Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County - Sermons

What is a Muslim doing working at a church? A question our guest Minister, Sana, received frequently while working at the UU Church of Arlington, VA. Today there are more people identifying as UU Muslim. Join her to explore how we make room for interfaith families and people identifying as multi-religious in our community as we reflect on the theme of beloved community. 

There is no text for this sermon, so please enjoy the video!

What are we, as Unitarian Universalists, to make of the Easter story? This most mystical, miraculous event – the resurrection of Jesus from the dead – that forms the basis for belief for billions of Christians around the globe? Easter compels us to confront so many of our own competing, and often conflicting, principles and values. As UU’s we value the rational and the scientific, so the left side of our brain tells us “This couldn’t have happened this way. No one can come back from the dead.” And yet the first of our six sources calls us to consider, “experiences of transforming mystery and wonder.” So, there’s a part of us that must remain open to the idea that something – something powerful and sustaining and possibly even beyond belief – happened. Something so powerful and sustaining that we still tell the story more than 2,000 years later. Many of us are torn between two other poles as well. On the one hand some of us may have been injured by the teachings of a Christian church and arrived here on the doorstep of Unitarian Universalism battered, beaten and broken, and thus rejecting anything that even hints at Christianity. But Unitarian Universalism is a radically inclusive faith, a faith so inclusive that we are called to welcome those who  consider themselves Christian to share in the good news of this faith, our faith. I believe that we are radically inclusive to the point where we can welcome those who believe in the salvific power of the cross, those who believe that Jesus was the Son of God who died for our sins. And, so, we must make room for the “Trinitarian Unitarians” among us and celebrate with them this most holy of holidays. There was a time when Unitarian Universalists sought to simply ignore Easter. But we know now that we must strive to look at the Easter story and ask ourselves what we can take from it, to drill down on it and find meaning in it. Instead of simply rejecting it out of hand, we are called to ask ourselves what we can glean from this abiding mystery.

One way we can do that, with our post-modern sensibilities, is to contextualize it. To view it within the context of where and when it happened, and then to look at our own lives to see where it might be relevant to us today. So, let’s consider where, why and how Jesus’s death and resurrection occurred. Jesus, we know, was a Jew living in Judah, the southern part of what would become Israel, at a time of Roman occupation. We know that, despite the occupation, Jewish custom, law and tradition still ran deep among the people of the occupied lands. This was the law of Abraham. The law of Moses. The law of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And deeply embedded in this culture was the concept and the practice of making offerings, of sacrifice. The Jewish word for this is “Karabanot.” The primary purpose of Karabanot was “to bring a person closer to God.”[1] Another important aspect of sacrifice under Jewish law and practice was the element of substitution. The idea is that the thing being offered or sacrificed is a substitute for the person making the offering, and the things that are done to the offering are things that should have been done to the person making the offering. The offering is in some sense punished in place of the offeror.[2]

While the primary function of sacrifice was to bring people closer to God, Karabanot also served what’s called an “expiatory” function as well. Making a sacrifice to God was a way to be relieved of sin, a way to ask and receive God’s forgiveness for the sins they had committed. While it’s not exactly the same as Karabanot, scapegoating was another practice intended to have a similar effect. In ancient Jewish tradition, a community would symbolically place its sins on the back of an animal – often a goat – and the people would either send the animal off into the wilderness or ritually sacrificed. Either way, the effect was the same: the people were freed from their sins.

So, all this is the backdrop for J

It was Tuesday morning at 8 am when I texted Chrissy, who for the previous two weeks had been on a study leave so that she could work on her religious educator credentialing portfolio. After welcoming her back and setting up a time to talk later that morning, here’s what I told her: “I’m completely out of ideas for ‘Imagination’ this week.” And it was true. I felt like I had said all I had to say about our January Soul Matters theme and that a fourth Sunday on the topic was a bridge too far. Chrissy responded in true “Chrissy” fashion. Her return text to me was “Have you done ‘what do you do when you’re out of ideas?” I replied with a “Haha” and she said “Umm, It’s a legit (albeit witty) suggestion. Imagination fails us regularly, or at least seems to.” And I told her that I had actually been thinking about the concept of “making way out of no way” – whose source I misattributed – and she said, “See!” And then, just a few hours later came the Inauguration, and Amanda Gorman rose to take the podium and she stole – she stole that podium – better  than that alt-right seditionist who stormed the Capitol a few days earlier could ever have imagined doing himself.

I say I misattributed the concept of “making way out of no way” because when the thought, the saying occurred to me earlier last week, I thought it arose out of Buddhist principles and practices. But I was wrong. It actually comes out of the African American experience. Here’s what the National Museum of African American History, which houses an exhibition titled “Making Way Out of No Way” says about the phrase:

“Throughout history, African Americans have acted to change and build their lives despite tremendous obstacles. Just as racism has taken many forms in American society, so have the solutions and strategies that African Americans have developed to challenge it. In making their own “way out of no way,” individuals have drawn inspiration, strength, and support from various sources – from their families and communities, from a higher power, from the world of ideas, from the past, from other people and places, and from within themselves. By embracing the belief that change is always possible, even in the bleakest of circumstances, African Americans have exemplified a resilient spirit that is also fundamentally American.”

And, digging a little deeper into the idea of making way out of no way, I learned that, in many circumstances, it was the African American women – the matriarchs as well as the young, activists refusing to accept their current reality and circumstances – who were the motivating force for discovering and forging a way out of no way. So, to watch Kamala Harris be sworn in as Vice President this week, and to hear the inspiring words of Amanda Gorman seemed a fitting, living testament to the idea that way can be and must be and will be made out of no way.

“If we’re to live up to our own time, /then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. /That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare it. /Because being American is more than a pride we inherit; /it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.”

So, with all that said, how might we, in our own lives, “make way out of no way?” What do we do when we have no idea what to do? When we face obstacles and barriers that seem insurmountable? When we’re out of ideas and even our own imagination fails us? One response, and I’d say it’s probably a response that grows out of the white, puritan work ethic, is to forge ahead and to keep doing what we’ve been doing. To put our heads down and keep going. That’s what we’re taught, right? At least, that’s what I was taught. Buck up. Stop complaining. It’s always darkest before the dawn. There are lots of ways that we trick ourselves into believing that, if we have enough personal fortitude, we can muddle through. If we ignore the problem, it’ll go away. If we needed any reminder of the ineffectiveness of this strategy,

What if to “side with love” meant making bold, faith-full choices? What if it were even a little bit scary? This worship service brings together worship leaders and musicians from across the country to offer hopeful, moving, challenging reminders about what we, as Unitarian Universalists, are called to do, and BE, in the world.

There is no text for this virtual worship service presented by the Unitarian Universalist Association worship arts team. Please enjoy the video of the service!