Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County - Sermons

Do you have one of these things at home? It’s an Echo Dot, made by Amazon. You might know it as “Alexa,” and there are a bunch of different models, but they all basically do the same thing.

Echo, how many ounces are in a pint?Echo, how far away is the sun?Echo, who won the Super Bowl this year?

So, this device is great at giving us information. It can tell us what the weather is like in Anchorage and it can even solve math problems for us.

Echo, what’s the square root of 67?Echo, what’s the formula for the volume of a cylinder?It also can answer more challenging questions, like:Echo, why is the sky blue? andEcho, why is ocean water salty?

Our grandchildren were visiting last week, and at one point we were watching a nature show together on TV.  Watching a gigantic blue whale cruise the Pacific Ocean, I said to the boys: “I wonder how much a blue whale weighs.” Without skipping a beat, James, our 5 year-old, immediately called out:

Echo, how much does a blue whale weigh?

It was at that moment I realized that my primary function as a dad and grand dad had been replaced by a machine. I won’t even tell you about the function Alexa has where she will read your kids a bedtime story without you.

These gizmos, and our cell phones, put all the knowledge we’ve developed in human history, all the information in the world, literally in the palm of our hands. Anyone with a cell phone, from a physics professor at MIT to a goat herder in Morocco, has access to the same information now. To say nothing of their capacity to keep us connected. These devices are great democratizers. They’ve leveled the playing field of access to information. It’s a beautiful thing, really. Because, as we know, knowledge is power. Entire revolutions can now be organized, launched and coordinated in a matter of hours using a cell phone. Remember “Arab Spring” and how it erupted almost overnight across the countries of northern Africa? That would never have been possible without cell phones.

And this is a good thing. It’s an advancement for sure. Many of us remember encyclopedias, and how we had to schlep to the library to look something up that we wanted to know. Now, I am not some antediluvian luddite who wants to toss these things out and go back to the good old days of land lines and broadcast TV. Easy access to answers is good for a whole host of reasons. Answers are comforting. Having the answers right at our fingertips adds an element of certainty to our lives. Answers help us to plan and to organize ourselves. Will our train be on time? Is the store open yet? What’s the weather going to be? It’s certainly good to know whether storms are in the forecast so that we can pack an umbrella or jacket when we head out to work in the morning.

And yet, I can’t help thinking that, with all this easy access to information, we’ve lost something in the process. That all these easy answers come at a price. Because when we know that we need to take an umbrella to work in the morning, we’re insuring that we’ll miss out on the joy of huddling together in a doorway with other unsuspecting victims caught in a sudden downpour, all of us laughing at our shared plight. We’ll miss out on the chance to choose to dance our way through the summer shower, feeling the drops warm and wet on our skin. Certainty has its place, but there’s also value to not knowing. Certainty, easy answers, having all our questions answered instantaneously robs us of something. It robs us of the space we need to wonder and, perhaps, to do a bit of wandering as we wonder.

Let’s go back to the story of James and the blue whale, where Alexa gave us the answer to our question instantaneously. I posed a question. Alexa gave us the answer. And that was that. What was missing for me was what happens, or what can happen, in the space between the asking of the question and the finding of the answer. First, there’s the speculation: “Do you think it weighs more than a bus?

What’s all this “alleluia-ing” about? And why do so many Easter hymns have so many of them? Well, I’ll tell you: “Alleluia” is an Anglicized version of “Hallelujah,” which comes from the Hebrew expression that mean “Praise the Lord.” Whether you start and end it with an “H” or start and end it with an “A,” it means the same thing: “Praise the Lord.” In most Christian churches, singing “Alleluia” is … Continue reading Alleluia and Hallelujah

How do you travel? Do you plan your trips meticulously? Do you double and triple-check your reservations before you leave? Are you like me and you always over-pack? I’m not sure what it is, but I take those words, “just in case,” seriously. Just in case it rains. Just in case I spill something. Just in case we decide to go out to dinner. I want to be ready, so I pack all these extra clothes into the suitcase. And invariably I only use about half of them. When you go on a road trip, do you use a map? Do you plan out where you’re going to stop along the way? Do you scout out where the rest stops are? Or are you more casual about your travels? Are you more of a wanderer, not particularly worried about what you’ll encounter along the way?

Of course, with the advent of GPS navigation, a lot of the guess-work has been taken away. Now, we can plug in our destination and waypoints. We can decide whether we want to take the shortest route, the fastest route, the route that avoids tolls and, if you’re like some members of my family, the route that avoids bridges. We can even program in the voice we want to guide us along the way. My personal preference is a woman with a British accent. It always feels like I’m traveling with class when she directs me where to go.

I admit to having a challenging relationship with that British woman, though. Because if you’re going to really use her, you’ve got to surrender to her completely. And I’ve told you the challenges I have with giving up control. The truth is,  I can’t say that I always trust her. Maybe it’s a “guy thing,” but there are times when she’ll tell me to turn left and I think she’s wrong, so I turn right.  And, of course, that rarely turns out well. And she seems to have infinite patience, which can be annoying. She’ll re-route, and re-route no matter how many wrong turns I take. It’s infuriating that she doesn’t just throw up her virtual hands and tell me she’s done with me. We can, of course, choose not to use Google Maps or Apple Maps or Waze when we travel. And then, in the middle of the trip, maybe after we’ve gotten hopelessly lost, we can relent and switch it on and it’s pretty likely they’ll help us find our way to wherever it is we want to go.

So why am I telling you about all the ways – and the Waze – that I tend to travel? Well, because our spiritual theme for this month is “Journey,” and I think there are some pretty good parallels between the ways we take our physical journeys and the ways we take our spiritual journeys. And, I’ll submit to you that this church – this community of love, compassion, courage and justice – can be the Waze for those journeys.

It’s pretty clear that, when we take a trip, we usually have a destination in mind. There aren’t many of us who have the time or the luxury of just wandering around aimlessly. We want to get from somewhere to somewhere else. That’s not to say that the journey itself doesn’t matter. It very much does, but let’s put that aside for now. When we decide to take a trip, it all starts with the end point. Disney World. The Grand Canyon. Grandma’s house. On our spiritual journeys, I think we tend to be pretty vague about where we want to end up. We’re looking for something, but we can’t name it or define it. Sometimes it starts with a sense of restlessness, or unfulfillment, or dis-ease. It feels like there’s something missing in our lives, or we have a sense that there must be more to life than “just this.” Or it might be that we experience some kind of trauma or grief, and what we want, what we need is to get over or past or through it.

I’d suggest that our spiritual journeys might be better served if we had more clarity about where we want to go. Maybe we want to gain a sense of inner peace. We might want to bring more joy into our lives. Maybe our goal, our destination, is to worry less. It might be to feel more connected – to others, to nature, to G

The graduate program for your Masters of Divinity is a rigorous one. It takes at least three years, and often longer, to complete. It took me four years to finish my MDiv and all the additional requirements that the Unitarian Universalist Association has for ministers. When you go to seminary, they teach you all kinds … Continue reading Trusting in Us

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The Winter Solstice was about a week and a half ago. In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the day with the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year. Around our area of suburban Philadelphia, that means the longest night was over fourteen and a half hours. That’s a lot of darkness. The … Continue reading Finding Faith in the Darkest of Hours

Reading

“Prayer for All Who Mother” by Victoria WeinsteinWe reflect in thanksgiving this day for all those whose lives have nurtured ours.

The life-giving onesWho heal with their presenceWho listen in sympathyWho give wise advice … but only when asked for it.We are grateful for all those who have mothered usWho have held us gently in times of sorrowWho celebrated with us our triumphs — no matter how smallWho noticed when we changed and grew, who praised us for taking riskswho took genuine pride in our success, and who expressed genuine compassion when we did not succeed.On this day that honors Motherslet us honor all mothersmen and women alikewho from somewhere in their beinghave freely and wholeheartedly given life, and sustenance, and vision to us.Dear God, Mother-Father of us all,grant us life-giving waysstrength for birthing,and a nurturing spiritthat we may take attentive care of our world,our communities, and those precious beings entrusted to us by biology, or by destiny, or by friendship, fellowship or fate.Give us the heart of a mother today. Amen [1]

Sermon

By now, most of us know that the original Mother’s Day was established by the Unitarian Julia Ward Howe. It was a far cry from the holiday we celebrate these days. Howe was frustrated by seeing politicians sending their boys off to war, so she called for a world-wide meeting of mothers who would end the fighting and establish peace around the globe. Unfortunately, Julia Ward Howe’s vision hasn’t come to pass, American sons and daughters are still sent into harm’s way, and the Mother’s Day holiday has morphed into a special day of appreciation for all those who mother to us.

I grew up in what some call “The Golden Age of Television,” and every day I would see mothers on TV doing what mothers did back then. Basically they were in charge of running the house and raising the kids. June Cleaver, played by Barbara Billingsley, Donna Reed and others supposedly showed us what the ideal mother was supposed to be. As a child, their role was familiar to me because I lived it every day in my own home. My mother was a stay-at-home mom who baked cookies and greeted my sisters, brother and me when we got off the bus after school. “A woman’s place is in the home” went unquestioned in those days, at least as far as I knew.

What I didn’t know back then, and what I’ve come to realize, is that these women – the fictional ones on television and the real ones in our neighborhood and my own home – didn’t just bake cookies and clean house. No, much more than that. They were in charge. They ran the show. They got things done. While Dad may have been the so-called “bread-winner,” it was Mom who controlled everything. These mothers, portrayed as subservient and obedient, were in fact the ones who made it all happen. If you wanted or needed something, you didn’t go to Dad. You went to Mom.

Mother’s Day these days celebrates mothers as nurturers. As the ones who hold us and heal us. As the ones who kiss our boo-boos and make us feel better. As the source of love and care and compassion. And many mothers are these things and do these things. And they deserve to be appreciated and celebrated for it. But today, I want to name a different side of mothers: Their power and their fierceness. Picture, if you will, the Mother Bear with her cubs. We all know that getting between them is just about the most dangerous place you can ever be. Because mother bears – in fact, the mother of nearly every mammal – will do anything to protect and defend their young. Not all mothers are born nurturers, but there seems to be an instinctual fierceness that is born in the mother at the moment she gives birth. I’m wondering how you might see your own mother as powerful and “fierce.” If you’re a mother yourself, how are you powerful and “fierce?”

I would submit to you that, while we all need to be nurtured and cared for and held, these days what we n

I would like to read you a poem this morning, written by Warsan Shire. Ms. Shire, who is 30 years old, was born in Kenya to Somali parents and raised in London. This poem, whose title is simply “Home,” speaks to the plight of refugees and migrants in graphic and sometimes violent terms, including use of the n-word and references to sexual assault. I will read an edited version of the poem, but encourage those who are courageous and curious and who won’t be traumatized by the language to read the full text, which will be included in the text of this sermon that will be posted on the church website. You can, of course, also find the full text online on other sites.

“Home” – by Warsan Shire 

no one leaves home unlesshome is the mouth of a sharkyou only run for the borderwhen you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than youbreath bloody in their throatsthe boy you went to school withwho kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factoryis holding a gun bigger than his bodyyou only leave homewhen home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases youfire under feethot blood in your bellyit’s not something you ever thought of doinguntil the blade burnt threats intoyour neckand even then you carried the anthem underyour breathonly tearing up your passport in an airport toiletsobbing as each mouthful of papermade it clear that you wouldn’t be going back. 

you have to understand,that no one puts their children in a boatunless the water is safer than the landno one burns their palmsunder trainsbeneath carriagesno one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truckfeeding on newspaper unless the miles travelledmeans something more than journey.no one crawls under fencesno one wants to be beatenpitied 

no one chooses refugee campsor strip searches where yourbody is left achingor prison,because prison is saferthan a city of fireand one prison guardin the nightis better than a truckloadof men who look like your fatherno one could take itno one could stomach itno one skin would be tough enough

thego home blacksrefugeesdirty immigrantsasylum seekerssucking our country dryniggers with their hands outthey smell strangesavagemessed up their country and now they wantto mess ours uphow do the wordsthe dirty looksroll off your backsmaybe because the blow is softerthan a limb torn off

or the words are more tenderthan fourteen men betweenyour legsor the insults are easierto swallowthan rubblethan bonethan your child bodyin pieces.i want to go home,but home is the mouth of a sharkhome is the barrel of the gunand no one would leave homeunless home chased you to the shoreunless home told youto quicken your legsleave your clothes behindcrawl through the desertwade through the oceansdrownsavebe hungerbegforget prideyour survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your earsaying-leave,run away from me nowi dont know what i’ve becomebut i know that anywhere is safer than here

I cannot read this poem, which I have, over and over since I discovered it, without picturing Maria [1] and her six children. I met Maria and her six children in Tijuana last December. They were huddled in the early-morning cold, standing in a concrete square just outside the metal gates that stand like a monster’s mouth with teeth bared at the San Ysidro port of entry between the United States and Mexico. I passed through those gates with complete impunity for the week I was there, but to Maria and her six children those gates were completely impenetrable.

Maria and her six children, the oldest of whom was just eight and the youngest was an infant in her arms, were scared and confused. They had made the trek to Tijuana from their home country of Honduras as part of the so-called “migrant caravan.” Maria and her six children had walked most of the way, although for parts of the trip they’d been able to cram themselves onto a crowded truck bed with

In Biblical literature, Divine Wisdom is personified as Sophia, and sometimes considered the feminine face of God, but we don’t hear much about her.  As our monthly theme of Wisdom overlaps with International Women’s Day this morning, let’s celebrate the deep roots that remind us to honor the wisdom of women through the ages.

As many of you know, I consider myself

bi-denominational, both a committed Unitarian Universalist, and a member of a

small and progressive Mennonite congregation near my home.  A number of weeks ago, the associate pastor

at  my Mennonite church, a dynamic young

woman, preached on Proverbs 8, all about Sophia – the manifestation of God’s

wisdom that is always named in the feminine. 

(The word Sophia is in fact the Greek word for wisdom.)

Pastor Jessica had grown up in a

Christian community, hearing Scripture every Sunday of her life. But she said

she had never heard a sermon on Sophia, the feminine face of God.  And while it may be a surprise to many of us to

learn that there is this powerful female aspect of the Holy in the Bible, it

probably shouldn’t surprise us that it doesn’t get much attention. 

Sophia is not the main point of my

sermon today, but I want you to know about her. Because I believe that if she

got more attention in the church that largely sets the tone for our culture,

then it might be a little easier the voices of women to be heard and

honored.  And since March is Women’s

History Month, and today is the International Day for Women, I wanted to take a

few moments to introduce you to her – and then I’m going to go on to reflect on

one particular piece of wisdom from one particular woman. 

We begin hearing about Wisdom – Sophia –

in the book of Proverbs, where we’re told:

Happy are those who find wisdom,    and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver,    and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels,    and nothing you desire can compare with her. Her ways are ways of pleasantness,    and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;    those who hold her fast are called happy. (Proverbs 3:13-18)

Later, in chapter 8, Sophia speaks

directly to us:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,    the first of his acts of long ago. . . When he established the heavens, I was there,    when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above,    when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit,    so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth,    then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight,    rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world    and delighting in the human race.  (Proverbs 8:23, 27-

So right there in holy Scripture,

accepted by Jews and Christians alike as authoritative, we have this vivid

image of Wisdom, embodied in female form, the very first creation of God,

existing with God from the beginning of time. 

Now I know many of you grew up in religious traditions that understand

Scripture to be foundational.  So how

many of you ever heard about her?

But wait, it gets even better.  There is a set of books in the Bible called

the  Apocrypha, usually found between the

Old and New Testaments.  They were not

part of the Hebrew canon of holy scripture, although Jews certainly recognize

and look to them – that’s where this morning story about Queen Esther comes

from, and also the book of Maccabees which gives us the story of Hannukah.  Early Greek and Latin translations of Hebrew

scripture for the early Christian Church included them, and early church

fathers quoted them