A sermon preached by the Rev. Diane Teichert
Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church
May 22, 2011
Our reading this morning, Rev. Marta I. Valentin’s poem (“The Resting Place Makes the Journey Doable” in Encounters edited by Paula Cole Jones, Beacon House 2011), speaks to us about where we are, where Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church is, on its journey to wholeness. It speaks to us about where we may be as individuals, too, on our journeys toward wholeness.
The poem says we need resting places, but one gets the feeling that we are not to rest all that long! Its says that the resting place makes the journey doable, but the poem starts with movement: “The Spirit moves, the Spirit moves us, The Spirit moves our bodies, our souls, our hearts, our hands, our feet, our heads, our thoughts…” Its rhythm is like a pulse and its verbs are active. Even the four blessings of Fire, Water, Earth and Air are about rising, burning, washing, burying and blowing. And in its very end, it’s about ever dancing to the rhythm of our own soul. Where was the resting place?
We’ve been moving, we are moving, and we come together on Sundays for a resting place – for ourselves in our personal journeys to wholeness – and also for recouping our energies for our collective journeys toward wholeness – toward our visions of wholeness for the earth, the world, our country, state, county, towns, our families. Sometimes, like at least weekly, we just need a resting place on these many journeys, an oasis, a pause that refreshes, a time of calm, reflection, insight, communion with each other and that which sustains us separately and collectively, the spirit of life of which we sing at the end of the service.
The congregation has been on its own journey toward wholeness for a long while and most recently, officially, since its June 2007 annual meeting. At that meeting, you (I quote from a letter to the members by the then President of the board Paul Wester) “signaled the congregation’s readiness to undertake a journey toward greater diversity, inclusiveness and understanding by voting overwhelmingly to make Anti-Racism the congregation’s principal social action initiative.” He went on, “The Board of Trustees of PBUUC is excited to formally endorse and support the congregation’s Anti-Racism Initiative and invites you to enter, rejoice, and come on the journey.”
That summer, of 2007, the Diversity Anti-racism Transformation Team (known as DARTT) was formed. It planned and announced the first of what has by now been nearly four academic years of adult discussion programs aimed at increasing individual and congregational understanding of race, ethnicity, privilege and oppression in our society. It has been meeting the terms of its charter, adopted by the Board the following April, in 2008, which stated “The mission and ministry of the Diversity/Anti-Racism
Transformation Team (DARTT) are to raise awareness about racism and promote personal transformation and spiritual growth that will intentionally move our congregation to become a truly welcoming, multi-racial, multi-cultural community.”
These past four years, quite a number of you have participated in one or more of those programs – book discussions, film series, covenant groups, diversity dialogues – might you raise one hand if you have? Leave those hands up please. And how many more of you have attended one or more of the summer services led by DARTT or one of their Kwanza or Martin Luther King Day services? Please raise your hand if you have, or raise your other hand if one is already up. As I suspected! Except for the newest attendees among us, most everyone has participated. And, now, keep your hands raised another moment while anyone who has ever planned or led one of the DARTT programs or worships, please stand. Now, let’s all clap our hands, raised or not, in appreciation for their time, energy, thought, caring and creativity.
Building on our participation in Diversity Anti Racism Transformation Team programs and worship services, I believe we are ready to become an intentional multicultural congregation. I believe we are ready to move the work of transformation to the next level. We will continue to change and grow as individuals, of course, but I believe we are now ready to transform our organization and then our congregation.
I believe it is time to commit ourselves, our Board of Trustees, our staff, every committee and lay leadership team and program we offer to doing the work of transformation in its own domain. It’s time for every aspect of congregational life to ask itself: how can we contribute to moving our church to be a multi-cultural congregation? Is there something we need to understand anew in the light of diversity, or something we need to do differently, or present differently, or add to what we already do, to be intentional about being multicultural?
It’s time for every aspect of church life to engage in reflection and action on diversity, antiracism, multicultural goals so all aspects of congregational life contribute to and are ready for multi-culturalism.
Why are we doing this? Let me tell you a story. One Sunday last year one of the parents in the congregation told me that her child, an elementary school student, had asked her, “How come kids like my friends in school don’t come to our church?”
He attends a multi-cultural, multi-racial public school. He is white, as are most of his friends at church. He is wondering why.
What is he learning about us and about Unitarian Universalism when he observes that most of his friends at church don’t look like most of the kids at his school? That we don’t like his friends or their parents, that we don’t want them here, that we wouldn’t welcome them if they came, that this isn’t the place for them, that our faith would not speak to them?
Another story. Some years ago, I was interviewed to be the minister of a UU congregation in a suburb north of Boston across the river from an old mill city, that had for long attracted immigrants, in recent decades, Latino and Asian. All of the members of the search committee were white but one. She was Latina and also the youngest, probably in her thirties. When going around the circle of introductions came to her, she explained she grew up in the city, near the bridge to this suburb, and never even heard of Unitarian Universalism until after she’d graduated from college and when she did, she knew right away it was for her, and she just didn’t understand why we Unitarian Universalists hide our light under a bushel. So, she asked me, if I became their minister, what would I do to bring our faith out into the light?
Another story… it happened at General Assembly, the annual national gathering of Unitarian Universalists referred to as “GA” (can you imagine singing our hymns in a convention hall with 5000 other UU’s? plus workshops, speeches, lectures, and plenary sessions – this year being held not that far from here in Charlotte, North Carolina from June 22 to 26th so I hope many of you will attend). One year at GA, I met an older-than-I African American woman who was a delegate from the Baltimore congregation. We got to talking. She was raised Baptist, had become disengaged and not attended church for quite some time. Yet she felt she needed some kind of religion and a faith community. So, she’d borrowed a book from the library on American religions. It was her bedtime reading. She was working her way through it when, one evening, she read about the Unitarian Universalists. Well, she became so excited that she pulled on her bathrobe, found the phone book, and looked up the address of the nearest of these churches. It was downtown, she realized she had been by it a million times but had never noticed it, got on her slippers, grabbed her keys and drove right on down there so she’d know exactly where she’d be going on Sunday!
If you think of the organization of our church as lots of small groupings of people with TO DO Lists, then what I think needs to happen is that the tasks associated with becoming multi-culturally competent and diverse must show up on all the TO DO Lists now, not just DARTT’s. Whether it’s the choir, our Chalice Dancers, our visual arts, the church office, the RE Program for children and youth, the minister, Social Action Committee, Green Team, the spirituality circle or the Quest discussion group, or Buildings and Grounds… each will find ways to contribute and participate, change and be changed in this effort.
In every aspect of congregational life, we can intentionally plan with a multi-cultural future in mind. In everything from readings and sermons to buildings and grounds; in our music, visual arts, and dance; to who we hire for what, where we advertise, how we invest our money; what we teach our children; and what community projects we engage in and/or support financially. Those who have planned and attended DARTT programs can be resource people, and there are many sources of support and information, both UU and beyond.
We are not the only congregation intending to be multi-racial. All Soul’s Unitarian in the district is well on its way, as is the Annapolis congregation, newly so. And many more. The UU church in Littleton MA is on the same path. That is where the author of this morning’s poem, Marta Valentin, is minister now, after a two-year ministry in New Orleans, where she arrived right before the hurricanes hit. She describes herself as a “Latina minister” and says she grew up Catholic in Spanish Harlem, New York City. Now 53, she first moved to Boston to be a radio producer and landed a job at the NPR affiliate WGBH. All along, she roamed spiritually, dabbling in different traditions. It was in 1989 when she discovered Unitarian Universalism and found her spiritual home.
“Someone took me to a UU church in Boston,” she says. “A lesbian minister was in the pulpit, a jazz trio was playing, it was Easter Sunday, and my first reaction was, this is church?”
In an interview published in Littleton’s local paper at the time of her installation there last fall, Valentin explained that “multiculturalism is not a question of being colorblind, but rather a deliberate intention to be more open and inclusive that is reflected in everything a church is and does, from the pictures on the walls to the stories told to children.”
Speaking of children, what about that child, our child, the one who asked his mother, “How come kids like my friends in school don’t come to our church?”
The first possible answer is that kids like his school friends are not here because they and their parents have not been invited.
Second, if they were invited, they didn’t think it sounded appealing, so they did not accept the invitation.
Third, if they attended, they didn’t find it likable and so they didn’t return.
Fourth, if they returned, they later decided it wasn’t for them.
At each possible step along the way, something didn’t happen that might have. Our liberal theology isn’t for everyone, but I believe it is for many more people and many more kinds of people than we currently include. They just don’t know about it yet.
First, invite people! We need to get over our religious introversion and share about our faith tradition and religious community with more kinds of people, and not make assumptions about who would, and who would not, be interested! As Peter Morales, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association and himself Latino, has said, we don’t need to sing in Spanish to attract Latinos – there are many Latinos who, like him, are native English speakers, seekers of community, wholeness and the spirit of life. Issue the invitation! Most people join a church because someone invited them to attend!
And as our immediate past UUA president, himself African American has said, it’s not true that all Blacks are Christian. Many are looking for a more liberal theology and are seekers of community, wholeness and the spirit of life. Issue the invitation! Most people join a church because someone invited them to attend!
Second, make it an appealing invitation! We need to be ready to describe Unitarian Universalism and Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church in an appealing way. Start with your own experience – speaking from your heart will connect to theirs. Share about the caring, insights, social justice commitments, spiritual growth, energy, emotion, depth, fellowship, growth, camaraderie, or whatever it is that you experience here. Be so convincing, so appealing that the invitation is accepted!
Third, help make their first visit likeable! Offer to meet them ahead of time in the parking lot. Walk the deck together. Introduce them to the Greeter at the Welcome Table if there’s time, help them follow the Order of Service and find the hymns. Afterwards, don’t let them get cornered by one well-meaning person; introduce them to me, a few of your friends, the Greeter, and/or someone with whom you know they share an interest. Before they are ready to leave, invite them to sign up at the Welcome Table for our newsletter, and show them the literature table. As you walk to your cars, ask them what in the service resonated for them, what was familiar, what was surprising? Tell them that each service is different from the next, so come a few times, and that you hope to see them next week. Follow up.
Fourth… well… after several visits, if they decide this cannot be their spiritual home, it may be the truth, that we are not a good fit for them, or it may be that we need to learn to do better at helping newcomers find an entry point into congregational life. If that’s the case, it will be time for a pause, for renewal and reflection, because…as the poem says… the resting place makes the journey doable. No one said the journey would be easy.
As our Worship Associate, Don Mitchell, said in his Chalice Reflection some minutes ago, our life is an accumulation of experiences that make us who we are. If we take the time to reflect on them, they prepare us for our future. This is no less true of congregations than of individuals. Today, during Enrichment Hour, you are invited to a congregational conversation in which we will reflect on our experience with Diversity Anti-racism Transformation in the last four years’ experiences and, I hope, prepare for our future as an intentional multi-cultural congregation.
The children are wondering.