HomeREADING
The future beckons; are you ready?
Why can’t we look into the future the way we look back in time?
Would I want that? I’m not sure. That might be more frightening, more dull, than I would like.
It scares me. I dislike the unknown nature of it. And it always brings change. And change is never good.
I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could be younger again, be smarter, more able again. I was better then. People were better then. They were kinder, they cared more, they did more. Everything was better then. I wish I could go back.
The future beckons and it excites me. Today’s dullness, today’s drabness, today’s pains will all disappear. I think of all of the wonderful things that are going to be. I am impatient for them, impatient for that time to arrive, and for this time, this present to slip into the past. Have done with what is, bring on what will be.
The future beckons and it intrigues me.
Potential, promise, threat, the unknown; all of this awaits.
Who will I be? Who will we be? What will be the path that we choose or have foist upon us?
The future beckons; are you ready? It is never more than a moment away.
SERMON
Good Morning.
A few quick acknowledgements of some things this morning:
Yesterday was Earth Day and I want to urge us all to find ways to protect the Earth. I would also suggest that we each begin that in ways that reward us: cut down on your use of oil and electricity and benefit from loser costs. After that, perhaps we can move on to other methods. But first do things that are economical.
In the Eastern Orthodox Christian traditions, today is Easter Sunday, so Happy Easter to all who so celebrate.
This week (tomorrow?) is Yom Hashoah, the commemoration of the death of the six million in the Nazi nightmare. That is just one example, and sadly not the most recent, of the human ability to hate and act on that hate in a massive way. It is important also to remember others who died in the camps and purges of those days, the Roma, the homosexuals, the socialists and communists, and those brave souls who spoke against their own government’s acts of evil. Germany has now agreed to open many of the records of that period, and the current estimate of those killed by the regime—as reported in the New York Times just a few days ago--is seventeen million.
And later this week is Beltane, the Pagan “crossday” celebration. Happy Beltane!
Now to today’s topic: in the midst of several sermons on the congregation’s history, I decided to preach a sermon on our future, or the future as I see it. This is meant be a description not a prescription, a vision of possibility not a vision of necessity. I do not mean this to be a blueprint for what must be done.
My reading of the recent congregational vote on purchasing the house next door was that the general desire was to move directly to building a new sanctuary, perhaps with other spaces as well. I am pleased by that decision. And I want again to commend the Board for the process it led us through and to commend the congregation on the manner in which the discussion were held and the decision made. You showed a genuine sense of openness, of acceptance of one another, and of community, and that counts for much more than any particular decision.
There is more, of course. I envision a future community in which we have greatly strengthened our Religious Education program for our children and youth. Did I just say there is something wrong with our current program? No, I did not. But there is always the possibility for more and better; and that is what I want.
I foresee more programs for adults, programs that develop and deepen our personal spirituality and theology.
I see us as a strong voice in this area for liberal religion. I am not speaking of liberal politics, but I will speak to that in a moment, but I refer here to our religious principles and how they apply in to other people and their personal lives. I am not talking about proselytizing, but attracting new members might well be a secondary effect of this. But I am speaking of engaging in conversation with the broader community about the personal search for truth, about the use of reason in religion and about freedom and tolerance in religion and in ethical decision making.
I also envision a congregation that is a voice for the social implications of our religious principles. That is, I see us as a voice for human rights, for equality for all people—not only American residents or American citizens, but all people anywhere on this planet.
I see a congregation that carries into its future a strong sense of community, and that has a strong program of outreach; a group of people that act as a congregation of witness for liberal religion and as a congregation of witness for justice.
We can do that without attacking anyone else. We can do that by, for example, proclaiming loudly in the town square that we believe in and practice equality for all, that women, for example, are full participants in all aspects of our congregational life. We do not have to attack or deride any other religious or social group for that positive message to be heard.
How do we build the future that I see? We work together, all of us, on the jobs that must be done to keep daily things going, to strengthen community and to engage in outreach. To do great things usually requires doing the mundane. Do you want to build a world in which full equality finally exists for all? Well, arriving at that point means that someone has to make the coffee, and someone has to change the light bulbs, and someone has to plan the social events. Want that ultimate goal to be achieved? Join in the work and life of the congregation; join a committee.
Next point: in order for us to become what I hope we will become, we need to accept the process of ongoing change. As a congregation grows, it moves through stages of structure and practice. Sometimes, just as it completes adapting to one stage, it is time to move on to the next. And change is not easy.
A few months ago I was listening to a pre-season baseball game on the radio. One of the commentators described how a long time player for the Yankees was working with his trainers on changing his approach to batting. As many players do, he moves a lot behind the plate while preparing to bat or waiting for a pitch. He was trying to use fewer movements when standing at the plate. The reason given for this was so that he would still have energy left late in the season; the goal was not to tire out by the autumn.
Now that struck me as fascinating. I would never have thought that if you cut down on your movements in the batter’s box during the spring, you would be reserving energy for six months later. I never would have made that connection. I would have thought it would have made me less tired at the end of the day—but six months from now?
That got me to thinking about people in general, how we operate, how we do things. Are there ways of functioning that you and I have as individuals that waste energy in a way that causes us to be depleted later in the year? What are the things that I do that drain me—drain me not just today but months from now--even when I don’t realize it?
And that got me to thinking about congregational life. If we change some of the ways that we move, that is, some of the ways in which we organize ourselves or do things, will we save energy in the autumn and winter and therefore have more energy available to us in the spring? Are there things we do--either completely unconsciously or out of habit--that cause us to deplete our stored reserves of energy?
When I went on sabbatical a few years ago, I stated that I was going to study congregational growth. At the time we were “stuck” at a plateau of about 150 members. We knew this was a plateau, but we didn’t quite know what to do about it. When I came back from sabbatical, I had a bit of learning about this subject, I presented it to the Board and the Council, and we made a number of changes in structure and style that seem to have worked. Today we are past 180 members and still growing.
Now that was big picture stuff. What about those smaller moments in congregational life? What about the amount of energy that goes into getting people to volunteer to do coffee? I’m not saying I have an answer to that question, but I raise it up as significant. Are there things we do because that is the way in which they have always been done, that actually drain away our ability to function later in the year? It’s a question. Are there things we can do, ways in which we can organize tasks or activities that use less energy and therefore allow us both to do even more things while enjoying the process and the events more? And if someone comes up with new ideas, new approaches, new ways of doing things, do we tend to reject them out of hand because they are not what we do and have always done?
John Cage was recently quoted as saying, “I don’t know why people are afraid of new ideas; I’m afraid of the old ones”. Sometimes we are afraid to do things that will actually make our lives better. (Back??)
It’s not easy to change patterns, whether the patterns of personal life or the patterns of congregational life. The night before I heard that story about the baseball player, I had watched the movie Million Dollar Baby, which I had never seen it before.
I’m not a boxing fan; I’m not even much of a sports fan. Boxing actually bothers me. I think that it glorifies violence and blood, and so I don’t appreciate it much. It‘s fascinating to me how much angst has bubbled up in our society around sexual issues—whether in the movies or in other aspects of the culture—and how little reaction there is to violence.
But this movie, like all good movies, was about much more than the presenting topic, so to speak; it was about deep issues in human life and human relationship.
At one point in the movie, the narrator character says, “In boxing you have to train the body to move in unnatural ways”. He goes on to give the example that if you want to move to the right, you turn your left foot; and if you want to move to the left, you turn your right foot.
Think about that. Your trainer tells you to move to the right, so you step to the right, right foot first. Your trainer tells you that you have just done the wrong thing. “To move to the right, turn your left foot”, you are told. It feels wrong.
The point is that sometimes in life, if you want to make a change, you have to do things that either are or feel unnatural. We sometimes have to do things that feel counter-intuitive. Many of us stand back from cliffs and steep drops; that is the natural thing to do. But if you want to be a certain kind of firefighter, you learn to jump out of planes, to step onto nothing. Very strange; and quite unnatural.
An addict who wants to stop dropping pills or drinking or engaging in self-destructive behavior has to do what feels unnatural.
And in congregational life there are times when progress occurs because we do that which is or feels unnatural. When a congregation has been structured in a particular way, it feels wrong or odd to change it. When the Minister has had a particular relationship to the congregation, and that changes, it can feel unnatural. When some expert in congregational growth comes along and says, ‘this is how you should do things”, our tendency is to insist that the way we have been moving is what we have always done, and is just fine, thank you. But is it? Is it just fine? And even if it works, are there ways that are better? Maybe what we do now was just fine for a congregation of one hundred people, but doesn’t work for a congregation of two hundred people.
Over time, the boxing practice of turning your left foot to move to the right undoubtedly becomes second nature. I am sure boxers arrive at the point where they just don’t think about it anymore, they just do it. And as any of us change our behavior pattern, the new behavior becomes, with time, a kind of natural behavior. Then, if someone tells us to find yet another new pattern of movement, we will tend to insist that the way we have been moving is what we have always done, and is just fine, thank you.
I was told by a personal trainer at a gym that those who exercise tend to get into the habit of using the same machines and doing the same pattern of training. According to him, people would be better off switching around on machines, and using their muscles in different ways; this, he said, actually does a better job of building muscles. You “surprise” them by using them differently.
And of course, one should periodically increase the heaviness of the weights one uses or increase the number of repetitions. Doing the same exercises with the same machines and same weights over and over again for years does not lend itself to growth.
The congregation made some changes in structure a few years ago, and I know that some are hoping we will revisit those changes and perhaps modify some of them. That is part of the ongoing process.
As the congregation grows towards two hundred and fifty members, it will be time to rethink and maybe once again revamp some of our structures.
This sermon has been about the congregation’s future, but it really speaks to anyone and any practices. In our personal spiritual growth are there things that we do out of habit that we would be better off changing? Are there practices that have become stale, or words that have lost meaning and no longer provide us with what they once did? Should we rethink whether to pray, or how to pray? Should we rethink or re-feel our notions about God or about human nature?
Finally, in closing, the point want to leave you with is that there are those things our congregational life which Theodore Parker, the great Unitarian minister of the eighteen hundreds, would have called the transient and the permanent. He describe the Transient and the Permanent in Christianity and said that people sometimes confuse the two, taking the transient for the permanent.
The transient in congregational life things like structure and procedure. The permanent should be our commitments to the Unitarian ”holy trinity” of reason, freedom, tolerance; and our sense of community, our commitment to one another. Structure and procedure merely serve these. May we ever retain the distinction in our hearts and minds.
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