Growing Beloved Community

Rev. Millie Rochester

March 29, 2009

Several years ago, I opened up the morning paper to the headline, in huge bold print, "Expect Change!" My first reaction was, "Well, DUH!!"

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times in the last week: The only thing certain in life is change. There's a reason some phrases become clichés – they are so very true.

These reflections are not what they started out to be. As you can see from the cover of our Order of Worship, this is Justice Sunday; my sermon title was to be “Growing Justice.” The work I began on that sermon will wait until another time.

About a week ago, I received news I thought you should know, and so I told you: another church is considering calling me as their next minister. In about three weeks, I will go to Winnipeg to preach and meet with the First Unitarian Universalist Church there; and a week after that, they will vote on the matter at a special congregational meeting.

For many of you, this news came as a shock. The landscape of this congregation was suddenly cast in a different light. What happens now? What will happen next year? Why would anyone want to live in Winnipeg? Has Millie lost her mind?!

Disorientation is not a comfortable state of being. A natural response is to seek comfort in what is familiar, what feels safe. Over the past four years or so, I have seen many of you find comfort - find sanctuary - here, in the space of this spiritual home. This is a safe place, in the face of personal loss, even in the face of calamity. When unimaginable tragedy struck, this is where you came, as individuals and in groups.

We need one another in times like that. But that's not the only time we need one another. This morning's sharing of joys and sorrows is proof of the familiar words of George Odell. I invite you to turn in your hymnal to reading #468 and join me responsively:

We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.

We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.

 

We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again.

We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone.

 

We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs.

We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.

 

We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.

All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.

This place is more than a place; it is more than an intentional community. It is a Beloved Community.

I associate that phrase, "Beloved Community," with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But it was first coined in the early days of the twentieth century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Reverend King was also a member of the Fellowship, and it was he who popularized the term, investing it with a deeper meaning and capturing the imagination of people all over the world.

Dr. King had a global, justice-oriented vision of the Beloved Community. He would be gratified that so many of our congregations are observing this day as Justice Sunday - but no-doubt disappointed that there is yet so much work to do - and he would remind us that, as we all know, justice is too big a goal to be relegated to a single day’s focus.

The phrase, "Think globally, act locally," applies to Dr. King's idea of the Beloved Community, which is why we can apply it to our faith community in the first place.

My colleague the Reverend Tom Owen-Towle, after retiring from a long ministry at our UU church in San Diego, wrote a book relating the concept of the Beloved Community to healthy congregations. He makes it clear that the Beloved Community is larger than an individual church or temple or mosque; it is a vision for all creation - a world made whole through love and understanding.

Beginning locally, in a healthy congregation, we grow the Beloved Community by providing one another with comfort, support and courage in times of sorrow and fear; by giving everyone a voice, in groups and individually, as we did yesterday during a congregational conversation about our mission; by encouraging unity amidst diversity, living the words of our Unitarian forefather Francis David - "We need not think alike to love alike." We strive for a balance of justice and joy, remembering the needs of the world while enjoying the abundance of our lives; and remembering to celebrate the abundance of our lives as we work to address the many needs of the world. Dr. King would be pleased by that.

The core value of the quest for Dr. King's Beloved Community was agapé love. This is not aesthetic or romantic love; or affection between friends. Rather, agapé is "understanding, redeeming goodwill for all," an "overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative"..."the love of God operating in the human heart." "Agapé...begins by loving others for their sakes...[it is] love seeking to preserve and create community."

The Beloved Community is born of this all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. But this isn't just theory, it belongs in everyday life.

One of the books on my shelf is Sally Patton's Welcoming Children with Special Needs. She relates a situation that came up at a workshop she was leading on spiritual parenting. A mother arrived angry, and spent much of the workshop crying. Her son Tim, six, has cerebral palsy. She described him lovingly as full of energy and a dynamo on wheels, though, she said, he sometimes involuntarily jerks his hands and his body as do many people with cerebral palsy. The mother had just received in the mail a photo of Tim's teacher, whose white shirt was covered with a large red stain. The note scribbled on the bottom, from the Principal, said that Tim's behavior was highly unacceptable and would not be tolerated. Evidently as the result of an involuntary spasm, Tim had knocked the juice cup from his teacher's hands, and the juice spilled on her blouse. She immediately assumed he had done it purposely, and he was punished.

Clearly, something was missing in that teacher and that principal: Agapé love.

Agapé recognizes the transformational Spirit of Life in each of us, reflected in the Sanskrit word Namasté, a statement of devotion which literally means "That which is holy in me honors that which is holy in you."

"The Beloved Community isn't a place, but a state of heart and mind, a spirit of hope and goodwill that transcends all boundaries and barriers, and embraces all Creation," says Tom Owen-Towle.

Transcending all boundaries and barriers, seen and unseen. Many years ago, when the Salem, Oregon congregation built a new church, members provided sweat equity in the process. After they had installed sheet rock and before they applied paint, each person scrawled her or his name on the wall. They repeated the same ritual when it came time to add a fellowship hall. These people will forever be intrinsically linked to one another and a part of that building.

A recent article in the Boston Globe tells a similar story:

Eighteen-month-old Kristen has a rare and aggressive form of cancer. What began as a tumor behind her eye has led to surgery and 38 weeks of weekly visits to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute...[for] powerful doses of chemotherapy.

 

When she showed up [recently] for another round of treatment...her cousin Megan pointed out the window of a third-floor walkway, [while] ironworkers perched on the sixth floor of a partially constructed building nearby hoisted a massive I-beam into place. It was emblazoned, in bright pink spray paint, with Kristen's name.

 

"Look out the window," Megan said, as she held Kristen in her arms. "There's your name up there. There's your name, Kristen." The girl, bald from her treatments, smiled shyly.

 

It has become a beloved ritual at Dana-Farber: Every day, children who come to the clinic write their names on sheets of paper and tape them to the windows of the walkway for ironworkers to see. And, every day, the ironworkers paint the names onto I-beams and hoist them into place as they add floors to the new 14-story Yawkey Center for Cancer Care.

 

The steel skeleton of the building is now a brightly colored, seven-story monument to scores of children receiving treatment at the clinic - Lia, Alex, and Sam; Taylor, Izzy, and Danny. For the young cancer patients, who press their noses to the glass to watch new names added every day, the steel and spray-paint tribute has given them a few moments of joy and a towering symbol of hope.

 

"It's fabulous," said Kristen's mother, Elizabeth, as she held her daughter and marveled at the rainbow of names. "It's just a simple little act that means so much."

 

Most days, the walkway fills up like the passageway of an aquarium, packed with children gazing through the glass. When a new name goes up on the building, the children cheer and clap.

 

The ironworkers made a similar tribute in 1996, when they painted the names of young cancer patients on beams they used to build the Smith Research Laboratories at Dana-Farber. This time, the ironworkers knew they wanted to honor the children again. Over the last month, they have painted more than 100 names on the building and emblazoned part of their crane with a likeness of SpongeBob SquarePants. They have also painted a few special messages on the steel, like "Hi Hanna Get Well ASAP :)"

 

[Just recently,] {according to the newspaper article,} crawling on their stomachs in the bitter cold and whipping winds, the ironworkers looked down at the latest batch of names posted in the walkway window. Looking up at them were Kristen and her sisters, Cathryn, 5, and Hannah, 3, who have been accompanying her to chemotherapy. They pointed as the ironworkers painted the girls' names onto the side of a 4-ton I-beam and hoisted it on to the seventh floor.

 

"She'll always be a piece of this building, which is a good feeling to have," Elizabeth said, holding Kristen. "They don't have to do this, the guys. They could just do their job and do a good job at it and give us a building that we can get treatment at, but they go the extra step and that's huge.

What a powerful story, complete with the components of Beloved Community that Reverend Owen-Towle cited. These steelworkers provide children and their families comfort, support and courage in the midst of fear and sorrow; in a unique way, they give children a voice - by proxy - through naming them, encouraging unity amidst diversity. And although they appreciate the abundance of health in their own lives, they clearly have the needs of others in mind.

Alone, in isolation, we feel helpless, overwhelmed, on emotional overload - what we're going through is just too potent. Consider the story of an aging Hindu master. He grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

"How does it taste?" the master asked.

"Bitter," spit the apprentice.

The master chuckled and then asked the young man to put the same amount of salt in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice had swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."

As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the master asked, "How does it taste?"

"Fresh," remarked the apprentice.

"Do you taste the salt?" asked the master.

"No," his apprentice answered.

At this, the master sat beside this serious young man who so reminded him of himself. Taking the young man's hands in his own, he explained: "The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things . . . Stop being a glass. Become a lake."

Altogether, in the Beloved Community, we become like that lake. Difficult situations are more manageable when we collaborate on the solutions together. So it is, as we consider the future, preparing even now for a congregational meeting after this service.

In this holy place, this Beloved Community, we can choose to accept the challenge to walk our talk, while staying in right relationship with one another, though we know that we won't always agree. In this place, we can accept - if we choose to - that we won't always be comfortable, but can still move into fullness of being, called out of the boundaries of our little selves. We can't always know where life will take us - I never dreamed I'd live in Florida, much less Winnipeg! - but we can trust in our ability together to make sense of life's twists and turns, for the road never really ends.

My own professional learning has taken me from being Director of Religious Education to Minister of Religious Education, to Assistant Minister, to Associate Minister, to...well, the next step has yet to be settled. Feeling off-balance should not be a surprise, for you or for me - because in order to take a step forward, it is by definition necessary to stand on just one foot first.

So many mentors have prepared me - including all of you - as I hope I have been instrumental in preparing you, for whatever comes next. As we continue to grow the Beloved Community, we are cradled by the spirit of all those who have gone before, by those present with us now, and by the Eternal Spirit of Love that embraces us all.

No matter where life takes me, your names will be forever inscribed on my heart. Blessed be. Namasté.