Reading #1 from Anything We Love Can Be Saved by Alice Walker (1997)

It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame.

This is the tragedy of our world.  For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile. 

Reading #2 from Audre Lorde in Black Women Writers at Work (1983)

I see [social action] as a genuine means of encouraging someone to feel the inconsistencies, the horror of the lives we are living. Social [action] is saying that we do not have to live this way. If we feel deeply, and we encourage ourselves and others to feel deeply, we will find the germ of our answers to bring about change. Because once we recognize what it is we are feeling, once we recognize we can feel deeply, love deeply, can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy. And when they do not, we will ask, "Why don't they?" And it is the asking that will lead us inevitably toward change.

Sermon

I've only been here for a few weeks now, and every day I learn something new about this town.  A few days ago, for instance, I learned that, while I don't personally hold a passion for baseball, I should always know how the Red Sox are doing if I want to get an accurate read on the emotions of the people who live here.  Friday night, by the way, the Sox won with a stunning 7th-inning grand slam home run sent over the Green Monster by Julio Lugo.

I've learned a little about this congregation too.  I've learned that we share a passion for justice, and a commitment to good works as an integral part of our religious experience.  Last week, when I came to my first church service here, I read the social action brochure after the service.  There are so many ways to be involved!  The brochure reminded me of a quote from one of Unitarian Universalism's most famous theologians, James Luther Adams.  He said, “Church is a place where you get to practice what it means to be human.”

And so I ask today, what is church for you?  Do you come here to practice your humanity?  For some people, church is a place of rest and comfort in an otherwise cruel world; for others church is a place of intellectual engagement or artistic appreciation.  For yet others, church provides communion with the soul and challenge to worldly change.

I came to First Parish because you are one of only two Unitarian Universalist churches in the country that offer a full-time community ministerial internship. You paired me with The Jericho Road Project, a social justice organization that grew out of this church's commitment to practice humanity as part of religious life.  It is because of this commitment that you added the Jericho Road Project to your formidable list of vital social action opportunities at First Parish.

I'm here because even the simple act of stuffing envelopes for a fundraising mailing in a social action organization like Jericho Road feeds my soul.  I'm here because church is where I go, not only to practice being human, but to face that spiritual challenge to be more human every day.  What is it about First Parish programs like Jericho Road, worship, the Grants Committee, Religious Education, the Open Table, the music program, Green Sanctuary, that feed your soul?

Unitarian Universalists often don't come to church in the summer.  But something brought you here today.  Most of the programs that I just mentioned are on hiatus in the summer, but you are not.  You could be at home right now reading the last book in the Harry Potter series - I hear that there are more copies available at the Concord Bookshop down the street if you want to grab one after the service - but instead you came to church.  Take a moment to think about why you showed up.

This religious endeavor to become more human is surprisingly counter-cultural.  We live in a world that teaches us to disengage from our own lives, from our own humanity – to live vicariously through the lives of celebrities, to subsume our lives into the fictional characters we see on TV, to fill our lives with so many tasks and events that we don't even take the time to eat or sleep, to rely on one-size-fits-all political parties, theologies, even hopes and dreams.  If I mention the American dream, how many of you automatically see a white picket fence?  I sure do.  The more we are told what the American dream is, the more effort it takes to imagine an American dream that means more.

Unitarian Universalism has a strong history of emphasizing human growth in religion.  This emphasis on humanity has also merged in Unitarian Universalism with a strong drive to build a more equitable world.  From Emerson to Thomas Starr King, from Urban Ministry to Seneca Falls, liberal religion that relies on the theology of the individual must also rely on the rights and uplift of all individuals.  

In these few weeks since I have joined you in Concord, I have learned  about more than the Red Sox.  I also learned that it was a Unitarian who founded the town of Lowell, MA, the city where First Parish now sends Jericho Road volunteers to pair with active nonprofit organizations.  This man, Nathan Appleton, was not a minister, but a Unitarian parishioner who, because of his religious convictions, found himself disgusted by the working conditions at textile factories in England and so invented a textile manufacturing process that relied on a living wage, safe working conditions and affordable housing and goods for textile workers.

Like many visionaries, past and present, Appleton's creation never lived up to his expectations.  Over his life, working conditions deteriorated at his Lowell factories, and Appleton never did make the ideological connection between the injustices of slavery and his use of cotton products in his factory.  After Appleton's death, Lowell became one of the many New England towns known for unionizing efforts, strikes, and major victories and losses in the struggle for worker's rights.

The 19^th century era of experiments in isolationist utopianism are over, but Unitarian Universalism retains both the commitment that Nathan Appleton demonstrated, the commitment to support those injured by current systems of injustice, and the commitment the that textile workers enacted time and time again, the commitment to uproot those unjust systems entirely.  And as Unitarian Universalists, we also inherit Nathan Appleton's flaws.  We too sometimes refuse to see that our creations, our good intentions, are not good enough, that our efforts of practicing humanity are marred by our limited understanding of how the dehumanizing forces of the world affect us.

Let me use an example.  A couple of months ago, I watched the new Spiderman III movie.  Spiderman, a superhero from a Marvel comic series, comes to life in this third big screen version as an increasingly self-absorbed man who is slowly being poisoned and corrupted by his superpowers.  The process is hurried along when he is infected with a black goo (there is no better word for it) from outer space.  Suddenly Spiderman's spidey-suit turns black and he becomes much more powerful.  His personality also changes; suddenly he becomes violent, womanizing, smooth-talking, jazz-loving, and foreign.  In the final scenes of the movie, however, he returns as our “friendly neighborhood Spiderman” victoriously in his red suit underneath a movie screen-sized American flag.

Now here is a movie that demonstrates the dehumanizing effects of culture.  No matter what our color, we are taught scene after scene in this movie that all the stereotypes of black people are true – that blackness equates with violence, power, disrespect, and the inevitable love of Jazz music.  We are also taught that blackness is foreign, in the movie so foreign that it is from outer space.  Is it any wonder that in a society that teaches us these lessons day after day, that our good intentions are often counteracted by the assumptions that we are taught?

We are a part of worldly religion; Unitarian Universalism always has been.  Even back to the days of Unitarians and Universalists arguing the nature of God and the afterlife, the focus was always on human capacity in the here and now.  This is theology; it assumes that human purpose is not to get into heaven or profess a belief in a specific type of God, but that human purpose is to participate fully in the development of our humanity while we live.  Unitarian Universalists have committed ourselves to this theology, not out of avoidance of some cosmic responsibility, but as a challenge to ourselves to participate fully in our own lives, in our own communities, and in the world.

Unitarian Universalists have lived the theology that our humanity is only developed fully when we recognize and support the full flourishing of the humanity of others.  This is why Unitarian Universalists band together to support gay marriage here in Massachusetts.  This may be why there are so many projects and opportunities listed in the social action brochure.  This is certainly one reason why First Parish created Jericho Road.

I, like many Unitarian Universalists, express this collective theology by participating in civic organizations.  As part of these organizations I am asked on occasion to develop my capacities by participating in trainings.  I remember the second time I was asked to participate in an anti-racism training, I said no.  When asked why I didn't want to participate, well, first I was flustered.  How could someone question my decision?  That was certainly tantamount to questioning my inherent worth and dignity!  I responded, with annoyance, I must admit, that I had already been to an anti-racism training, and I knew everything that they would teach.

Looking back on that moment, I realize that was one of my Nathan Appleton moments.  I did not recognize the depth of my investment in the system of domination set up in this country, and I was not willing to take off my rose-colored glasses and see the world through a new set of lenses.  I was not willing to admit that the world constantly and insidiously teaches me to dehumanize others, and therefore teaches me to limit my own humanity.

We all know the old adage, “No one is free when others are oppressed.”  This quote lets us know so forcefully that these dehumanizing messages that we incorporate unconsciously over our lifetimes serve no one, not even ourselves.  We dry up our souls when when we start to believe in our own superiority.  We dry it up because deep down, we know that our thinking is flawed, that we are human after all, and that nothing can make us more or less than that.

I practice being human by spending time figuring out to whom I am accountable. Accountability means, in my mind, developing a sense of responsibility to a person or group of people and then figuring out how to act on that sense of responsibility.  I find that this is a way to move beyond the detachment that I have been taught and into a place of learning to grow my soul.  As I work here in Concord at a Unitarian Universalist church, it occurs to me that I am certainly accountable to the people of Lowell, MA, who live in a town affected by my spiritual ancestor who both created and abandoned it.

So this is all really a sermon about feeding souls.  We come to worship to feed our souls, I stuff envelopes to feed my soul, but to feed our souls we must also unlearn some of our habits of a lifetime, habits that pit us in our minds against a lesser other, habits that reinforce unjust systems even as we work in our Parish for justice.  Let us feed our souls together.