HomeGood morning!
Today is the day we celebrate all of our members, but especially our new members, those who have joined us in the past year.
Howard Thurman said: "Community cannot long feed on itself, it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond: their unknown and undiscovered sisters and brothers."
Our community will be healthy and will thrive in direct proportion to the growth that we experience in new members each of whom brings with them new energy, new views, and new vision. This is how a community grows and matures.
And both the community and the members grow as we deepen our commitment to one another and to the congregation.
We grow individually in many ways. As a religious movement we uphold and honor the right of every individual to engage in their own search for truth and meaning. We are and ought to be free to express the path that we follow and the truths that we find there. We honor individualism of that kind.
But it is also true that we are never fully human unless and until we are in relationship with others. Our community honoring of individualism must be balanced by our individual honoring of community.
It is a paradox of membership in a congregation that it may have no relationship to community and belonging.
The point there is really that there are different meanings to the word “membership”. When you join something, what does that mean to you? For some people, joining is a long process of evaluation, consideration, doubt and maybe a touch of fear. For others it is an easy thing to do; they find a place that suits them and they jump right in. For still others, joining is so easy that they might join a different congregation each week.
And we have Friends of the congregation who have been with us for years, have served on committees, have chaired committees, have been full participants in the community but have never signed the membership book. They are members in an organic sense even if not in a legal and voting sense.
So membership means different things to different people, and the level of commitment that people make is different, and varies over time.
My comment this morning to our newest members especially, but to all of us in general is that old saw that the more deeply you commit yourselves to this place, to the congregation, to the community, the more you will get out of it. How many of you stopped listing halfway through that sentence because you new where I was going? I know that point can sound trite, but I urge you not to be heedless of the truth that statement contains. We hear it a lot precisely because it is true.
We live in a world in which deep connection is fading. We over schedule ourselves, we over schedule our children; in doing so we find ourselves more and more isolated. That is not to say we do not have acquaintances and friendly relations with other people, but the depth is all too often lacking. And all too often, depth is not really welcome.
This congregation is a place where connection and commitment are welcomed and honored.
But I would urge you also not to sit back and wait to see if that is the case, not to wait to see if others will connect with you, because a truth about connection and commitment is that if you sit back and wait for it to come to you, it will not likely arrive. We must actively work for it.
William H. Murray, writing about something rather different than a congregation, yet stated truth when he said the following:
But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts…This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it! -William H. Murray, The Scottish Himalaya
Connections to a congregation do not come from waiting to see whether they develop. Connections to a congregation develop because we commit ourselves to the congregation and to the people in it. In doing so, we are expressing a commitment to ourselves to deepen our spirituality or our relationships or our connections to—as I constantly say—whatever for us is sacred or holy.
How do I do that? How do I enter into the congregation and find a way to make a difference, to be part of it?
Quoting Howard Thurman again: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
This congregation needs people who want to come alive. If you have an idea for deepening what we do, for deepening connection or spirituality or community, find out who is doing something in that area and jump in and help. If no one is doing it, speak to a Board member or to the Council and find out how to make it happen. But dive in.
There is one phrase that is very common in any organization, and I use it myself: “Someone ought to…”; “Someone ought to…”. It is when each of us recognizes that “I am someone”, that we begin to be part of the congregation in a new way.
The great paradox both of community and of human life is that the more we give of ourselves the more we get back.
If I seek connections with others or with a community, let me act in such a way that I build those connections.
If I seek a place of hope and promise, let me act in such a way that hope is born and promise is fulfilled.
If I seek a community of welcome, openness, respect and affirmation of difference, let me act in such a way that all feel affirmed.
If I seek a community of social service and of justice making, let me act in such a way that human needs are served and justice is achieved.
If I seek a community where both freedom to doubt and question and freedom to search and strive are encouraged and supported, let me act in such a way that the truth of others—both within and without this community—is lifted up not for ridiculing, but for honoring.
If I seek a community of mutual support and nurture, let me act in such a way that those in pain feel heard and comforted.
If I seek a community of deep connection, let me act in such a way that I connect with others.
So let it be.
Return to
Home
Return to Sermons Index