ANOTHER CHRISTMAS CAROL

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachussetts
Sunday December 18, 2005


A man and his wife were sitting together in their living room one Sunday afternoon when suddenly he turned to her and said "Just so you know, I never want to go on living in a vegetative state dependent on some machine. If that ever happens, just pull the plug." So his wife got up and unplugged the TV.

We are now, of course in the midst of the season when television abounds with football games, feel-good advertising, and of course those classic Christmas stories, the annual Holiday Specials we’ve all doubtlessly seen dozens if not hundreds of times. Movies like Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart in the role of George Bailey, and Donna Reed as his devoted wife. Or “Miracle on 34th Street” staring Maureen O’Hare as a progressive single mom and Edmund Gwenn as the kindly but eccentric Kris Kringle, and featuring a young Natalie Wood as Mrs. Walker’s precocious daughter Susan, who grows to discover that there is a Santa Claus after all. How many of us have been tempted to bring home a less-than-perfect Christmas tree after being inspired by “A Charlie Brown Christmas?” And who could possibly forget Ralphie Parker’s quest for a Red Ryder BB gun in the aptly-named “A Christmas Story?”

But perhaps the best-known and most widely-broadcast sentimental Christmas Story of all time is the one which essentially defined the genre: Charles Dickens’ often-adapted Victorian novella “A Christmas Carol,” which turned the characters of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim into both household names and enduring icons of Popular Culture, and made the phrase “bah-humbug” part of our common Christmas lexicon. I don’t know for a fact whether Dickens’ original tale is the most frequently-dramatized non-biblical Christmas story ever, but I do know that a quick Google search will turn up dozens of different variations. The benchmark, of course -- the standard against which all other Scrooges are measured -- is still Alastair Sim’s 1951 performance (which has now been colorized for the appreciation of a whole new generation of digital cable viewers). But let’s also not forget Albert Finney’s brilliant 1970 characterization, or those of George C. Scott (who had already won an Oscar for his performance as General Patton) and Patrick Stewart (perhaps better known for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: the Next Generation).

And then of course there are the knockoffs. Bill Murray, one of the original Ghostbusters, played the title role in 1988’s Christmas Turkey “Scrooged,” while Henry Winkler (who in happier days was better known as “The Fonz”) tried his hand back in 1977 in a version set in Concord New Hampshire during the Great Depression entitled “An American Christmas Carol.” More recently Kelsey Grammer, who has made an entire career out of playing the character of psychiatrist Frazier Crane on “Cheers” and its subsequent Seattle-based spin-off, starred in a musical adaptation that also featured Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander in the role of Marley’s ghost.

And finally there are the animated versions: not only my personal favorite, “Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol” (from 1962), but also “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” (from Disney), and “The Muppets Christmas Carol” (with Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, and actor Michael Caine in the role of Scrooge), not to mention versions featuring both the Flintstones and the Jetsons. Let’s just face facts: at this time of year, Scrooge is ubiquitous. And it’s a miracle that there’s enough Christmas to go around.

So what is the enduring appeal of Dickens’ one hundred and sixty-two year old Christmas morality tale? And could it possibly have anything to do with the author’s own Unitarian beliefs? That’s what I really want to know: is the timeless popularity of “A Christmas Carol” simply a manifestation of its straightforward expression of the classic Unitarian values of liberality and compassion, together with its profound belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and its unshakable, optimistic faith that no person is ever beyond redemption, simply through the power of honest, introspective self-examination to evoke transformative change?

Dickens wrote his novella at a time when the celebration of Christmas itself was undergoing a dramatic transformation in the English-speaking world. Seventeenth-century New England Puritans had essentially outlawed the celebration of Christmas in this part of the world, objecting among other things to the obvious fact that many of the most recognizable symbols of the season: holly, mistletoe, and the yule log, for example, were all unquestionably of pagan origin. Meanwhile, back in Merry Olde England (as well as in other parts of North America) “keeping Christmas” had all the solemnity of the old Roman Saturnalia from which the holiday is originally descended: a rowdy celebration of the Lord of Misrule, during which gangs of intoxicated working-class men would “go a’wassiling,” presenting themselves at the front doors of the gentry to demand their “figgy pudding” and other gifts of food and drink, and refusing to go until they got some.

Dickens and his Unitarian co-religionists, on the other hand, represented an element of society which was literally attempting to “domesticate” Christmas: to move it (in the words of historian Stephen Nissenbaum) out of the streets and into the parlour, by transforming the season from a drunken revel into a pious, child-centered “frolic” devoted to the celebration of family, the exchange of uplifting, inspirational gifts, and acts of Christian charity directed toward the less fortunate. We see these same sentiments expressed in the opening chapters of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, where the March sisters celebrate the holiday with “a good deal of laughing, and kissing, and explaining, in the simple, loving fashion which makes these home-festivals so pleasant at the time, so sweet to remember long afterward....” Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy keep Christmas by exchanging small, practical gifts, putting on a play of their own creation, and accompanying Marmee on her charitable errands to the immigrant poor of Concord.

Yet there is another dimension to these sentimental 19th century Unitarian Christmas stories as well. Many literary critics have read Dickens’ tale as a commentary on the increasing sharp class divisions brought about by industrialization, and a plea for a return to more traditional, interpersonal values, when the physical and material distance between employer and employee was not nearly so great. We see this sentiment clearly expressed at the conclusion of Dickens’ story, where Scrooge feigns anger at Bob Cratchit when he arrives late to the office on the morning after Christmas, and then, after declaring “I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer” proceeds to discipline his tardy clerk by raising his salary, while at the same time promising to assist the struggling Cratchit family in whatever way he can, and sending Bob out to buy another coal scuttle before he dots another “i”.

“Scrooge was better than his word,” the narrative continues. “He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing every happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.”

Scrooge’s personal transformation in many ways mirrors the metamorphosis that Dickens would have liked to see take place throughout Victorian society. But there’s a lot more going on here than the simple, cartoon-like, childish notion that the “Spirit of Christmas” somehow has the magical power to change even the most recalcitrant old miser. University of Tennessee professor Richard Kelly put it this way:

“A Christmas Carol is built upon numerous contrasts: rich and poor, warmth and cold, plenty and hunger, family and loneliness, generosity and miserliness, affection and cruelty, dream and reality, freedom and compulsion, past and present, and present and future. Most of these opposing forces are recapitulated within the character of Scrooge himself. The cold-hearted, compulsive, lonely, miserly man, who eats his abstemious meal in the shadows, emerges from his dreams, memories, and fears, into a generous, fun-loving, warm, caring fatherly man. The texture of the story, rich with contrasting imagery, prepares the reader for Scrooge's conversion well in advance of the concluding chapter. True, this is hardly a realistic tale -- indeed, it resembles a fable with its cautionary note about human behavior -- but it renders a powerful psychological account of the fruits of introspection.

“The three stages of Scrooge's conversion--the detailed memories of a lonely childhood, an awakened vision of the suffering and joys of those presently around him, and his fear of future loneliness and an awareness of his own mortality -- combine to change him into a decent man, one who goes on to earn from those who knew him this crowning accolade: ‘it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge’.”

The very word “conversion” implies a certain degree of religious or spiritual transformation. Yet consider the actual source of Scrooge’s rebirth. On one hand Scrooge realizes through his encounter with the Spirits that, compared to the people he sees around him, he has the financial means to be generous if he chooses: he has accumulated enough personal wealth that he can afford to keep Christmas as well as he likes, if only he wishes to do so. But more importantly, he has also discovered the price that he has paid personally in order to acquire those riches -- how his single-minded pursuit of “more” has cost him love, joy, his youthful happiness, family connections and human warmth, even his physical health and material comfort. He lives, not like a truly wealthy person, but like a miser whose own greed prevents him from enjoying the fruits of his supposed prosperity. Scrooge has been measuring his wealth in the wrong currency. And when he realizes how impoverished he truly is, THEN he becomes a changed human being.

Today’s sermon is supposed to be the last in the series I’ve been preaching all this past fall about “The Purpose Driven Unitarian.” And the topic for today was Affirmation: Witness, Outreach, Evangelism, Mission...transforming our lives by giving ourselves the purpose of transforming the lives of others, by sharing the good news of our saving message of hope, that people are precious and that together we have the ability to make the world better for everyone.

Many contemporary Unitarian Universalists feel a litle uncomfortable about thinking of themselves as “evangelists” or “missionaries.” The idea of “sharing” our faith with others feels a little pushy, especially if we’ve ever felt afflicted by someone who wanted to share their faith with us. But if we reflect upon the example of Dickens’ “Christmas Carol,” we will see that it is certainly possible to promote the ideas and values of our liberal faith without being obnoxious or domineering or imposing ourselves on others, and that the best example of the value of our beliefs is our own lives well-lived in the compassionate service of all humanity.

We need MORE Scrooges in this world. Not the old, stingy, small-minded Scrooge, huddled in his dark, cold counting-house hoarding even the lumps of coal in his coal-scuttle. But the enlightened, transformed and generous Scrooge, who has become the Spirit of Christmas incarnate, a living (albeit fictional) symbol of the redemptive power of self-understanding, compassionate service, and loving relationships. May our own lives also embody and testify to these same values, not only in this holiday season, but throughout the entire year. And in the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, Every One!”

SALVATION BY BIBLIOGRAPHY

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle Massachusetts
Sunday December 4th, 2005


Opening Words: My Symphony by William Henry Channing

To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;
To bear all cheerully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never;
To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.



[Extemporaneous Introduction]

I know it may seem a little strange to some of you who are perhaps still a little new to Unitarian Universalism, that the minister should take a Sunday off every once in awhile, and let someone else -- and not just another minister, but someone from the congregation -- have a turn in the pulpit. But the way it was explained to me is that, if a minister is any good, then we deserve a Sunday off every now and then; and if we aren’t, then the congregation deserves one. But from my perspective, the best thing about letting somebody else have their say every once in awhile is that once they’ve done it themselves, they generally develop a lot more appreciation for what I do all the other weeks of the year. And it sounds to me like Roy also had a chance to experience how much fun it can be as well, simply to follow the thread of your own curiosity while at the same time attempting to shape a message that will be inspiring, and enlightening, and encouraging for others. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it can be quite rewarding, especially on those rare occasions when everything comes together just right. But mostly it’s just a discipline which takes on a rhythm all its own, and around which every other aspect of a preacher’s life revolves.

Today we come to the fourth topic in this informal series I’ve been preaching about “the Purpose-Driven Unitarian,” which Rick Warren would call “discipleship” but which I generally refer to under the more general heading of “education.” A disciple is basically just a disciplined religious learner; and discipleship is simply a specialized kind of apprenticeship, where the learner/the apprentice/the disciple is not only expected to master a particular set of skills or techniques, but also to develop certain insights, personal beliefs, and ethical values, along with a profound sense of principled moral integrity -- qualities which educate the soul as well as the mind. Discipleship is about both Doing and Being: not just how well we perform, but who we ARE and how well we express that identity in every other aspect of our lives.

The title of today’s sermon -- Salvation by Bibliography -- is actually something that was once said to me by an older colleague who was trying to explain why so many UU ministers have such huge personal libraries, and why whenever someone comes to us with a problem, more often than not one of the first things we do is recommend a book about it. It was a tongue in cheek remark, with a sharp edge of truth, all based on the realization that none of us in this line of work really feel like we are smart enough to do the job the way it really ought to be done. So we surround ourselves with the wisdom of the ages, hoping that perhaps some of it will sink in. During his lifetime, Theodore Parker (the 19th century Unitarian minister for whom my dog is named) had a private library of some fifteen thousand volumes -- it was the largest library of its type anywhere in North America at the time, and (just for purposes of comparison) was about five times as large as mine, which (as some of you know) is already overflowing my office and crowding me out of the parsonage as well. Bibliomania is an obsession not only tolerated, but actively encouraged among Unitarian Universalist ministers, “...an innocent habit” the Rev. John Haynes Holmes wrote in his autobiography I Speak for Myself, “to be indulged, I believe, to the limit of ambition.”

***My library proliferated like a biological organism. It grew into hundreds, then into thousands of books. Each new volume, like a newborn infant, was classified and then placed upon the shelves, there to produce a little library of its own, in its own proud field of learning. Just to look at this collection of books, lined up like soldiers at drill, was to be instructed, inspired, uplifted by the discipline of imagination and order. To handle them by taking them one after another haphazardly from the shelves, if only to caress their handsome bindings, and consult afresh their learned indices, is to feel the gates of wisdom swing wide to our approach. Then there are the first editions to be sought out once again, the authors’ inscriptions and signatures to be re-examined, the classics to be consulted for fresh study and delight. “Have you read all these books, Grandpa?” asked a skeptical young miss on a certain day of intimate disclosure. “No, my dear,” was my reply, “I don’t believe I have read half of them. But I know what’s in them all, and why they are here.” I count this the real justification of the private library. To have the great books on hand, and the current books as they pass by, to be used when needed or desired!***

I can also still remember the first time I ever read that passage, shortly after receiving a copy of Holmes’ autobiography as a gift from the personal library of the retired Universalist minister Tracy Pullman, when I was still a divinity student at Harvard. Tracy actually gave me two huge paper grocery sacks full of books, which I had to carry home with me on the Red Line in the dead of winter. But when I was finally able to unpack them and put them up on the shelves of my snug little room in Divinity Hall, they warmed the place better than a fire in the grate, and made me feel cozy and at home. It was more than just a gift of paper. It was an intellectual legacy being passed down from generation to generation: an act of faith and trust that I would carry on the good work which Tracy had done for an entire lifetime.

It used to be that erudition and personal piety were the two criteria on which aspiring ministers were examined prior to being approbated for ordination. Nowadays we’ve changed the labels somewhat, but the qualifications are still pretty much the same: an appropriate academic credential, plus good “people skills” and a somewhat vaguely-defined quality known as “ministerial presence,” which as best I can tell is a delicate balance of gravitas and levity which allows good clergy to take their work seriously without necessarily taking themselves TOO seriously. Good ministers need to be sensitive, but not thin-skinned; we need to be smart but not arrogant; confident, but also humble. And since none of these combinations really comes naturally to a normal human being, it takes a lot of practice to get them kind of close to right, which is why clergy consider it such a blessing to serve generous and forgiving congregations, especially early in our careers.

Of course, sensitivity, intelligence, confidence, humility, a thick skin and an open-minded, non-defensive attitude are not merely attractive qualities for ministers only. Together they describe a style of spiritual wisdom which represents an important asset for any person of faith. And it’s not necessarily something that can be learned from books. Academic scholars often differentiate between formal theology and what is known as “lived religion” -- the kinds of spiritual beliefs and practices which shape and inform the everyday experiences of ordinary people’s lives. The two are obviously related, but they can also be quite distinct. You don’t need to have a graduate degree in theology in order to live an ethical and meaningful life. Most of the values by which we live our day to day lives we learned from our parents, or from our peers...from friends, family, mentors, colleagues, coaches, neighbors, perhaps even ministers or Sunday school teachers. These lessons may have started out in books, but now they have made their way into the very fabric of our lives and our society. Tell the truth. Be honest, and true to your word. Don’t take advantage of those who are weaker than you, but do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

What other lessons have you learned, and where did you learn them? And how has “reality” sometimes tempted you to compromise your “childish” beliefs about right and wrong? We all know that life isn’t always fair, and that often the experience of disappointment or betrayal can leave us feeling wounded, bitter and cynical. Often we may feel that our innocence makes us vulnerable, and that we need to protect ourselves by acting in ways that we know under “normal” circumstances wouldn’t be right. At times like that it takes a lot of moral courage to refrain from doing something you just know deep down in your heart is wrong, even though you can rationalize it in your mind as necessary and justified.

Of course, there are some people who never really do develop that basic ethical conscience most of us form in childhood...who are incapable of real empathy, or perhaps even of anticipating the consequences of their own bad behavior on the lives of others. Scholars call them “sociopaths,” and they generally do require very specific rules and a fair amount of supervision to keep them on the straight and narrow. But most of us are capable of policing our own lives, while at the same time protecting ourselves, to a large degree at least, from the bad behavior of others, without resorting to bad behavior ourselves. Even honest people can be victimized and exploited. But innocence does not necessitate naiveté -- it is possible to live one’s life in reasonable safety by faithfully practicing a few simple precautions, without necessarily assuming or expecting the worst from every situation we encounter.

Our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors used to talk about this process of educating one’s conscience in terms of two closely related ideas. The first was the notion of “Self-Culture.” And the second was a doctrine known as “Salvation by Character.” Both shared a belief that the human soul was something organic, like a flowering plant, which if properly cultivated (or “cultured”) would blossom into something at once both beautiful and useful. The “fruit” of this process of cultivation was Character: a distinctive and essential pattern of personal attributes which embodied moral strength, self-discipline, and the various other exemplary characteristics of a principled and virtuous life. By educating the moral sentiment, through (for example) exposure to uplifting works of literature, and by exercising their moral fiber through acts of charity and the performance of other good works, our liberal religious forebearers attempted to transform their lives into living testaments of their religious values.

For Rick Warren, of course, discipleship is ultimately about following and imitating Jesus, and the list of uplifting books begins with the Bible. Character is formed by overcoming adversity and resisting temptation, as we grow to spiritual maturity “transformed by Truth.” The nineteenth Century Unitarians and Universalists who practiced Self-Culture would have agreed with all of this. But they also looked for inspiration beyond just the Christian tradition, to the scriptures and sacred writings of the world’s other great faith traditions, where they discovered passages like this in books like the Tao Te Ching:

Cultivated in the individual,
Character will become genuine;
Cultivated in the family,
Character will become abundant;
Cultivated in the village,
Character will multiply;
Cultivated in the state,
Character will prosper;
Cultivated in the world,
Character will become universal.

May it be as true in our time as it has been in all times, as we work to transform our lives into worthy testaments of our faith....

KOINONIA

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday November 20th, 2005

I want you to know that at the top of the pad of paper that I use each week to organize my thoughts, before sitting down on Saturday to write them out word for word, was the note “Find a better joke.” I guess last week’s offering (originally written by Carlislian Stephen Wright) about “breakfast anytime” being “French Toast in the Renaissance” was just a little too obscure, so this week I was prepared to spend several hours finding something better. And then yesterday morning I opened my e-mail and there was this, from Beliefnet’s Joke of the Day.

Three children were talking about their religions. "I'm a Catholic," said one, "And our symbol is the crucifix." "I'm Jewish," said the second, "And our symbol is the Star of David." The third child said, "I'm a Unitarian Universalist and our symbol is a candle in a cocktail glass!"

We’re about halfway through now this informal series I’ve been preaching this fall about “The Purpose Driven Unitarian.” This all started out, you may recall, when I realized that the five pillars around which I have built my ministry for the past fifteen years or so: Worship, Education, Fellowship, Community Outreach and Pastoral Care, were virtually identical to the five purposes described by megachurch pastor Rick Warren in his best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry and Evangelism. And so I thought it might be kind of fun for me to explore how my ideas about these important spiritual topics might be a little different from his, and also where they overlapped. So two weeks ago I spoke on the topic of Worship, which is not only a celebration of the Creative Power which gives us life, but also an expression of our gratitude for that gift, which we demonstrate through our devotion to the things “that make God smile,” and the sacrifices we willingly make in order to achieve a higher purpose. And then last Sunday I spoke about the idea of Vocation, or “calling,” and how we might each discern our unique spiritual gifts for service by listening to our Hearts, applying our Abilities, empowering our Personalities, and employing our life Experience in order “to be of use” to our neighbors and the Greater Good. And on future Sundays, as we move on into the holidays, I intend to talk about Education, and the process of “self-culture” by which Unitarians and Universalists have traditionally continued to grow and improve ourselves spiritually; and also Outreach, or the ongoing commitment to affirming and sharing our free religious faith in ways that transform the world.

But today we are at the heart of the matter. Today’s topic is community, or in Greek koinonia -- a word whose core meaning is “shared” or “common,” and which is often translated into English as “fellowship” or “communion.” Community is about the common life we share with one another, our shared interest in a common whole, the communion we enjoy in fellowship with one another, within our communities of faith. It’s about our shared goals and values, our common dreams and aspirations. The experience of becoming part of an authentic community is one of the most commonly shared motivations for joining and attending a religious organization -- and this is true regardless of denomination, and across the entire spectrum of theological belief. Within Unitarian Universalism we sometimes describe our congregations as “communities of memory and hope,” shaped by covenants of mutual trust and support. But no matter how we may choose to frame the subject, a sense of community truly is at the heart of the matter. What do we commonly share, and with whom do we commonly share it? Answer these questions, and you will know in which community (or communities) you belong, and from which you are excluded.

The New Testament uses several other metaphors to describe what it means to be part of a community of believers. And the first of these is the word “church” itself, which in Greek is ecclesia -- those who have been “called out.” The Apostles Creed uses the phrases “holy catholic church” (hagian katholiken ecclesian) and “communion of saints” (hagion koinonian) to describe two of the key beliefs of second century Christianity. The Greek word hagios means literally something that is consecrated or set aside, while the word “catholic” (with a small “c”) literally means something that is liberal, universal, and all-inclusive (again, from the Greek words kata and holos: “completely whole”). Thus, one of the earliest understandings of Church in the Christian tradition was an all-inclusive community of those who had been called out and set aside to enjoy fellowship with one another. The Latin version is even more striking. To be called is to have a Vocation. To be set aside is to be Sanctified. And fellowship -- koinonia -- is Communion, which of course is how all communal communistic communities commonly communicate.

A second, and probably even earlier New Testament metaphor for the church is that of “the Body of Christ” with its “many members.” Those of you who have recently been to an Easter Service here at FRS will probably be familiar with this notion -- it is the community of the faithful who “stand again” in the place of their crucified teacher who comprise “the risen body of Christ.” And although the early church quickly moved away from this metaphorical understanding of the resurrection to a more literal teaching about the resurrection of the flesh, it is unquestionably a central image in the original letters of Paul, and remains a compelling understanding of community today: a diverse gathering of individuals who embody a shared heritage of instruction along with common traditions, goals, and values.

I know that on many occasions I’ve described one of the responsibilities of ministry as that of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” It’s a cute little maxim, with its clever verbal parallelism, but in many ways it is also deceptively superficial in its cleverness. Ministers lead communities of faith, and they lead them through Service, by both precept and example. Ministers are expected to practice what they preach, and to be an inspiration to others, and of course it’s understood that we never screw up or make mistakes. Ministers attempt to embody the ministry of the church -- not so that the rest of the community can thereby be excused from their responsibility to serve, but rather so that they might be guided in it. And these responsibilities for shared ministry basically fall into two areas.

The first responsibility is to hold people safe. To let them know, by our physical presence if nothing else, that there are other people in the world who care for them, and are concerned about them, even at those times when they may feel most alone. We can’t always protect the ones we love from every contingency of human existence. People suffer, and feel pain; they experience failure and frustration and loss...but as long as there is a compassionate community of the faithful who are willing to share those burdens by making them common ones, life’s afflictions become a little easier to endure.

And the second responsibility is to hold people accountable: to help them see (and perhaps at times even to compel them to see) that the decisions we make and the actions we take all have consequences, which not only effect our own lives, but also the lives of others, in ways we can’t always even begin to imagine or anticipate. Life is a series of choices, and each decision we make typically cuts off the opportunity to make some other decision somewhere down the line. Not always, of course. Sometimes we recognize our mistakes in time; sometimes life offers us “do overs.” Some people simply blunder through life never worrying about the consequences of their behaviors (and typically leaving a broad trail of wreckage behind them), while others are so concerned about the possible consequences of their decisions that they become paralyzed, and incapable of taking any action at all. Holding people accountable (and perhaps more imporantly, our own willingness to be accountable to other people) is about both discouraging other members of the community from making bad choices, and encouraging them to act on the good ones.

These basic lessons of safety and accountability are nothing more than what any half-way decent parent would attempt to teach their own children. We want our young people to know that they are loved, and we want them to understand that their choices have consequences for good or ill. And this brings me to a third metaphor for what it means to be part of a religious community, which is the understanding that we are all children of God, and brothers and sisters to one another. The experience of being part of a family is our earliest experience of community, and in many ways we never really get over it. Likewise, the time we spend with our children is precious and irreplaceable -- and once it is gone, we will never get it back again. And this is why it is so important that, rather than allowing church to conflict with your family activities, you need allow church to BECOME a family activity. Church needs to be something that we all do together, so that our children can learn from our example that they are safe, that they are loved, that their decisions have consequences, and that they should always try to choose the path in life that leads them to the good: to joy, to happiness, to real and meaningful accomplishment, rather than that other path that leads disappointment and suffering and harm.

Creating a healthy community, and sharing in its common life, requires several important personal qualities. It requires Commitment -- a willingness to make the community a priority in our lives, and to give our best selves to it. It requires Honesty: the commitment to being truthful with one another, and to communicating openly and frankly. It also requires Humility: the recognition that none of us are perfect, or more important than those around us, and a conscious decision to be patient, to be understanding, to be forgiving of our natural human foibles as we all attempt to understand one another and find our common way. Healthy community requires Civility, or at least a certain degree of Common Courtesy. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we all need to insist on a lot of formality; rather it means respecting the dignity and integrity of everyone we meet, and recognizing that the values we share in common are much stronger than the disagreements that push us apart. Healthy community insists upon high levels of Trust, and Trustworthiness -- an attitude which is ready to believe the best about other people, and which respects privacy and confidentiality while resisting the temptation to gossip. Finally, healthy community requires high levels of Participation, so that being fully present for one another becomes a matter of habit rather than an act of will. The more time we spend with together, the more of ourselves we are willing to invest in our relationships with one another, the better we will get to know each other, and our community will be better and stronger for the experience.

Of course, even the best communities sometimes experience conflict. And this is where I find Rick Warren’s insights especially fascinating. (I suspect that with a congregation of more than ten thousand members, he’s had a fair amount of experience in these matters). According to the Sermon on the Mount, Peacemakers are blessed as the Children of God. Yet peacemaking is not about avoiding conflict, or running from it or pretending it doesn’t exist. Rather, peacemaking grows out of the recognition that relationships are always worth restoring, especially if we value being part of God’s family. Here are Rick Warren’s seven biblically-based steps for restoring conflicted relationships.

1) Talk to God before talking to the person. “Tell God your frustrations. Cry out to him. He’s never surprised or upset by your anger, hurt, insecurity, or any other emotions. So tell him exactly how you feel. Most conflict is rooted in unmet needs. Some of these needs can only be met by God. When you expect anyone -- a friend, spouse, boss, or family member -- to meet a need that only God can fulfill, you are setting yourself up for disappointment and bitterness....”

2) Always take the initiative. “It doesn’t matter whether you are the offender or the offended: God expects you to make the first move. Don’t wait for the other party. Go to them first....Delay only deepens resentment and makes matters worse. In conflict, time heals nothing; it causes hurts to fester....”

3) Sympathize with their feelings. “Use your ears more than your mouth....Begin with sympathy, not solutions. Don’t try to talk people out of how they feel at first. Just listen and let them unload emotionally without being defensive. Nod that you understand even when you don’t agree. Feelings are not always true or logical. In fact, resentment makes us act and think in foolish ways....”

4) Confess your part in the conflict. “Confession is a powerful tool for reconciliation. Often the way we handle a conflict creates a bigger hurt than the original problem itself. When you begin by humbly admitting your mistakes, it defuses the other person’s anger and disarms their attacks because they were probably expecting you to be defensive. Don’t make excuses or shift the blame; just honestly own up to any part you have played in the conflict. Accept responsibility for your mistakes and ask for forgiveness....”

5) Attack the problem, not the person. “You cannot fix the problem if you’re consumed with fixing the blame. You must choose between the two....”

6) Cooperate as much as possible. “Peace always has a price tag. Sometimes it costs our pride; often it costs our self-centeredness. For the sake of fellowship, do your best to compromise, adjust to others, and show preference to what they need....”

7) Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution. “It is unrealistic to expect everyone to agree on everything. Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, while resolution focuses on the problem. When we focus on reconciliation, the problem loses significance and often becomes irrelevant. We can reestablish a relationship even when we are unable to resolve our differences...we can disagree without being disagreeable....God expects unity, not uniformity, and we can walk arm-in-arm without seeing eye-to-eye on every issue. This doesn’t mean you give up on finding a solution. You may need to continue discussing and even debating -- but you do it in a spirit of harmony. Reconciliation means you bury the hatchet, not necessarily the issue...”


When we discover how to focus on the things we have in common, when we are realistic in our expectations for ourselves and others, and when we consciously decide to be encouraging and supportive, rather than critical and uncooperative, authentic community is close at hand. So reach out to your neighbors and fellow creatures, in a spirit of love and concern, with an attitude of honesty and accountability, and in a covenant of mutual trust and support, and know that we share both memories and hopes, which are the substance of our common life together.

TO BE OF USE

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle Massachusetts
Sunday November 13, 2005



I thought I might start out this morning by sharing one of my favorite stories from Divinity School. A chicken and a pig were walking down the street when they came to a diner with a sign in the window that said “Breakfast Anytime.” The chicken says to the pig, “you know, you and I should get together and do something like this to serve our neighbors and fellow creatures.” And the pig replies “that’s easy for you to say. For you, bacon and eggs is just a donation. For me it’s a life commitment.”

OK, here’s another variation. A chicken and a pig were walking down the street when they came to a diner with a sign in the window that said “Breakfast Anytime.” So they went inside and ordered French Toast...in the Renaissance....


I feel very strongly that laughter is an essential element of a healthy human spirituality. We all need to be reminded from time to time not to take ourselves too seriously, to keep our grandiose pretensions in balance, and to remember that sometimes the universe surprises us in ways we can’t avoid or control, and which make a mockery of all our attempts to do so. And this is true even when (and maybe even especially when) the world doesn’t seem to give us much to laugh about. Wars and riots and earthquakes and hurricanes: so much suffering, and so little we seem to be able to do about it. Our donations seem like only a drop in the bucket, and even if we were to commit our entire lives to the cause, it just doesn’t feel like it would be enough. Nor do we really have the option of simply walking through an open door and emerge in in a better place and time, no matter how much we may daydream about enjoying French Toast in the Renaissance.

Yet the temptation, at least, to attempt to seal ourselves of from the unwelcome intrusions of the wider world is almost as overwhelming as the events themselves. At times it seems to me as if our entire social economy is built around this seductive fantasy: that if we could just somehow acquire enough power, if we could just somehow acquire enough wealth and status and worldly “success,” we might also somehow insulate ourselves behind high walls and locked gates from all life’s suffering and the misery of the world. Personally, I’ve never been wealthy or powerful enough to know firsthand whether or not this is true, but everything I’ve ever read on the subject tends to make me skeptical. Wealth and Power can obviously buy a certain degree of physical comfort and security, and perhaps even a measure of envy and respect from one’s less-fortunate neighbors (emotions which unfortunately lead just as often to resentment as they do to admiration). But the obsessive urge to acquire more and more beyond a certain level of safety and comfort might easily be considered a form of mental illness, especially if it done at the expense of the more fundamental social relationships with friends, family, and neighbors which ultimately make like meaningful.

Figuring out “how much is enough” is one of those problems everyone should have. Yet I don’t want to make light of it either. The challenge of balancing our ambitions for worldly success with the spiritual wisdom that teaches us simply “to be of use” to others is a difficult one. It’s more than just an inability to distinguish between our “wants” and our “needs.”’ Rather, this challenge reflects a need to differentiate between our natural but often unhealthy desires to achieve, to acquire, and even to dominate, and the equally powerful human aspirations to create, to understand, to love and be loved, to achieve inner peace, and perhaps even leave a lasting and meaningful legacy that will endure beyond our lifetimes.

These are the qualities that mark the difference between a life that is only self-serving, and life devoted to the service of others. It’s not just a matter of choosing between selfishness and selflessness. Rather, it’s the recognition that our own happiness is ultimately best served through a life that looks beyond ourselves alone to the safety and prosperity and happiness of others as well. It really is just that simple. And yet how quickly and easily we come to forget it when events in the world around us make us feel anxious and afraid, and our efforts to change things for the better seem futile.

The subject of altruism -- an unselfish concern for the welfare of others -- is something of interest not only to ethicists, but also biologists. One of the reasons that 19th century evangelical Christians like William Jennings Bryan (of Scopes Monkey Trial fame) were so opposed to the teaching of evolution in schools was their belief that the philosophy of Social Darwinism, with its soulless doctrine of “survival of the fittest,” tended to undermine more traditional religious teachings about compassion for the poor (ironic when you think about how these respective ideologies have evolved in our own day). When I was a freshman at the University of Washington, I had a biology teacher who was determined to convince us that, in the natural world, so-called examples of real altruism were merely myths, and that animals always instinctively act in their own genetic self-interest. I especially remember him explaining how one of the classical examples of animal altruism form the ancient world, the famous stories about dolphins who rescued shipwrecked mariners from drowning by keeping them afloat and assisting them to shore, was actually just an anthropomorphic misinterpretation of the natural playfulness of these intelligent marine mammals. “We’ll never really know,” he told our class one morning, “how many shipwrecked sailors were almost safely to the beach when a group of dolphins swam along and pushed them out to sea again.”

But it turns out that my freshman biology professor didn’t have it entirely correct either. Many intelligent social animals -- not just dolphins, but also apes, and dogs, and even rats -- demonstrate a fairly well-developed sense of empathy, and at times behave in ways that might even be considered compassionate. Yet they are also capable of organized and premeditated violent aggression, as well as acting with both self-sacrificing courage, and self-centered cowardice. They can be both generous and duplicitous, both kind and cruel. So it would appear that the so-called “natural” world is actually a lot more complicated than perhaps at first we thought. And the great insight of biology is not so much that we are no different than other animals in our struggle for survival, but that in many ways some animals, at least, are little different from us.

Returning for a moment to the realm of human ethics, altruism might best be described as coming in at least three distinct flavors. The first of these is generally characterized as enlightened self-interest, in which our generous good works also contribute to a greater good from which either we or those close to us also benefit. The second consists of the proverbial “random acts of kindness” where our good deeds may not necessarily benefit us directly, but they don’t really cost us much either. And the third is the genuinely self-sacrificial, that “last full measure of devotion” which we praise so profoundly as a society at times like Veterans Day, and for which we reserve our highest public praise and honor. Biologists may be skeptical, but community, society, even civilization itself, all depend upon a certain degree of altruism -- a spirit of public service in which individuals do not merely seek to serve their own self-interests (whether enlightened or merely avaricious,) but also commit themselves “to be of use” to the greater good. True Community is built upon a foundation of reciprocal obligation and mutual trust, and without them Civil Society truly does devolve into the law of the jungle, and a Hobbesean war of all against all.

Ideals of public service and nobless oblige are deeply rooted in both the Universalist and the Unitarian traditions. The Scripture teaches that “from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded;” and both Universalist farmers and Unitarians merchants and mill owners took this prescription very much to heart. Yet “Christian Charity” was not considered merely an activity for the well-to-do. The “genteel poverty” of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, with its family values of service, duty, sacrifice, and love of neighbor, reflects an understanding of “usefulness” which places our ability to do good for others squarely at the center of our own self-worth, regardless of our family’s net worth. My favorite statement of this 19th century commandment “To Be of Use” is the motto of Edward Everett Hale’s “Lend a Hand Club” (which I know we have read here in church before). “I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

These notions of usefulness were also intimately connected to the idea of Character, and to the traditional religious doctrine of Vocation. The belief that every individual not only has a general but also a specific “calling” from God -- a potential, a destiny, which is uniquely our own and which it is our duty to fulfill -- is a persistent theme in American religious life, from the days of the Puritans down to our own. Yet sometimes this encouragement to “follow our bliss” becomes disconnected from the more basic responsibilities of love of God and love of neighbor. People find their identity in their relationship to a community as much as they do from the introspective examination of their own souls. Who we are and what we do not only reflect one another, they also shape and define one another, as we grow over time into the individuals our Creator intends for us to be.

In his bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life (which you may recall was the inspiration for this series of sermons), Rick Warren uses the acronym SHAPE to describe his understanding of how people of faith might best determine the unique contribution which each of us is called to make, and through which our lives find their true meaning, when we commit ourselves fully to achieving it. ‘S’ stands for the discernment of “Spiritual Gifts.” These gifts are talents and abilities which have been freely given to us, but which we must first “unwrap” before they can be put to use. No one individual receives every gift, yet when we use our gifts together cooperatively everyone benefits. ‘H’ stands for listen to your Heart. One of the ways we discover our gifts is to pursue the things we truly love, to be honest with ourselves rather than following the tastes of the world. The things that excite us, the things which most interest us and command our attention, the activities which we naturally embrace with enthusiasm and enjoyment, are fantastic clues for determining where our true gifts may be found, and where they may find their best employment. And the opposite is also true: if there are some activities which you always seem to find frustrating, or which cause you to grow easily discouraged, perhaps your gifts lie in other areas.

‘A’ stands for applying your Abilities. We all have different gifts, but we also have abilities which we have worked to develop, and which reflect our spiritual gifts honed to a high level of skill. Applying our abilities means using our skills for the good of others rather than mere personal satisfaction, and remembering that whatever we do in life should somehow reflect our higher purpose. ‘P’ stands for empowering our Personalities. It’s not just our skills, but also our temperaments, that make us who were are. Some of us our introverts, and some of us are extroverts. Some of us are very practical and detail oriented, while others are more emotional, or perhaps enjoy vivid and creative imaginations which allow them to see things that others don’t. Some of us like variety, and some of us like routine...but understanding how our personalities work and what our preferences are likewise an important step in defining our unique call to service. Finally, ‘E’ stands for employing our Experience. Not everything we try in life turns out as well as we hope it might. But even our failures and disappointments can teach us things that will someday prove useful, and which are often more important than the things we learn from success.

So, discern your Spiritual Gifts, listen to your Heart, apply your Abilities, empower your Personality, and employ your Experience. And above all, remember than we live not for ourselves alone, but for all the living creatures who have come before us, or who will follow after.

Last Monday I attended the reception for Hal and Shirley Sauer at the town hall. And I was very moved by the brief speech Hal made after receiving his award, after all the other speeches describing Hal’s decades of service from being a Cub Scout leader to his current work on the Board of Appeals. It was just two sentences, and although I can’t remember it word for word, here’s the gist of it: “If all the work I did over the years did some good for the town, that’s great. But it was nothing compared to the good it did for me to do it.”

I personally find Hal’s example very inspirational. And I hope it will be an inspiration for all of you as well.

MORE THAN A CELEBRATION

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle Massachusetts
Sunday November 6th, 2005

It’s a fairly well-known point of minor historical trivia that the inspiration for Emerson’s “spectral” preacher, immortalized for generations of subsequent seminarians as the stellar example of what a minister should aspire NOT to become, was none other than the Reverend Mr. Barzillai Frost, junior colleague to Ralph Waldo’s own ninety-year-old step-grandfather Ezra Ripley just up the road at the First Parish in Concord. And I suspect that at least some of you knew this already, since it tends to be something that virtually every incoming Harvard Unitarian Universalist Divinity Student learns sometime during their first semester, and then often incorporates into one of their early student sermons. Emerson’s Divinity School address is perhaps the next best thing to scripture in our denomination, at least for clergy, and his admonition to “acquaint men [and one assumes women as well] at first hand with deity” is a charge which every rookie Unitarian Universalist preacher learns to take seriously. Yet one of the details often overlooked in those early student sermons is that Barzillai Frost faithfully served the people of Concord for two decades, and left those duties behind only when failing health forced him out of the ministry (and into an early grave) when he was still in his fifties, while Emerson resigned his pulpit at Boston’s Second Church after only three years, (although, in fairness, he then went on to become one of the most celebrated American writers of the 19th century, before finally passing away only a month shy of his eightieth birthday).

Here’s another seldom-mentioned bit of trivia about the Divinity School Address. Scholars believe that the “devout person who prized the Sabbath,” who Emerson overheard “say in bitterness of heart, ‘On Sundays, it seems wicked to go to church’...“ was actually Emerson’s own wife Lidian, and her comments were inspired, not by her local pastor Barzillai Frost, but by a visiting preacher, her husband’s half-uncle the Reverend Samuel Ripley. So even in the same family, people have different tastes. And although Emerson himself would later write in his essay on Self-Reliance “I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching,” like his wife he also prized both the sabbath and a good sermon. At the conclusion of the Divinity School Address he characterized preaching and the sabbath as the “two inestimable advantages Christianity has given us” and challenged his listeners to “let the breath of new life be breathed by you through the forms already existing” rather than attempting to invent something new. The Sabbath he described as “the jubilee of the whole world, whose light dawns welcome alike into the closet of the philosopher, into the garret of toil, and into prison cells, and everywhere suggests, even to the vile, the dignity of spiritual being,” while good preachers “speak the very truth, as...life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts...with new hope and new revelations....”

Bold statements like these may suggest to some that Sunday is really all about the sermon, along with the implicit corollary that without good preaching, the sabbath is basically a waste of time. Yet I doubt this is truly what Emerson had in mind. People spend their Sabbath attending church and participating in public worship for all sorts of other (some might even say better) reasons than listening to a sermon. Some come for the music, so that they might feel uplifted and inspired in ways that mere words can never really manage to achieve. Some come simply to see their friends, and to feel connected to a society of “neighbors and fellow creatures” with whom they share a common history, common values, and a common vision of the future. Or perhaps they are feeling alone and fragile, and long for that sense of connection to something larger and more enduring than themselves.

These are all great reasons for coming to church, and investing (I won’t say “spending”) ...investing an hour or so of our lives each week in the routine attempt to forge a connection, a “communion,” with something greater than ourselves alone: to a wider community of friends and family, neighbors and strangers, each of whom has inherent worth and dignity, and who together form part of the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are also a part; or to that vital Force which gives us life, and the powerful Spirit which gives life meaning -- to become part of the Circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and to know, deep within our hearts, that we are both part of the whole and still whole within ourselves. This is why people come to church, and wouldn’t it be great if it happened for everyone every Sunday. But you’ll have to confess, that’s a pretty tall order. Yet hopefully, on any given Sunday it happens for someone, and over time we all have our turn.

These are some of the reasons people come to church. But what do we actually DO here? And by this I don’t mean the important but mundane (that word means “worldly” by the way) work of institutional maintenance. Rather, what do we do when we participate in an Act of Worship? The word “liturgy” means literally “the work of the people” -- so what kind of religious or “spiritual” work are we talking about when we create a “liturgy” together?

Obviously the preaching has something to do with it. Saint Augustine once wrote that the purpose of a sermon is “to instruct, to delight, and to inspire” which logically leads me to the assumption that the purpose of listening to a sermon is to be instructed, delighted, and inspired. But there’s obviously a lot more going on here than just a sermon, which at best takes up only about 25-30% of our time together. So what else do we do in the way of “people work” during this hour on Sunday morning? And what do we hope to get back in return for our efforts?

I’d like to suggest that there are actually at least four different activities that comprise the work of worship, some of which overlap, all of which go together, and which build upon one another in order to change both our lives and the world for the better.

And the first of these, the one we talk about all the time, is the work of Celebration. Celebration, in the sense of its original Latin root, is the work of honoring or praising publicly -- it is the same root as the word “celebrity” -- and it also has a technical meaning in the sense of performing the ceremony of the Roman Catholic Mass, or formally observing any other public “holy” day. But I prefer the colloquial definition, which is “to have a convivial good time.” Celebration is the unrestrained expression of pure human joy. It’s a party, where we loosen up and let our hair down and just take pleasure in the experience of being alive. To worship is to celebrate: to honor and praise the force which gives us life, and to manifest that force in meaningful ways which fill us with a spirit of love and compassion and transform us into something better and greater than we now are.

But worship is more than just celebration. Worship is also an act of Devotion, through which we demonstrate our commitment to the values and principles that make our lives meaningful. Devotion is one of those great religious words which we hear all the time, but rarely take the time to ponder. A devotee is basically anyone who has taken a vow, and who by doing so not only becomes devoted, but also devout. The word simply oozes with connotations of piety and holiness, but generally when we hear it in ordinary usage it is almost always in the context of marriage and family: the devoted husband, wife, parent, child...people who are bound together not only by formal vows, but by bonds stronger than any vow. Yet ultimately these avowed obligations which bind us together are religious in nature: they also bind us again (RE-ligious) to something larger than ourselves, which was here before we got here and will still be here when we’ve gone.

The work of Worship also often includes an act of personal Sacrifice. In fact, if you just think back a bit about the likely historical and anthropological origins of worship, sacrifice was probably right there at the top of the list from day one. Sacrifice means giving up something of value, typically with the expectation of receiving back something even more valuable. Primitive people offered sacrifices of animals and agricultural produce -- and sometimes even the lives of other human beings -- in order to appease angry gods, or perhaps in the hope of cultivating divine favor. When someone sacrifices in baseball it means giving up an out in order to get a run, or at least to move a runner into scoring position. Yet on another level sacrifice is also an act of submission, acceptance, and obedience: the recognition and acknowledgment that there are certain things which are simply beyond our own power to control, and that we sometimes need help from a higher power in order to obtain or achieve the things we truly desire.

In the ancient world the sacrificial system also often functioned as a vehicle for the redistribution of wealth and the creation of social capital. Those who had been blessed with a bountiful harvest were expected to offer the first fruits of their produce to God at the local temple, where it went to support the priests and was also redistributed to those in need. The word “sacrifice” itself means, literally, “to make sacred.” When we surrender or “give up” some portion of ourselves and our goods to a greater power or a greater good, we undergo a process of personal transformation which somehow brings us closer to the power of Goodness itself, creating a relationship of trust and mutuality in which we receive back in proportion to what we have given away. It’s almost as if, by letting go of some things we create an open space in our lives which can then be filled with something else. When we stop trying to grasp and cling to everything in reach, our hands miraculously become free to embrace something new and different and even more precious.

This brings me to the fourth thing I wanted to talk about today, which is that the work of worship is also often simply an expression of Gratitude, which manifests itself through acts of Love and Creativity, Charity and Generosity. And it’s funny how those two sets of words have such different connotations, even though they are essentially synonyms. Charity MEANS Love. Generosity IS Creativity.

Gratitude is an attitude of thankfulness, and is related to a variety of other familiar English words which share the same Latin root: gratify and gratification (as in to give or receive pleasure or satisfaction), gratuity (which is generally some sort of gift or monetary “tip” for service), gratuitous (something that is uncalled for or done without sufficient reason), and of course gratis (meaning “free”).

Both charity and generosity also carry with them this same deeper sense of something ”freely given,” which is one of the things that differentiates these words from more general understandings of love and creativity. A profound sense of Gratitude is at the heart of many of the core values which inform both authentic spirituality and a meaningful religious faith and practice: compassion, hospitality, humility, forgiveness, to name just a few. We express our gratitude for what we have received -- beginning with the precious gift of life itself -- by “paying forward” to those in need: a tangible celebration of our devotion to a greater good, and the sacrifices we willingly make in order to attain it.

A few weeks ago you may recall I mentioned Rick Warren’s idea that worship is anything that makes God smile. I love this image, and try to keep it in mind throughout the week as I prepare myself to stand up here and lead our weekly worship service. It is a work we do in partial fulfillment of the mission explicit in our covenant: “to the end that all souls might grow into harmony with the Divine.”

And over the years I have learned to look for God’s smile in the smiling faces I look forward to seeing here every Sunday, as together we “raise a joyous noise to the Lord” and gather for prayer, and to make our offerings, and to hear a little preaching which attempts, at least, to convert life into truth, and thus bring us closer to both God and one another.





READING:

Preaching is the expression of the moral sentiment in application to the duties of life. In how many churches, by how many prophets, tell me, is [hu]man[ity] made sensible that [we are] infinite soul[s], that the earth and heavens are passing into [our] mind[s]; that [we are] drinking forever the soul of God?...

Whenever the pulpit is usurped by a formalist, then is the worshipper defrauded and disconsolate. We shrink as soon as the prayers begin, which do not uplift, but smite and offend us.... I once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to say, I would go to church no more....A snow storm was falling around us. The snow storm was real; the preacher merely spectral; and the eye felt the sad contrast in looking at him, and then out of the window behind him, into the beautiful meteor of the snow. He had lived in vain. He had no[t] one word intimating that he had laughed or wept, was married or in love, had been commended, or cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and acted, we were none the wiser for it. The capital secret of his profession, to convert life into truth, he had not learned. Not one fact of his experience, had he yet imported into his doctrine. This man had ploughed and planted, bought and sold; he had read books; he had eaten and drunken; his head aches; his heart throbs; he smiles and suffers; yet was there not a surmise, a hint, in all the discourse, that he had ever lived at all. Not a line did he draw out of real history. The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life, -- life passed through the fire of thought. But of the bad preacher, it could not be told from his sermon, what age of the world he fell in; whether he had a father or a child; whether he was a freeholder or a pauper; whether he was a citizen or a countryman, or any other fact of his biography.

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

a homily delivered by the Rev. Dr. Tim Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle MA
Sunday October 30th, 2005

This is a time of year when the Realm of the Living and the Realm of Death seem especially close together. It is the season of harvest, when growing things that have ceased to grow are gathered from the fields and into barns. It is also the traditional season of slaughter, when animals fattened on the abundance of summer were butchered and “cured” in anticipation of winter. It is the season of autumn, the twilight of the year, when the trees drop their leaves and the weather grows cold, and the earth shifts into survival mode. And it is also the time of year when we seize back that extra hour of sleep in the morning that we sacrificed the previous spring, in exchange for an extra hour of recreational daylight in the evening.

This is also a season when many societies set aside time to remember their departed loved ones. All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Halloween, the Day of the Dead...occasions when we come together to recall the lives of those who went before us, and to whom we owe so much. We celebrate their lives, and grieve their deaths, clean up the cemetaries where their bodies now rest, come together as families to renew connections, and revitalize our relationships with one another. Because this is a season when the Realm of the Living and the Realm of Death seem especially close together.

In just a few moments we will begin reading the names of our own loved ones who have passed away, and whose memory remains dear to us. And there are a couple of names on that list I’m pretty sure are familiar only to me, so I thought I’d say a few words about them now, just so all of you will know who they are. The first name is John McClure. The Thanksgiving after I had moved back to the Pacific Northwest from West Texas to start working as a new congregation organizer, I found myself urgently in need of a plumber, having foolishly tried to stuff all the potato peelings down the disposal at the same time, only to have them revolt and refuse to go. So I desperately opened up the yellow pages and started letting my fingers do the walking: Roto Rooter, Rescue Rooter, Reliable Rooter...and then I saw an ad that simply said “The Sewer Man With a Conscience.” It even had a picture of a little angel working a drain-cleaning snake. So that was the number I called, not at all sure that anyone would even answer; but when someone miraculously did I told him my problem and where I lived and what my name was and as we approached the end of our conversation this unfamiliar, disembodied voice on the other end of the phone unexpectedly asked “Now, are you the same Tim Jensen who is the new Unitarian minister?”

Well, that kind of caught me off guard, as you might imagine. It’s one thing when something like that happens in a little town like Carlisle, but Portland, Oregon, is a pretty big city. But it turned out that “the Sewer Man with a Conscience” was actually one of my new parishioners, who had just started attending church a few weeks earlier, and as we got to know one another better, it also turned out that John and I had the same birthday: October 22nd. I eventually left the ministry of that church, and a few years later John stopped attending there also, but we continued to live in the same part of town, and occasionally we would run into one another at the supermarket or a High School basketball game or our local brewpub. We were friends, although we didn’t really see one another that much. I was back in school working for my Ph.D. and traveling all over the Pacific Northwest on weekends preaching and consulting with small, lay-led fellowships; John was working day and night trying to support his growing family and keep his small business afloat. John was also a very talented musician, who was constantly trying to organize small, pick-up bands to go out and perform in clubs, following his passion and supplementing his income at the same time; while (as you all know) I can hardly carry the tune of a simple hymn unless I’ve heard it about a million times. My daughter was an athlete who played competitive Volleyball for four years of High School and four years of College, and I was the parent with a flexible schedule and a reliable car; John’s son competed in the Special Olympics, and John was his basketball coach. So our lives were similar, but they were also very different; mostly though we just kind of liked one another, and enjoyed each other’s company, even though we didn’t really get together very often.

And then four years ago, the week before I left Portland to move out here, I got a message on my answering machine from a mutual friend telling me that John was dying of lung cancer, and that he had just come home from the hospital and was under the care of hospice. So naturally, I phoned his house, and went over there that same afternoon to visit with him and his family, and to say goodbye. And sometime that following week, while Parker and I were driving across the country on our way to Nantucket, John passed away. And I think of him every year now around this time, in this season of our shared birthday. He truly was a very remarkable guy; I feel privileged to have known him, and know the world is a lesser place without his presence in it.

The second name is Bob Vail. Bob was a retired Coast Guard officer who served for two years as the President of the Olympic Unitarian Fellowship in Port Angeles Washington while I was working with them to help grow that congregation and eventually to purchase land and build a place of their own. Bob and I were a great team: he had a vision of what that congregation could become, and the determination to “make it so;” I had the education, the experience, and the expertise to help them get there. Once a month I would finish teaching my morning class at Oregon State University and then drive six and a half hours to the “Homeport Homestead” on South Bagley Creek Road, where I would have dinner with Bob and his wife Mickie, and we would finalize the plans for the weekend: typically breakfast with the leadership team, followed by some sort of training workshop on a subject we had agreed upon earlier, perhaps a committee meeting or some pastoral visits in the afternoon, some sort of fellowship event Saturday evening, the Sunday morning worship service, and then a little time to tie up loose ends before heading home again sometime Sunday afternoon: this time generally by ferry through Seattle, so that I could have a little time on the boat to decompress and write in my journal. That first year in particular, Bob and Mickie were my regular hosts. Later on other members of the congregation started to take turns providing home hospitality for the visiting minister, but by that time Bob and I were fast friends -- he typically attended every meeting I did, and then “held the fort” the rest of the month until my next visit. Between visits we were in regular contact by e-mail, as he kept me up to date with the news of the church, and we strategized about next steps.

I also suspect Bob provided at least some of the inspiration for our own “Gilligan’s Island” ingathering event in September. My final weekend in Port Angeles coincided with the end of Bob’s term as President. That Saturday night we celebrated with a “roast” of Bob, at which I was the final speaker. Earlier speakers had lampooned Bob’s navigation and seamanship abilities, his cooking skills, even his charisma as a public speaker -- a difficult challenge, since Bob actually excelled at all these things. I took a somewhat different approach. I had this Captain’s hat hidden in a brown paper bag, and I casually made sure that Bob could see it without letting on that I was letting him see it, while I began to talk very sincerely about how in a small fellowship people often wear a lot of different hats, but that there was one person in particular who had worn a very important hat...and then I pulled this hat out of the bag, and put it on my head, and of course underneath it was the floppy white “Gilligan” hat for my little buddy, Captain Robert Vail USCG ret. -- who was then serenaded by the entire congregation with an anthem relating his various accomplishments, naturally set to the tune of the Gilligan’s Island theme song. And Bob and I both were laughing so hard tears came to our eyes -- it was truly one of the finest moments of my ministry (and really of my entire life)...and I know that a lot of you have already heard this story often because I like to tell it so much, which is why I suspect at least some subtle inspiration on the theme of last month’s dinner.

Bob later went on to become very involved in the work of the Pacific Northwest district, and was eventually designated as the Lay Chaplain of the Olympic Fellowship by the members of that congregation. As the years went by, we continued to stay in touch although as you might imagine with decreasing frequency, especially after I moved out here. Which was why I was so surprised and delighted to see an e-mail from him in my in-box two weeks ago. Unfortunately, the news was not good -- the message was actually from Mickie, who was informing everyone in Bob’s address book that Bob had passed away suddenly on October 15th at the age of 57. Mickie had been traveling, and had phoned him early that morning to tell him what time she would be arriving at the airport -- when Bob wasn’t there to meet her, she phoned their neighbors who went to the house and found Bob dead -- presumably because of the lingering viral infection he’d been battling for about a week. His Memorial Service was held yesterday, at the small Fellowship Building which I can say without reservation would not have existed without his efforts; carpooling was encouraged, and Bob left explict instructions that no one was to wear black. Bop was also a truly remarkable guy; I feel privileged to have known him, and know the world will be a lesser place without his presence in it.

I share these stories not only because I want to honor my two friends, but because I want to remind all of us all once again that each and every one of the persons whose names we are about to hear has stories like this that can be told about them. None of us will ever know all the stories there are to know, but when we recall them: when we tell them, and hear them, and share them with one another, we evoke our memories of those we have loved and bring their spirits to life again -- and the realm of the living, and the realm of death, grow closer, and more familiar, and less mysterious to one another...and we feel inspired, and revitalized, and no longer quite so frightened or alone....

THE PURPOSE DRIVEN UNITARIAN

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at The First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday October 16th, 2005


Just out of curiosity, how many of you already knew who Rick Warren was before you came here this morning? He’s been kinda hard to miss lately. His book The Purpose Driven Life has now sold over 23 million copies, and sales show no signs of slowing down. Earlier this year it was front page news when a single mom from Atlanta, Ashley Smith, convinced an escaped murderer [Brian Nichols] to let her go and turn himself in after she read aloud to him a chapter of the book. Just last month Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, published a flattering eight-page feature article in The New Yorker describing Warren’s twenty-five year old, twenty thousand member, 120 acre campus Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. Among Warren’s many other admirers and collaborators are management guru Peter Drucker, retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch, and publishing mogul Rupert Murdoch.

I first became aware of Rick Warren almost two decades ago, back when I was serving my first little church in Midland Texas, and heard him interviewed (along with another megachurch pastor, Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago) on James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family.” (Back in those days, Midland didn’t have a public radio station, so I tended to get my news and information from slightly different sources than I do today). I was fascinated by what I heard, especially since I knew I was about to go to work outside of Portland Oregon as a new congregation organizer myself. So I immediately sent away for a tape of the program (which put me on the Focus on the Family mailing list for about 15 years). But from that interview I learned how, when Rick and his wife Kay first arrived in Southern California in 1979, they spent several months just asking people who were not currently attending church about what they hadn’t liked about their previous experiences, and discovered that many of the people they spoke with felt that most churches were cold, rigid, and unfriendly places, that the sermons were boring and irrelevant to their lives, and that they were way too concerned about asking for money. And so he set out to create a “user friendly” church that would do none of those things: a church which would feature contemporary music, casual dress, practical messages, and where visitors would be treated like guests, and specifically asked NOT to contribute to the offering.

You have to remember that this was a time when the religious landscape was dominated by “televangelists” like Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim & Tammy Faye Baker, who had learned how to combine the extensive reach of new cable and satellite broadcast technology with the targeted appeal of computer-generated direct mail marketing, and who were beginning to flex their political muscles just as sexual and financial scandal were likewise beginning to chip away at the foundations of several of these so-called “broadcast” ministries. In many ways, the megachurch offered a very different kind of experience from that provided by these high-profile religious broadcasters. At the risk of sounding irreverent, a megachurch is more like Wal-Mart than the Home Shopping Network -- there’s always plenty of parking, someone greets you at the door, and you can pretty much count on finding just about anything you want without having to go anywhere else.

A typical megachurch is organized both from the top down and from the bottom up. Sunday mornings are set aside for large, celebratory “seeker” services featuring lots of contemporary music and drama, multimedia presentations, and of course an inspiring yet practical, down-to-earth message by the charismatic and visionary senior pastor. During the week there are also numerous believer-focused “discipleship” services, typically for groups of about one hundred, which are generally led by one of the many associate ministers. And then there are the cell ministries: small affinity groups of 8-10 which meet in people’s homes and are led by trained volunteers. It all actually looks a little like a Roman Legion, where “cohorts” and “centuries” were the building blocks of a much larger, yet tactically flexible, military organization, which gave the Roman Emperors exactly what they needed to conquer most of the known world.

Megachurches also tend to be independent and non-denominational. And unlike more traditional evangelical churches, they have often jettisoned a theology based on hellfire and damnation for something known as the Prosperity Gospel. In it’s simplest terms, the Prosperity Gospel teaches that God wants human beings to be happy, healthy, and financially well-off, and that these are the “fruits” of a “godly” lifestyle. Yet life itself is full of tests and temptations, “trials and tribulations,” which God sends in order to discipline us, much like a parent would discipline a child, so that we might develop “character” in preparation for the life that is to follow. Those of you with PhDs in 19th century Unitarian history will immediately recognize this as a simplified version of the “doctrine of Probation,” which was very controversial indeed here in Puritan New England, when Henry Ware Sr started teaching it to the students of Divinity at Harvard in 1805. But we are only one of the Prosperity Gospel’s many theological ancestors (and not a particularly appreciated one at that). Still, it helps explain why so much of what comes out of the megachurch movement seems friendly and familiar to us, even if it also feels a little foreign and strange.

Certainly this was my experience when I first picked up my copy of The Purpose Driven Life (back when only 15 million had been sold). I was astonished to discover that Warren’s five purposes: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry, and Evangelism -- were virtually identical to the five “key areas” of Worship, Education, Fellowship, Community Outreach and Pastoral Care -- around which I have come to base my ministry. Then I remembered that about ten years ago I had also read Rick’s earlier book, The Purpose Driven Church (which only sold about a million copies), and realized that I had probably just incorporated some of his ideas into my own without really giving it a second thought. Or maybe we were just reading the same books, or who knows? Maybe he got his ideas from me! But in any event, at least this coincidence wasn’t quite so mysterious after all.

One of the things that has always bothered me about reading books that come out of the evangelical Church Growth Movement like The Purpose Driven Life is that the authors often seem to be speaking literally about realities which I tend to understand metaphorically. But every once in awhile I have to wonder whether I’m really being fair -- just because they don’t nuance and qualify every little statement about God and Faith and Salvation doesn’t mean that their understanding of these very complex and mysterious subjects is any less sophisticated than mine. I’m certain, for example, that someone who didn’t know me very well, who came here to church and heard me praying after the candlesharing, might initially walk away with a very different understanding of what I believe from what I REALLY believe. And at the end of the day, what does it really matter whether you understand something to be literally true, or only metaphorically true? When it comes right down to living your daily life, it’s still true on some level, isn’t it?

At the foundation of the Purpose Driven life is the notion of surrender, of committing yourself wholeheartedly to something larger than yourself. Warren recognizes the problem many American have with this concept. Surrender is for losers; it’s an admission of defeat. Yet until we become capable of giving ourselves fully to something larger than ourselves, we remain incapable of transcending our own limitations, or achieving anything larger than ourselves as well. Through surrender comes liberation, and the freedom to trust, to help (and be helped), to find a greater meaning than the mere satisfaction of our appetites until we die. We lose ourselves in order to find ourselves, and to become a part of something that is larger than ourselves. Surrender doesn’t make us less than we are now. It makes us more, because it connects us in relationship to one another, and to the powerful spirit of life which has created us all.

The five purposes can all be understood as elaborations on this basic insight. If you have a little trouble with the traditional theological language, try thinking of them as Celebration, Community, Study, Service and Affirmation. Celebration is not confined strictly to Sunday morning. According to Warren, worship is anything that “makes God smile.” He even quotes one of my favorite lines from the movie “Chariots of Fire,” when Eric Liddell explains to his sister why he is first going to compete in the Olympic Games before returning to China as a missionary. “I believe God made me for a purpose. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” He also asserts something that would have been very familiar to 19th century Unitarian Transcendentalists like Theodore Parker, when he notes that “worship is a universal urge, hard-wired by God into the very fiber of our being....” Fellowship -- or the experience of being in Community -- is the recognition that we are all part of the same “family,” or what we sometimes describe as an “interdependent web of all existence.” The experience of Community is one of reciprocity: sometimes we give and sometimes we receive, sometimes we lead and sometimes we follow. We learn to participate as part of a group, a team, where together we learn to acknowlege our dependence on one another, and how to create together something greater than any one of us might have done alone. Likewise, the act of Study is not merely a process of self-improvement, it is also one of self-discovery, as we explore that part of ourselves which the scripture tells us was created “in the image of God,” and discipline ourselves to follow our best instincts, rather than our worst ones. We become disciplined learners in order to become effective teachers, assisting others in their own process of learning.

Service, or Ministry, is the fulfillment of our calling (or, in Latin, our “vocation”) as people of faith. The highest purpose in life for our 19th century Unitarian forebearers was “to be of use.” Our Puritan ancestors believed that every individual had both a general and a particular vocation: some unique and special gift or talent which God had given us which we are to use in order to make the world better, to be of service to others, and to make God smile in the process. When we seek to serve others, we expand our lives in ways that we can’t even begin to imagine or anticipate before starting down that path. Not all ministry is the responsibility of the minister. We each have a vocation to which we have been called, and through which we find fulfillment by becoming the person God intends for us to be. Or to put it another way, how do you know who you really are until you’ve discovered what you can do, and not just for yourself, but for those who need what only you can give them?

The notion of Evangelism, on the other hand, is something that many contemporary Unitarian Universalists are not especially comfortable with. So we call it something else: Community Outreach, Social Responsibility, Public Witness, Testimony, Affirmation....but the basic responsibility is still to profess our faith, to share with others as freely as we have received, rather than keeping it a secret all to ourselves. It’s true that some of us are both professors and professional Unitarian Universalists. But that doesn’t mean that everyone else should keep their mouths shut, while we do all the talking. What kind of UU church would that be? Sharing our “good news,” announcing to the world by both word and deed that we believe something of value which is worthy of wider proclamation -- this is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to feel shy about, even if we do sometimes feel a little sensitive about the insensitive ways that others may have shared their faith with us. But we don’t need to be arrogant, and we don’t need to be defensive, when it comes to sharing with those we care about something that has been very meaningful to us. We just need to be honest, and sincere, and maybe just a little humble and a little proud, about something which potentially has the power to change both our lives and the world for the better.

I’m going to be returning to many of these same themes again and again in the weeks and months to come. But I want to leave you today with one very practical thought which I hope will make all your lives just a little better. In your participation in this church, and really in everything you do in life, I want you to choose one thing that you do just for yourself, whether it’s a class, or perhaps attending some other activity or program that you find meaningful and enjoyable; and I want you to choose one other thing to do just to be of service to someone else, or to the larger community. And try to keep them roughly in balance. And I think if you practice that one simple rule: one hand for the ship, and one hand for yourself (as the old-time sailors would have put it), you’ll find that you get a lot more out of your experience here, or whatever else you chose to participate in, than you might otherwise. So don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves, and let your hair down, and work and play just as hard as you can. Because then you will also feel God’s pleasure flowing through you, as She smiles while watching you run....

TIKKUN OLAM

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religous Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday October 9, 2005


READING: "Return" by Rachel Barenblat, weblogger of The Velveteen Rabbi


I've been thinking a lot this past week about last Sunday's drumming service. Whenever I meet a young person like Matt Meyer, who grew up in our movement, and who has found the courage to pursue his passion and become truly accomplished at something he truly loves, I feel proud. And like many of you, I suspect, I was also quite taken by the sensitivity and sophistication of his statement about racial privilege and cultural appropriation -- clearly this was a topic he had thought about a great deal, and I thought that his remarks both reflected that thoughtfulness, and also a genuine sense of gratitude and humility regarding the privileges he has enjoyed, and the opportunities he now has to share his gifts with others.

And the reason I feel proud is that our Unitarian Universalist faith turns out a lot of kids like Matt. In my opinion, it's one of the things that we do best, although we don't always see and appreciate it as much as perhaps we should. It's not easy either, although let's face it -- most of the credit has to go to the kids themselves. We can provide safe space (which may be physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual); we can provide encouragement and support; we may even be able to provide a certain amount of wisdom and guidance, and a plethora of good examples (and, who knows, maybe even a few cautionary bad ones) -- but ultimately it is our young people themselves who seize the liberty our liberal faith provides, and follow their vision and their values wherever they may lead. And sometimes I know it may seem like they meander quite a bit before they find their way, but the confidence we show in them gives them confidence in themselves to go to new places where we've never been. So we have a lot to learn from our young people as well, who like young people everywhere, enjoy the privilege of seeing (and exploring and discovering) the whole world as if it were being seen (and explored and discovered) for the very first time, through fresh eyes different from yours or mine.

Matt also got me thinking about the difference between talking about the "Judeo-Christian Tradition" as opposed to the "Jewish and Christian traditions." The first phrase emphasizes the commonalities between these two great historical religions, but it also seems to imply a continuity -- implicitly suggesting that Christianity not only developed out of Judaism, but that it has also in some way superseded it. The second phrase not only acknowledges the distinctiveness of both faiths, but also potentially encompasses the particularities that exist among the various branches of the each. These distinctions may just seem like meaningless semantics, but they are potentially significant for Unitarian Universalists as we explore our own relationship to our historical forebearers. Is Unitarian Universalism a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition? Are we a Christian denomination? Christian heretics? A post-Christian faith? A return to a radical, Jewish (or for that matter, Moslem)-style monotheism? Or perhaps something entirely different altogether?

I'm not going to try to answer these questions today, mostly because I'm not really sure that there IS a right answer, much less that I know what it is. But the questions themselves do point toward a couple of interesting insights about the nature of religious faith itself. The first of these is that religious traditions are dynamic: they change and evolve over time. You may or may not think that this is a good thing, but it's still a fact: the Christianity and the Judaism of today are in many ways very different than they were 500 or 1000 years ago, never mind the even more distant days of Jesus or Moses. Obviously much has been preserved -- most of which is undoubtedly important, yet some of which is also doubtlessly trivial. But personally, I'm most intrigued by what is innovative, and represents progress. The relationship between the traditional and the progressive, between conservatives who wish to preserve the wisdom of the past, and liberals who embrace the freedom to explore the future, is likewise a dynamic one. The Protestant Reformation, for example, was about both protest and reform. Our current so-called "Culture War" is much more complicated than merely a conflict between Revolutionary Radicals who want to turn everything upside-down simply for the sake of change, and Reactionary Radicals who want to take us all back to a time that never was. Figuring out what to preserve and what to change is what makes meaningful progress possible: both in religion, and in ever other aspect of life.

The second insight hits even closer to home than the first. But for better or worse, we now live in a time when individuals are basically free to pick and choose from a variety of different religious traditions all at once. Spirituality has become a commodity; nowadays people go "shopping" for churches in much the same way they would shop for any personal service, like a gym or a school for their children. Some folks are still relatively loyal to the brand they grew up with, while others are more interested in convenience, or a certain style or the particular range of services offered; and still others are attracted by a sense of associative prestige, or perhaps the exoticism of something novel and foreign. (I suspect there are even some folks who make their decision based solely on price, although when it comes to the care and nurture of one's immortal soul, quality still seems to be the determinative factor). And of course there are many people who have decided that they can do without any sort of formal religious affiliation whatsoever. These "spiritual, but not religious" do-it-yourselfers browse among a wide variety of choices and options, selecting whatever seems to suit them at the moment, and then moving on to something new when whatever they've chosen doesn't suit them any longer. The technical name for this phenomenon is "syncretistic eclecticism" -- the belief that all religious traditions are basically the same underneath, and that individuals have the freedom to select whatever combination of values and practices seem to make most sense to them at the time.

Once again, I don't know whether this is good or bad, but it's a very real part of the world we live in. And there is a compelling logic to it. If something is "True" with a capital "T" it's going to be equally true for everyone, whether we believe in it or not. And yet, because each individual is in some way different and unique, that "Truth" is also going to impact each of our lives uniquely and in different ways. Furthermore, no single individual is possibly capable of seeing and understanding the entire Truth from every different possible perspective -- or if they are, they sure are an awfully lot smarter than I am. But more likely, they just THINK that they know it all, which makes those of us who "know that we know nothing" actually a lot smarter than them. How could any God worthy of the name possibly care what religion we are, or even whether we believe that the whole idea of "God" itself is simply something we've made up in the attempt to talk sensibly about an aspect of our experience which is ultimately beyond our ability to know and fully understand? Our beliefs about God are not really God, and yet from time immemorial human beings have experienced something that they have called by many names: "the Sacred," "the Holy," "the Divine." And that experience has the power to changes people's lives. And then through our changed lives, to change the world as well.

It's in this connection that I want to talk about the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, a Hebrew phrase which means Repairing or Restoring or Perfecting the World. In the Mishnah, Tikkun Olam was often used as a justification for rules or practices which are not really part of the Torah, but which are followed because they help to avoid bad social consequences. But the concept really took on a much wider significance in the 16th century, thanks to the Kabbalistic Rabbi Isaac Luria, who taught his followers that God created the world as a sort of vessel or mirror in order to reflect His Glory...but that the emanations of this Divine Light were so brilliant and powerful that the world was catastrophically shattered into countless shards, each of which contains or reflects a small portion of the divine spark, but which together (like the pieces of a shattered mirror) reflect back only a distorted image of God's original light. And so the purpose of human life is Tikkun Olam -- to Repair the World by bringing together and mending the broken pieces which are our individual souls, so that Creation might once more accurately reflect the glorious brilliance of its Creator.

And how is this done? In all the usual ways, of course: through study, meditation, and prayer, through the doing of Mitzvoth, or goods deeds, and more specifically through the faithful practice of Peace, Justice, and Compassion, not just on an individual, but on a societal level. We repair the world by repairing our relationships with one another and with God. We allow our lives to reflect the divine spark which illuminates all creation, then join together with other enlightened individuals in order to mend the breaks, bridge the gaps, and heal the wounds that divide and estrange us.

This week Jews all over the world are observing their High Holy Days, which began with Rosh Hoshana -- the Jewish New Year -- and will conclude next Thursday with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement -- an all day fast, combined with several lengthy prayer services, which actually begins an hour before sunset on Wednesday, and will end 25 hours later with a single, long lingering note on the Shofar. Yom Kipper is a day of introspection and repentance, as well as a day of reconciliation and forgiveness -- a time to make peace not only with God, but also with your neighbors, whom you have likely also sinned against over the course of the year, and from whom you should also therefore seek forgiveness. And yet as difficult (and even painful) as this may sound, the Talmud actually considers Yom Kippur a happy day, because if people have properly observed the holiday, by the time the fast ends they will feel both a great catharsis, and also a deep sense of serenity from having been restored to right relationship with both the Creator, and with everyone they know.

The task of Atonement, and the challenge of Repairing the World, are intimately connected. We begin with the optimistic enthusiasm of youth, which believes that all things are possible for those who are faithful to their vision and their values, and in the end we turn that vision on ourselves as we explore the enduring value of a single human life. There's a story told about the Hasidic master Rebbe Chaim of Tzanz, who in his old age remarked that over the course of many decades, he had first given up his youthful ambitions to change the whole world, and then later, his bold plans to transform his community and family. He was, in the end, hoping merely to better his own self somewhat before his time to leave this earth arrived. We repair the world one person at a time, beginning with our own personal efforts to heal, to be reconciled, to forgive and be forgiven. And the only real question is:

How to make it new:
each year the same missing
of the same marks,
the same petitions
and apologies.

We were impatient, unkind.
We let ego rule the day
and forgot to be thankful.
We allowed our fears
to distance us.

But every year
the ascent through Elul
does its magic,
shakes old bitterness
from our hands and hearts.

We sit awake, itemizing
ways we want to change.
We try not to mind
that this year's list
looks just like last.

The conversation gets
easier as we limber up.
Soon we can stretch farther
than we ever imagined.
We breathe deeper.

By the time we reach the top
we've forgotten
how nervous we were
that repeating the climb
wasn't worth the work.

Creation gleams before us.
The view from here matters
not because it's different
from last year
but because we are

and the way to reach God
is one breath at a time,
one step, one word,
every second a chance
to reorient, repeat, return.