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Reading and sermon written and delivered by Rev. Anya Sammler-Michael, from a topic suggested by Bryan George

Reading

Our reading is a meditation from the Unitarian Universalist minister Bruce Marshall. I had the honor recently of meeting Bruce Marshall, he was speaking at a minister's event nearby. Bruce has been serving the Tennessee Valley congregation in Knoxville as an associate pastoral care minister since they experienced the tragedy of having a gunman come into their sanctuary where two were killed and six were injured. So Bruce's presence in Knoxville has been a presence of persistence, a presence of listening to pain and holding sadness and helping that community move towards healing. In this piece, “Taking Pictures of God” he speaks of a different force, but one that we might understand in some ways as similar

A hurricane once passed through our neighborhood. It was my first hurricane and I expect the first is the best...

I probably wouldn’t have liked that hurricane so much if the big tree hunks had come through my roof instead of landing as politely as they did. If people had been hurt, my fascination would have seemed naïve or morbid. Although the wind and rain did considerable damage, the storm stopped short of disaster.

In the hours after the hurricane, people came out of their houses to talk and meet each other for the first time. Neighbors with whom we had never exchanged a word put our frozen food in their freezer (they had electricity, we didn’t)…

The best part though was the storm itself. Wind pushing rain and all bowing in its path. I was frightened as I heard things around me crack, but also exhilarated. So much power. I stood on the front porch (which you’re not supposed to do) and watched and watched in wonder.

The eye of the hurricane passed over our house. In the midst of the wind and rain, the sky turned blue, birds sang, and the breezes felt warm and tropical…

I was excited about being in the eye of a hurricane, and all I could think to do was to take pictures. I grabbed my camera and snapped pictures of the blue sky and tips of the trees in sunlight. I snapped and snapped and didn’t stop until the roll of film was finished.

Years from now I will come across these shots of blue sky and clouds and the tops of trees and wonder what these pictures could be.

It’s hard to get decent snapshots of a hurricane’s eye; it’s like trying to take pictures of God.

Sermon

Just like we started out the Chalice Lighting this morning with questions, I'm going to start out with questions here:

Why did you get up this morning to come to worship?

Why did you pack your kids or yourselves in the car?

Why not just lie back down on the pillows and slip into the calm of sleep?

What are you seeking here?

I have heard answers like “calm,” “presence,” “community,” “friendship,” “spirituality,” “social action,” “getting involved” – are there others? … You are welcome to call out single words or phrases:

I’ve got a feeling that no matter what you are seeking – there is a good reason you have chosen this place – whether it is your first time here or your one hundred and first. And I am going to guess that you are not seeking more of the same; that your hopes for this place and this experience, no matter what they are, they are hopes that go beyond what you can find somewhere else.

In “Times Like These” – the offertory song from Suzie and Paul explained – you learn to live again, you learn to love again, you give and give again. There are certain times in our lives that transform us – times that seem to grab us and move us beyond what we knew - or what we know - we are.

I doubt any human could sustain constant, jolting “Times Like These” – times of transformation, over the long haul. And I have heard many say how important it is for them to be around like-minded people – company that brings them comfort … but no matter how like-minded the company I would not want to be with anyone – no offense – if our fate was pure stasis, if we were stuck. The image comes up of Sartre’s play “No Exit” when a group of three is stuck in a room with no means to transform their existence. The result is pure hell – no exit, no peace, no meaning, no movement.

A well-known quote from a Universalist states: “Universalists are often asked where they stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all, we move.” Universalists hope they do not rest their laurels on beliefs; rather they use their beliefs to move their souls and their world.

It is what we move and how we move that matters. That’s why when Bryan, whose insight and generosity birthed this sermon, asked me “What will Unitarian Universalism be in 25 years?” I had a lot to say. The beauty of this faith is ever becoming. Its richness is its momentum.

Rev. Bruce stood outside his home in the eye of a hurricane taking picture after picture of the bright blue sky – the calm amid the storm. When he returned to the pictures later he could not find the depth that had been unmistakable as he stood on the porch. He noted – “It’s hard to get decent snapshots of a hurricane’s eye, it’s like trying to take pictures of God.”

“It’s like trying to take pictures of God.” The bright blue in the middle of the chaos – the sudden sense that all of this craziness might mean something – feels astounding – it gives life, but you can't capture it.

A while back a controversy, a hurricane in its own right, swept through our Association. The question was – should we use a language of reverence or stick to the secular? Should we use the word “God” or “Grace” or “Beloved Community” or “Divine?” If we did what would we, as a non-creedal, open and welcoming association lose – and what would we gain?

The Reverend Christina Robinson responded: “There was a great hue and cry about UUA President Bill Sinkford's call in 2003 to develop a “language of reverence,” as if he meant to impose creed-like definitions on our life together; but after the dust settled, our freely chosen vocabularies started to thicken and deepen. It doesn’t matter which reverent words you use, after all, or exactly what they mean to you. What matters is that you use some.”

The language of reverence is a language of transformation. It is a language of movement. It doesn’t speak about what is here – but what we hope to become – it honors that bright blue sky in the middle of the chaos – that miraculous movement of life that could have no other name, and cannot be captured by any word that feigns a static description.

Rev. Bruce chose the words: “It’s like trying to take pictures of God.” Still images and still words miss the mark. The magic is not in the hue of the sky or the tips of the trees - the magic, the divine, God, whatever word of reverence you choose… is in the transformation, in the movement.

A hurricane was passing in all its violent glory through his neighborhood and through his understanding. As the hurricane moved it changed things – those who had been silent before, were speaking, a street became a community, but he and we cannot take pictures of transformation – its meaning is in its movement – how it leaves us and our world different than we were before. Jewish architects built spaces into their altars where the name of God might appear – but they never feigned the hope that God herself could pause long enough for humans to recognize her form. Similarly, the First Unitarian Church of Chicago attempted to display this potential by leaving one niche open in its Gothic architecture – right above the altar, open. The niche holds nothing particular – but can hold anything our minds and hearts experience as the Spirit of Life moves through us.

The capacity for transformation in the Unitarian Universalist faith makes our quest for meaning relevant – but it is also our history and capacity for transformation that makes our New to UU class so confusing!

At the class, I hand out a sheet that says “Historical Affirmations of the Unitarian Universalist Faith.” ... a confusing title in its own right … but it gets worse when we actually read these. The first affirmation is that “God is a Unity as opposed to a Trinity.” “Wait,” someone says – “I thought some of the members hold polytheistic beliefs… and what about Trinitarians, and what about Atheists, aren’t they welcome too?” “Exactly.” I say – and move on before anyone notices …

Actually, we will pause there and will begin to learn what this faith is truly all about.

Rather than a creed, we have historical affirmations – we have ideals and beliefs that have been proposed over time. When you read them you don’t see how they have been preserved, but how they have been transformed. For example, here is the second affirmation: “That all human beings can hope for salvation.” For early Universalists this meant that they could hope to make it, in due time (likely after eons of cleansing) to Heaven. For later Universalists it meant that there was no such place as Hell, only Heaven. And later it took on the meaning that we can all find salvation in this life – that we are not called to die well, but our calling is rather to live well.

It is these layers that make our faith rich – that tell the story of our movement, that teach us who we have become, and maybe a little bit about why. But each layer does not erase the one before – it adds.

A similar but not identical story is told on the walls of a house of worship I was privileged to visit in Cappadocia, Turkey. When you walk inside the structure – a cave carved our well before the Common Era out of the region's yellow-white rock, a bit of sunlight follows and your eyes can scan the walls. You see paint chipping off in slabs, revealing layer upon layer – year upon year. The last is pale and blank with bits of prayer in Arabic script. Under that are Byzantine symbols that once called to the minds of the worshipers their Gods and their Saints during a time when icons were rejected as unholy relics. And below that you see the face of Mary and Jesus – the images in warm hues, drawn with romantic reflection; and below that – just the bare walls of rock that were home to so many styles of the divine.

This house of worship was subject to change, but rather than transformation, in this place it was conversion. One way was traded for another and only years of decay revealed the motion. At the time that the actual change occurred, the believers painted over their past ways and exchanged them wholesale for the new method, and I can only imagine how much was lost in that process.

How many revolutions of spirit have been rewarded with violence – how many histories have been erased? How few have been lauded, in their time, with praise for their sacrifice – as they gave way to transformation?

Bryan, whose wisdom was the impetus for this sermon, believes that we are “transforming what it means to be religious,” that we are “the transformed and the transforming faith.” We do not paint over our layers but see them as phases in our movement – championing an openness to change – celebrating our transformation and even more so, the ways our work has and can transform our world.

Our time for all ages illustrated the potential of transformation. One line, one swath of color on a paper, will alter the way all the consecutive ones will be drawn. Notice I said alter, not determine. Our past does not determine our future. We can be informed by the past, by our experiences, by the bits we leave on paper or the bits of song that are left in our hearts – but the past does not control us nor determine our future.

Bryan says we are transforming what it means to be religious because we have traded dogma for covenant, because we have infused tradition with transformation. Dogma determines what we believe. Covenant aids us in developing our own beliefs as well as a common experience of the holy.

And this brings us to something else that confuses the New to UU class … what exactly do we mean when we say we are a covenantal religion?

One great metaphor for covenant is a single canvas. Rather than paint all our own individual pictures we gather to add our creativity - our individual sparks of divinity - to a common canvas. And as with painting, the magic resolves in the layers. The colors, the lines, and the meaning transforms when new layers are lain.

When we covenant together we do not simply add what we wish to add to the canvas or to the community, we add what we feel the canvas or the community needs to grow and to develop. We share our truth and we welcome the truth of others – knowing that we cannot help but be transformed in the process.

A covenantal community knows it cannot pictures of God, or paint perfection. It knows divinity, if it is to be found, will come forth in the transformation – in the momentum born of our religious creativity.

… So at this point in the New to UU class, someone - if they can wrestle up the courage - is bound to say “Then who is the boss? - Who tells me what to do when something goes wrong, or when I cannot find my way?” And I respond curtly – “I do.” and again quickly change the subject.

But that’s not it – it can’t be. As Unitarian Universalists soon learn – no question has an easy answer. Who is the boss? – the covenantal community is. It shapes how we behave together. It preserves an open niche where we can experience transformation. Who is the boss? – That spark of divinity that we all share is – the inherent worth and dignity in all is – the interdependent web of which we are all a part is – the relationship that we develop with God, or the Spirit of Life is. That which is greater than us is.

Where will this boss lead us? What will Unitarian Universalism be in 25 years?

Rev. Bruce stepped out in the eye of a hurricane and was transformed. The community he served in Knoxville bore unspeakable tragedy and walked through pain toward healing, toward forgiveness and was transformed. A few months past we welcomed a guest minister, Rev. Don Prang, who had stepped out of complacency and into the civil rights struggle and was himself transformed.

A few years past I met with a family in a hospital room, asked them how they wanted to share the last moments they had with their dying father, and I was transformed. I did not know who they were or what they wanted from a minister. I was scared to enter their pain – but the sense that I had to, bore me on and gave me the courage to speak and to be with them in the most tender moments of life. How could I not be transformed – walking with them in life, as we all together met death. How can we not be transformed as we do the same in community.

A hurricane, a striving for civil rights, a death - transformation is born of storms, of fury, of struggle, of tears. It rarely comes in peace or leaves in peace. It requires courage – a willingness to go where you haven’t gone before – a willingness to encounter exactly that which is frightening, a willingness to live in a place that is uncomfortable.

“The poet Annie Dillard once suggested that we ought to issue crash helmets and signal flares at the doors of our churches in case the Spirit of Life we sing to actually does show up and lay waste all our neat little liturgies.”¹ If we are going to continue developing and growing into the richly spiritual movement that I believe we can – and I know we must – become, we may need those crash helmets and those signal flares. We will need courage.

We may need to encounter individual barriers to transformation - perhaps the wounds we bear from past religious experiences, or fears of commitment, or a persistent discomfort with spiritual intimacy. And we will need to keep collectively pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist as we open our sanctuaries to people who may look different, speak different, sing off key, pray differently, vote differently, have different needs. Yes, we could choose not to. We could choose comfort over transformation, but I ask us to remember that there is no comfort in stasis … only no exit, no meaning, no movement.

We will need to embrace movement for ourselves and also for our children – because they need to learn by watching us – because their courage grows as ours grows.

I am not asking us to dive head first into all that ails us. We do not need to step out into every hurricane that passes overhead. As Rev. Bruce said – that would be naïve or morbid. But I am asking us to be honest with ourselves. I believe we are all in some way seeking transformation – seeking the experiences that will leave us and our world somehow different than we were before. This transformative faith has the capacity to serve our seeking. May we do likewise.

Amen.