A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church, Adelphi MD
March 7, 2010
Remember our Call to Worship this morning? What was going on in those words from the prophet Isaiah [Chapter 58] in the Hebrew scriptures? They began with “Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not hide yourself from your own kin?”
In the previous lines, Isaiah lambasts the people for their hypocritical worship on their fastdays. He says, “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?”
He contrasts what he sees among his people with what he knows to be acceptable to God. Which is: to work for justice, to feed the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your house. The prophet says that their relationships with the needy reveal their relationships with the holy. And, he says, if you do those things “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.”
In the next lines, Isaiah focuses on the relationships among his people, “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil… You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” The prophet says their relationships with each other reveal their relationships with the holy.
This text is thought to have been written 2500 years ago. Yet it sounds so contemporary! Human beings have not changed much in all this time! Like then, people today become preoccupied with their order of worship, the correctness of their theology or prayers, or Joys and Sorrows, what holidays they celebrate and how – and forget that what is most important is how they treat their needy neighbors, and each other. People did it 2500 years ago, and people do it now. People did it then, and – forgive me for sounding like the Prophet Isaiah – we are at risk for doing it too!
We could get so focused on reclaiming our space in the Religious Exploration building next door, transforming it and re-inhabiting it, that we could lose sight of the greater good we are here to serve with our resources, including our space.
We could rationalize that we need all this newly available space to serve our own needs, and even fight among ourselves (like the people of Isaiah’s time) about which group or program will get which room for what, and fail to see ways to also use it to serve the needs of the surrounding communities.
Why are we here? Does it matter to our neighbors that Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church is here? What do they know about us? Is it important enough to enough other people beyond our own members and friends that a Unitarian Universalist congregation meets and worships on Powder Mill Road between Riggs and Cherry Hill Roads? Would it matter if we disappeared? Are we here to serve only ourselves or to serve others as well? Do we loosen only the bonds of injustice that directly impact us, or are others oppressed in ways we are not, and are we called to help them to free themselves, as well?
I believe we are entering an exciting time in the history of this congregation. It began five years or so ago after the fire in the Religious Exploration building when a task force recommended and the congregation voted that the long-time, space-encroaching tenant’s lease not be renewed. The board at that time did not see its way clear to taking that step. But that recommendation and vote paved the way for the months of deliberation early in this fiscal year leading up to the courageous decisionby the Board of Trustees in November: to not renew the lease of our long-time tenant, launching what they called “Reclaiming Our Space” and paving the way for the exciting transformation of our RE Building into a visibly Unitarian Universalist gathering space, opening up new possibilities for our Religious Exploration program (for all ages) and for – to quote the board chair’s stewardship letter – “vibrant community ministry that actively engages our neighbors of all walks of life.”
Taking courageous stands is not new here. That’s one of the reasons I was drawn to be your minister! Your commitment to racial justice is truly historic for you. In March1965 you sent a delegation of eleven, your minister and ten lay people, to join the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery AL. And you put your money where your mouth and feet were, investing $10,000 of your building fund in Black Affairs Council bonds. The list goes on, in both advocacy and service work.
And another reason is the courageous internal work being done now by the Diversity/AntiRacism Transformation Team also known as DARTT. They offer six week small group ministry-type opportunities for intimate inter-racial conversation, film showings, Diversity Dialogues like the one next Sunday during Enrichment Hour, excellent newsletter articles,and other events, some of them public, like the upcoming April 3rd vocal workshop led by Ysaye Barnwell of the black women’s a capella group Sweet Honey and the Rock.
Speaking of courage, you were one of the first congregations to complete the Welcoming Congregation program of self-education on gay, lesbian and bi-sexual issues and rights, to earn the Unitarian Universalist Association’s designation as a Welcoming Congregation—since then extended to transgender people as well.
Also, you took the courageous initiative to raise enough money to install a geothermal heating system and energy-efficient safety windows in the RE building after the 2004 fire. (Even the fact that you built an RE building before you built a meetinghouse for worship says to me that you have the courage to do what you feel is the right thing to do).
Ours is not the only UU congregation to make a courageous move of late. The UU congregation in the Harrisbury, PA area recently did so. They bought a second building last year, in the midst of a recession, in this unfavorable climate, in a run-down section of downtown! But, they believed it was the right thing to do. Let me tell their inspiring story.
It began like ours did, with a decision by their board of trustees, in their case a decision to enter into conversations about taking over the old building of a dying downtown congregation that was nevertheless doing “incredibly powerful social justice work in the area, the kind of work our congregation keeps saying it wants to be supporting and doing” according to the November 2008 newsletter article by their board chair. It said, “if we can make this work, we will have the foothold we’ve long sought in one of Harrisburg’s most needy areas.” The board chair also wrote, “My perspective on this is that we have been given the kind of opportunity that you couldn’t find if you were looking for it. An unlikely series of fortunate events led to us even finding out about this.” That was just sixteen months ago.
Well, they did make it work! I called their minister, Howard Dana, this past week. He was happy to talk with me. He said that the idea was marketed to the congregation by the board as being “all about mission,” but in his mind it was also about their need for a larger sanctuary, because their small suburban chapel is packed on Sundays. By a vote of 123 to 101, the congregation voted to buy the building. Those opposed said that it was financially risky to burden themselves during a nationwide financial crisis.
They bought a 500-seat beautiful sanctuary in a prominent, but junk-filled, building on a main downtown street. During six long work-days last summer, they hauled huge amounts of stuff either to the curb where it disappeared into the neighborhood or to the town dump, and had to replace the leaky roof which had damaged the organ and balcony. Their members are working in many service programs at that site – such as tutoring, Saturday breakfasts, HIV testing, and more – plus they hold one of their Sunday morning worship services there each month (which are well-attended by the suburbanites, their minister told me), and had their largest Christmas Eve family service ever – 300 people in their new building, including some neighborhood folks.
He told me to tell you that it has been “exciting, and so health-full, for us to see beyond our own walls.” They have been doing anti-racism and anti-class-ism education like never before, he said, I imagine because their new involvements have shown them just how much they need it.
I told him that we are re-claiming our space. He suggested I ask you “What is the mission of PBUUC? And how could you use your newly reclaimed space to fulfill that mission?” Of course, you don’t need me to ask you those questions! You have already been asking yourselves! In the series of six town hall meetings in December and January, one of the questions raised was What community uses can we re-imagine for our RE Building? Many great ideas arose, including providing space for neighborhood meetings, tutoring for students at nearby High Point High School, creating an arts and music program for children and/or youth, somehow serving the needs of the many immigrants in the vicinity maybe by teaching English, offering a gay-friendly youth program, running a summer camp, and more.
As we begin today our annual Stewardship Drive, during which we are all asked to determine our financial pledge to support our church, and as we begin in the coming months to plan for the cleaning out and cleaning up, re-furnishing and redecorating our newly reclaimed space, we will also be excitedly looking forward to how to USE the space BOTH for ourselves and for our neighbors. Like the Harrisburg congregation’s purchase of a second building, both can be accomplished.
We may not be in the heart of the most needy area, but if we develop relationships with the institutions and people near us, we will learn about ways to work together and needs that we might meet. We have to be on the look-out for the kind of opportunity that “you couldn’t find if you were looking for it.” We have to be ready to notice “an unlikely series of fortunate events” that might lead us, like the Harrisburg congregation, to serve the community, not by buying another building, but by using our RE Building in ways that would make the Prophet Isaiah happy.
“To loose the bonds of injustice,” he said, “to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke… to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not hide yourself from your own kin.” Indeed, our kin include our nearby neighbors, and from what I have seen so far, we have not even met them yet and so can’t know yet how we might work together with them to make this a better world for all! I know that I do not! We have work to do, folks!
And let’s not forget, Isaiah also admonishes us to treat each other kindly, no “pointing of the finger,” no “evil speaking.”
And if we are faithful to the prophecy of Isaiah, then what? “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly…You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
Our light shall break forth like the dawn, and our healing shall spring up quickly. We shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring whose waters never fail!
In short, this congregation will be a beacon, it will be healthy, it will grow like a watered garden, and have unending energy like a spring whose waters never fail!
Let the people say: Amen!