draining the community of its abundance, they would add to it, and change it for the better. And so they were welcomed, and the community was made better by its hospitality to people who were different, but were still in need.

Like the sugar in the milk, life is better with a little sweetness. This community, this congregation, strives to be something sweet in your life. Something else the Sikhs taught me is that the sweetness of your religious community should be matched with a sweetness on your tongue — they hand out little balls of sweet dough after prayers, before they head to the meal. It’s to remind that connection between your mind, body, and heart, that the sweetness of community comes from nourishing all parts of yourself. For there to be peace in the world, it must begin with peace in the heart.

So today, for our Bread Communion, we are offering you something sweet for your tongue to symbolize the sweetness of this community.

May it be so.

We Were Made For This

November 13, 2016March 16, 2017Meghann Robern

Listen to the sermon here:

We Were Made For This

or watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook

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.

I Love Supergirl

September 27, 2016December 6, 2016Meghann Robern

I have confession to make.

I love Supergirl.

I watched it last year as it aired, and recently my seven-year-old daughter asked to watch it. So I’ve been watching it again, knowing what’s coming, and experiencing it through her eyes for the first time.

Like most freshman shows, it takes an episode or few to get its bearings, to figure out what it is and what kind of stories it’s going to tell. So if you passed on it last year, I’m here to tell you to try it again, as the full first season was just added to Netflix streaming in anticipation of season two beginning on The CW this month.

You may be asking yourself, “But why on earth (or on Krypton, for that matter) is this worth a mention in our congregational newsletter?”

Without going too far into spoiler territory, the narrative arc of season one is about how unregulated, thoughtless consumption of resources destroyed one planet, and asks how far one is willing to go to prevent that from happening to another. It tells a story about love of a planet not just for what it can give us, but how we can exist on it and with it. Supergirl asks us to look at how the interdependent webs of our lives are inextricable from the physical water, earth, and air around us.

Like all the best stories, the external conflicts are directly related to the internal ones. Kara Zor-El was old enough when Krypton was destroyed that she has a young girl’s memories of its culture, its ethics, and her own family members. Now that she has grown up, she is discovering the nuance required to navigate worlds full of multi-faceted, multi-layered beings, who often have as much conflict within themselves as they do with others. Loss, grief, and isolation exist alongside joy, satisfaction, and belonging. And as she’s learning about what it means to be a human, she is also passing on the lessons she learned from Krypton about working together, sharing burdens, and bonds of love that go beyond family ties.

Ultimately, for me, the show asks us about our choices. How much will we sacrifice for the greater good? How will we find ways to work together when we are afraid? When we are angry? Supergirl, like all good stories, helps us to think about our own lives and the choices we make every day to live into our covenants with each other.

Jeanne D’Arc

September 25, 2016March 16, 2017Meghann Robern

Listen to the sermon here:

Jeanne D’Arc

Or, watch and listen to the sermon on Facebook

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.

The Revelator

September 18, 2016March 16, 2017Meghann 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.

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

May 8, 2016March 16, 2017Meghann Robern

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

Listen to the sermon:

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.