Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County - Sermons

“You can do this hard thing. It’s not easy, I know, but I believe that it’s so. You can do this hard thing.” Those words from Carrie Newcomer have been ringing in my ears since I discovered her song a couple weeks ago.[1] Maybe it’s because the song starts off with sitting at the table and struggling over math problems. I can certainly relate to that. And my mother, who’s online with us today, can attest to the tears that were shed at that table nearly-nightly when I was growing up.

As our confinement drags on, I’m observing that two things – two opposing things – are happening in our households. On the one hand, we’re all finding a new rhythm, a new schedule, a new way of being together. The novelty of the first couple of weeks has worn off, and we’re all kind of settling into whatever system is working well for us, or as well as it can.  And let me take a moment here to give a shout-out to all the parents and kids with us today. Health care professionals may be recognized as heroes these days, but those of you who have suddenly had to become math and science and art teachers, and virtual cruise directors in addition to whatever it is your other job entails – all of you are heroes, too.

So, we’re kind of settling into this temporary “new normal,” which we know is going to continue for at least the next month, and perhaps much longer. And on the other end of the spectrum, if you’re like me you’re feeling really unsettled, frustrated, tired, grouchy, angry, and maybe more than a little bit scared.  We have this yearning for things to be as they were. To be able to go to the supermarket without feeling like we’re risking our lives. To send the kids off to school with a wave and a smile, knowing that they’ll be fine when they get off the bus in the afternoon. Who ever thought we’d be longing to get back to those weekly staff meetings in the office, just for some human, non-Zoom contact? I’m wondering what it is that you’re missing right now, from the way things used to be? Feel free to type it into the chat. There are lots of perfectly legitimate reasons to be unsettled, frustrated, angry right now. Lots of things that make this ongoing confinement really, really hard. This is the “hard thing” that we’re called to do right now.

One of the things that makes it hard is that, as human beings, we’re social animals by nature, which means that limiting our contact to online interactions and the few in-person encounters we choose is unnatural. Self-isolation is intrinsically abhorrent to who we are meant to be and how we are meant to be. On top of that, we’re creatures of habit. We all need structure and we need to at least feel like we have some degree of control over our lives. That’s why we use phrases like “new normal” and “get back to normal.” We crave the structure and stability that’s been robbed from us. These are hard times because we’re lacking normalcy and predictability in our lives. We’re being forced to adjust and adapt at an unnatural rate as we learn new information, it seems, almost hourly. So all this goes against the grain of who we are and what we need to thrive as human beings.

All this sounds pretty glum, so let’s get back to Carrie Newcomer’s song. “You can do this hard thing. It’s not easy I know, but I believe that it’s so. You can do this hard thing.” I do believe that it’s so, that we can do this hard thing. And it starts by naming that it’s a hard thing, and that it’s not normal, that it’s the farthest thing from normal. It starts by releasing ourselves from our expectation that we’re going to be superstars at this self-isolation thing. Superstar teachers. Superstar students. Superstar parents. Superstar spouses. Superstar employees. Dare I even say “superstar ministers?” Not only is what we’re facing unnatural, but we’re also in uncharted territory, and we’re being forced to basically make things up as we go along. So, let’s all relieve ourselves of the burden of expectation as we try

The Easter story is familiar to nearly everyone who grew up in Western culture, whether or not you were raised as a Christian. Jesus was crucified, his body was placed in a tomb, and three days later he rose from the dead. For some, he suffered and died on our behalf, to pay for our sins. For others, his resurrection is proof that he was not just human, but divine – God come to Earth. For those who aren’t Christian, the Easter story is just that: a story, a fable, a metaphor. It’s a story about hope. It’s a fable that reminds us that, just as surely as day follows night, spring will follow winter. That we can overcome the obstacles in front of us and find new life on the other side.

Nearly all of the interpretations of the Easter story have one thing in common: they jump from the crucifixion to the resurrection, from Good Friday to Easter morning, and pretty much skip over the time in between. None of the four gospels tell us what happened inside the tomb during those three days. We know what was happening outside the tomb: the followers of Jesus mourned his death and feared for their lives. They hid out together, afraid they’d be hunted down by the occupying Roman army and suffer the same fate as their leader. But the gospels don’t tell us what was happening behind that big stone that sealed Jesus’s body off from the rest of the world. Which means that all sort of speculation, all kinds of theories have sprung up to answer the question: If Jesus died, was buried and three days later rose from the dead, what was going on inside the tomb, and more importantly, inside Jesus, during that “between time?” Some say that the spirit of Jesus descended into Hell, where it experienced the pain and suffering of eternal damnation, and that his spirit returned to his body with a renewed conviction to overcome that pain on behalf of all of us. Others say that, while in Hell, Jesus preached the good news of the true faith, and that in doing so he released the spirits there from their imprisonment. But most Easter theology is just that: it’s about Easter, about the resurrection itself. It doesn’t worry too much about the between time, because, look, they say, he conquered death. He died for our sins. What does it matter why it took three days? Who cares what was happening during that time?

As you might guess, it’s that “between time” that captures my attention and my imagination. The time after the before and the time before the after. Because that’s exactly where we are right now, isn’t it? We’re stuck in that between time. Sealed inside our tomb, unable, for the most part, to emerge. For all of us there is the time before our confinement and self-isolation, and somewhere down the road – oh how we wish it was only three days or even three weeks – there will be an “after” time as well. Some have already begun to call this time “The Great Pause.” But whatever we call it, forever more, in our lives and in all human history, this will be the in between time, the equivalent of Jesus’s tomb time. Maybe there’s something we can learn about ourselves by focusing there.

Let’s start by looking at how Jesus was before, and then how he was after. Reading the gospels we know that, in the three years they document, Jesus was a do-er. He and his disciples went from town to town, preaching a message of radical love. Jesus healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He released prisoners from bondage. He was a whirlwind of activity, relentless in his doing. There’s only one documented time when Jesus said to his disciples, “Hey guys, I need a break. I’m going to take a nap.” And even then his rest was disturbed when a storm blew up and he had to calm the seas. So, there was a relentlessness in Jesus’s life before he died.

Now, let’s take a look at Jesus after his tomb time. Basically, all we see is Jesus walking on roads, and showing up different places. It’s all about Jesus’s being, not his doing. He shows himself to the women in the garden. He walks w

As we approach Earth Day 2020 – the 50th anniversary of Earth Day – we’re witnessing something amazing during our confinement. With our travel restricted by stay-at-home orders, and a radically reduced number of cars on the road and planes in the air, we’re seeing a spontaneous recovery of air and water quality around the planet. With factories producing fewer goods and people taking fewer trips in the past few months, the silver lining of this pandemic is an environmental rebound like none we’ve ever seen. For the first time in a generation, residents of New Delhi, India can see the Himalayas from their homes. There are rumors of dolphins playing in the canals of Venice, Italy and the water there is clear enough now to see fish swimming. There have also been sightings of coyotes walking across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. In just one month, from February to March, air pollution in China was reduced by nearly 20% and in Europe the drop has been a staggering 60%. Closer to home, the northeastern United States saw a 30% reduction in fossil fuel pollution when you compare February to March.

The Great Pause – this “timeout” from our 21st century lifestyle that the pandemic has imposed on us – has given us irrefutable proof of how that lifestyle affects the environment. It also demonstrates the Earth’s resilience. How quickly it can respond to a significant reduction in our human impact on the planet. We know, of course, that it’s not going to stay this way forever, that the stay-at-home order isn’t a sustainable solution to the world’s environmental problems. While there have been significant improvements in the past few months, there have also been devastating human impacts in the form of job losses and the loss of lives. And we know there’s tremendous pressure to get the country and the world “back to normal.” Back to doing what we were doing before our confinement. But we can hope that these visible, tangible, and rapid environmental improvements will influence policy makers and citizens alike when, eventually, we begin to ease all the restrictions we’re living under. Although I’m afraid it will, let’s hope that “getting back to business” doesn’t mean “business as usual,” and that “re-opening the economy” doesn’t mean that we give industries free rein to return to polluting ways of production we saw in the before time.

So, this global rebounding of the environment is impressive. But now I want to bring us closer to home and ask you this: Where have you taken refuge in the past weeks? What has been your sanctuary while you can’t visit our Sanctuary? When we think about refuge or a sanctuary, we usually think of a safe space, and often that translates to indoor space: a building like the church, or our home, or even just a room like our bedroom or maybe even a bathroom. If you’d like, tell me in the chat where you’ve been finding refuge and sanctuary these days.

What’s somewhat paradoxical about this pandemic is that, in some ways, the safest place to be is outside. Outdoors, nature has become a sanctuary. Yes, staying home is what’s recommended, and if you and your loved ones stay cooped up at home without any contact with the outside world, that’s the best way to avoid getting sick. But for me, and for many others, getting outdoors – going for a walk or a run – has been our refuge. Our shelter from the storm. Because for many of us, being confined to our homes is stress-inducing rather than stress-relieving, even for the most “home-bodied” among us.

I had something of a spiritual experience outdoors just this past week. Last Friday I spent a whole day weeding a flower bed. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? My usual gardening method is to get a truckload of mulch and to basically just dump it in the garden, hoping to smother the weeds underneath. But not this year. I went out early in the morning and looked at the expanse of weeds facing me. And it felt overwhelming. So I knelt down beside the bed

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.

Most of us are familiar with these words, which are often referred to as the “Serenity Prayer.” Its adoption by Alcoholics Anonymous in the middle of last century and its incorporation into other 12-Step programs has brought this prayer into nearly universal awareness. What’s not as well known is that this is not the full and complete text of the prayer that was written by Lutheran pastor and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. It continues like this:

Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, Not as I would have it. Trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will. That I may be reasonably happy in this life, And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.

There is a lot to unpack here, but

before I start to do that, I want to acknowledge a couple of things. First, the

Serenity Prayer, in either its condensed or its complete form, has been

literally life-saving for hundreds of thousands of people over the decades it’s

been in use. Its power in peoples’ lives is immeasurable and it is treasured by

them. If you are one of those people, I want to honor and respect you as I talk

this morning, and I want to say how incredibly happy I am that you are here.

Second, I need to tell you that I am not one of these people. Because I’ve

never been part of a 12-Step program, I feel a bit like an outsider looking in,

and I feel my qualifications to even talk about the Serenity Prayer are suspect

at best. That said, I may be able to offer a somewhat unbiased opinion about

it, and I hope that has some value. And, as you’ll see, while we’ll use the

Serenity Prayer as a jumping off point, I hope my message this morning will speak

to all of us, both those who have been or are engaged in a 12-Step program and

those of us who haven’t been or are not.

So when we look at the Serenity Prayer we see that it’s really three prayers in one. This is, perhaps, what makes it so powerful. In just 27 words, it encapsulates the heart and soul of our human condition. The first sentence is about being in control. As hard as it is to admit it sometimes, we know we are finite and fallible people and that, therefore, some things are beyond our control.  We seek to gain acceptance for those things. The second sentence reminds us, though, that not everything is beyond us. As individuals with at least some power and volition, we are also able to exercise our agency over some of our circumstances. We seek the determination to seize and act upon those opportunities when they arise. And then, in the third sentence, we name yet another central fact in our lives: That, as one of the readings in our UU hymnal states, “the way is often hard, the path is never clear and the stakes are very high.”[1] We seek the power of discernment, an unmuddling of our minds, the conversion of confusion into clarity. We ask for wisdom.

At the same time that the Serenity

Prayer is three prayers in one, it’s also one prayer in three. Trinitarians

have good reason to love this prayer, for its structure if for nothing else.

The three impleadings are intimately connected and interwoven. We cannot

achieve the serenity of the first movement or the courage of the second without

achieving some measure of the wisdom we seek in the third. But enough about

structure. Let’s dive into the content.

We could spend lots of time talking about what we can or cannot change. About the scope of our power and the magnificence of our impotence. About how our image of ourselves as independent actors, in control of our lives is often at odds with our circumstances. We could reflect on what form courage takes. Courage to make a change. Courage to stick to what we’ve always done. And I could do several sermons just on what

Did you see the moon the other night? It wasn’t one of those supermoons we hear about. It was just a big, fat, round, full moon. It looked like the headlight of a huge Harley Davidson motorcycle coming toward you over the crest of a hill in the middle of the night out in the desert. It was so bright it nearly hurt your eyes. I saw it when it was rising, and then, because I usually wake up early, I saw it as it was beginning to set. When I got up and everything else was dark, I thought I’d left the light on in the bathroom, but it was that moon beaming in through the window. Others noticed it, too, because this photo you’re seeing was taken by a friend of mine, who posted it on his Facebook page.

It’s a comfort to me to know that others noticed that moon the other night with me. That I wasn’t alone in being moon-struck. These days everything seems so dark that sometimes it’s all we focus on, and that can feel pretty lonely. I know that all of us have spent this past week forced to face our fears. Our fears of getting sick. Our fears of being locked up behind closed doors. Our fears of so-called “social distancing.” Maybe even our fears of running out of food or toilet paper. It can feel overwhelming, like a big dark disk that can blot out the moon if we let it.

Do you remember what Mr. Rogers told us that we should do when we hear about something scary? His mother always told him to look for the helpers. And we certainly can and maybe should do that these days. But here’s what I want to suggest that we do, too. And I want to encourage us to do it later today, and every day this week: I want us to look for the beauty. Because beauty restores our souls. Beauty invites us to take a break and to breathe. Beauty demands nothing of us except to bear witness. To take it in and receive it. To simply be here in awe and to simply say “aww” and “wow.”

Beauty, of course, comes in many

forms. It comes in that big, ole moon hanging in the sky, whether it’s round

and full, or it’s just a sliver or anywhere in between. It might be a painting

hanging on the wall of your home right now. It might be a tree or a plant

that’s blooming right outside your window. It might be there, right now – right

this very minute – waiting for you to take a minute to receive the gift it’s

offering. Have you seen how the cherries and crab apples and forsythia have

just exploded with color this past week? Beauty can also be found in the faces

of the people we love. The faces that are right in front of us, right now, on

this screen. Beauty is everywhere, and all we need to do is notice it.

Now, I’ll bet you weren’t expecting

homework, especially with school out, but I have an assignment for you for this

week. But here’s what I’m asking you to do: I want you to notice something

beautiful. I want you to just simply take it in through your eyes, or your

ears, or your other senses. And next week, when we get together again like this

online, I’m going to ask you where you noticed beauty and how it made you feel.

You know, I find beauty in music and art and nature. And I find beauty in poetry, too. In fact, I like to think of what Mr. Rogers said and change it just a little bit to say that in hard times we should look to the poets,  too. And there’s one poem in particular that is simply beautiful, and I go back to it time and time and time again when the world looks a little dark and scary, or a lot dark and scary. I know many of you know it, but I want to share it with you now. It’s called “The Peace of Wild Things” by the poet Wendell Berry and it goes like this:

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me t

I would love to take a poll here this morning among all ____ of us who are watching, about what the hardest part of our current situation is. In fact, we can do that! If you want, tell us in the chat what you think the hardest part is. Now, the challenge is that you can type and read, but then you won’t be listening to me! But go ahead anyway. Is the hardest part being cooped up at home trying to beat boredom? Is it coming up with lesson plans for the kids? Deciding which show to binge-watch? How about losing track of what day of the week it is? Is it not being able to find toilet paper at the store?

There’s no doubt that all these things, and all the things you’re putting up in the chat, are challenging. For me, one of the hardest parts of this situation is not being together with you. I miss standing at the top of the stairs and greeting you. I miss looking into your eyes and seeing your smiles. And most of all, I miss the handshakes and the hugs. But even for me, that’s not the hardest part of our social distancing and self-quarantine. The hardest part is that everything is so uncertain. Everything about this situation is up in the air. There is just so much that we don’t know. We don’t know how far the virus is going to spread. We don’t know how long it will take to develop a vaccine. We don’t know when the kids will get back to school and we get back to work. We don’t know when this will all be over and what life will look like when it is. What will “getting back to normal” even mean? These are big questions. Existential questions. And we don’t have a choice whether to wrestle with them or not. We’ve been thrown into the ring and they’re right there every morning when we wake up, waiting to pounce us.

A few weeks ago – geez – it feels like a lifetime, but it was just 3 weeks ago, I talked about having the “wisdom to know the difference.” Remember that? If you weren’t in church that weekend, you can go to our website and listen or read it. But I used the Serenity Prayer as a jumping off point for looking at how we can separate out what we can change and control from what we can’t. Who knew we’d be sitting here today, unable to control nearly anything. Except our own responses and reactions to our circumstances.

That’s what’s so hard about what we’re going through right now: we have nearly no control over what’s going to happen, how this is going to play out. Blogger Courtney Martin says we’re “riding waves of anxiety built on a riptide of no control.” And, I’m guessing that more than a few of us like to be in control. Can I get a virtual “Amen?” in the chat from those of us who like to plan, who like to organize, who like to have a say over what’s going to happen later today, tomorrow, next week and next month?

We have lost any semblance of

control right now, and we just don’t know what the future holds. There. I said

it. I don’t know where this all will go. None of us knows. No amount of

watching the news or surfing the web will tell us, because we’re not the only

ones stumbling around in the dark and slamming our shins against the coffee

table. The only thing that we know for certain is that no one knows. And that’s

incredibly unsettling, isn’t it?

Now, for the Unitarian Universalists

among us, this idea of not knowing has a certain familiar ring to it. Because

as UU’s we often say that no one has all the answers. We say that our faith

calls us to live into the questions. That we’re all about the journey and not

the destination. I’ve often said that the greatest spiritual challenge we face

as human beings is to learn to live with uncertainty, in a state of not

knowing. But I’m guessing that none of us ever expected to have such a stark

opportunity for spiritual growth thrust upon us!

I believe that naming our not

knowing is important. It’s a start. Because naming the uncertainty we face and

we feel may just allow us to ease up our grasp, loosen our grip, let down our

shoulders and maybe breathe a litt

On this Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday for multigenerational services at 9:30 am and 11:15  am we focused on the issue of food insecurity in our community.

There is no additional text for the service so please listen to the audio!

I’m guessing that most of us here today are familiar with the Seven Deadly Sins. And, dare I say that some of us are, perhaps, intimately familiar, maybe a little too familiar with some of them? Can we name them? Raise your hand and let’s see… That’s right, they are: Pride; Greed; Lust; Envy; Gluttony; Wrath; and Sloth. While their origins pre-date the Catholic Church, it was Pope Gregory I who brought the Seven Deadly Sins to the fore of Catholic confessional theology way back in 590 C.E.  The poet Dante reflected and solidified them in his work The Divine Comedy, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales includes “The Parson’s Tale,” which is essentially a sermon against the seven deadly sins. We in western civilization have, for our entire lives, been warned about and warned away from the sins of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth, even if they weren’t assigned those names or identified as the seven deadly sins.

Less frequently, it

seems, are we indoctrinated into the Seven Virtues, sometimes called the

Cardinal Virtues or the Heavenly Virtues. The virtues have taken many forms

over time, and they don’t always correspond to the seven deadly sins. Among the

Cardinal virtues are Prudence; Justice; Fortitude; and Temperance. When we try

to match the virtues with the vices we come up with this formulation: The

virtue aligned against Pride is Humility. Against Greed is Charity. Against

Lust is Chastity. Against Envy, Kindness. Against Gluttony is Temperance.

Against Wrath, Patience. And against Sloth we find Diligence. So, the seven

virtues are often listed as Humility, Charity, Chastity, Kindness, Temperance,

Patience and Diligence. Not altogether a bad list, really.

But what if we were to update and revise this list according to our Unitarian Universalist principles and values? Would that be a worthwhile exercise? Would it help us gain some perspective on what it means to be a good Unitarian Universalist or, to put it in terms of this month’s spiritual theme, to help us live lives of integrity? After all, the term “integrity” speaks to us of integration, of alignment. Of integrating and incorporating our highest values into our sense of self, into our very identity, and then seeking to live in alignment with those values. If we were to try and name seven Unitarian Universalist virtues, what might they be?

If you remember back to last Fall, we already embarked on this project. Remember when I talked about developing three new legs of the stool of our faith? I said that it was time to update the three primary principles of “freedom, reason and tolerance” with three other values. Can anyone name them? That’s right. They are Love, Justice and Transformation. If you think back to those sermons, I talked about how a fierce love of the world will lead us to be justice-seekers and justice-makers. And that, by doing so, we’ll not only be agents of change in the world, but we ourselves will be changed and transformed. So I still believe that Love, Justice and Transformation are three bedrock principles for our faith in the 21st Century, and I think they can be listed as three virtues as well.

Before I go on, maybe it would be good to talk about what we mean by “virtue?” What is a virtue and what does it mean to be virtuous? In its simplest formulation, virtue is the desire to do good. The philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote that “Virtue is the moral strength of the will in obeying the dictates of duty.” So, virtue is not only the desire to do good, but the commitment to be good. When we talk about integrity, we sometimes say that it’s about walking the walk and not just talking the talk. Our actions match our words, our intentions. In this way, it’s the very definition of virtue. Catholic Theologian Thomas Aquinas took it one step further. He claimed that, for an act to be virtuous, it wasn’t just about what we do, but the intention behind the action that matters. If we do good for personal gain or benefit, that’s

Today is the third and final sermon in our series reflecting on Rev. Forrest Church’s three-part mantra that he claimed served him well as he faced his own mortality:  “Be who you are, do what you can, want what you have.” Today we’ll focus on that third leg of his philosophical stool: “Want what you have.”  This one is, I think, particularly appropriate for this month in which our spiritual theme is “Attention” and in this time of gratitude and thanksgiving. I’ll explore that in a bit, but first let’s take a short refresher on the first two statements before we dive into the third.

When Church urges us to “be who we are” he’s both comforting and challenging us. On the one hand, he is saying that all that is expected of us is that we “show up” as our authentic and complete selves. He’s telling us that our God-given gifts are enough – all that the world can expect or demand of us. That’s the comforting part. The challenging part of “be who you are” is that it demands two things of us: that we do the hard work of figuring out who we truly, deeply, authentically are, and that we live into that authentic self fully. It is no small task to discover and to claim the ground of our being – who we are called to be – and then to stand firmly and fully on that ground. But that is exactly what “be who you are” requires of us.

To “do what we can” is to recognize both our own power and our own limitations.  Church writes that “Doing what you can means doing all you can, no more and no less.  It’s not just mucking by, but it’s not trying to do more than you can do, either, not stretching yourself out so far that you can’t help but force a failure.”  When we “do what we can” we seek to achieve the significant goals that lie within our power, and while we may risk failure, we don’t set ourselves up for certain defeat. To do what we can requires that we make a connection between the needs of others and our own ability to meet those needs. Another great theologian, Rev. Frederick Buechner, called this the very definition of “vocation.” “The place God calls you to,” he writes, “is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” To glean and then pursue your vocation is to truly “do what you can.”

Let’s turn our attention now to “Want what you have.” And as we do, let’s recall that Church was writing about this as he faced a death sentence from his cancer diagnosis. “Want what you have” seems like strange words coming from someone who was diagnosed with a terminal disease at a relatively young age.  No one “wants” to have cancer, at any age.  To understand Forrest Church’s prescriptive, we need to put it into a larger context, a context provided both in his book “Love and Death” and in an earlier book of his called “Freedom from Fear.”  In “Love and Death,” as in some of his other theological reflections, Church asks us to imagine that our lives are made up of a large window with many panes.  If you like, you can use the image of a stained-glass window.  Each pane is made up of some aspect of our life – our job, our hobbies and interests, our health, our relationship with our partner or spouse, or with our children.  At any given time in our lives, he tells us, some of these panes are going to be clear and bright, with the sun streaming through them. Others, however, are bound to be clouded over and perhaps even shaded or opaque.  While we may be enjoying a particularly productive time in our work lives, things at home with our partner might be strained.  Or perhaps we’re deliciously and deliriously in love, but that is putting pressure on our other relationships with friends, who resent it.  You get the idea.  Some of our windows are rosy and allow the light to shine in, while others may be a bit foggy or even boarded up.  Forrest writes that, as human beings, we have an inclination to focus on, and perhaps even to obsess about, the cl

Today is the second of our three-part sermon series dedicated to the philosophy of Rev. Forrest Church. As I noted last week, Church spent nearly 30 years as the senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in New York City.  He was a public theologian who authored twenty books in his lifetime and was a frequent commentator in the public media.  After being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, he sat down to write what he thought would be his last book, and the result was “Love and Death:  My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow.”  Forrest Church succumbed to his disease ten years ago, shortly before publication of his final work, another book he wrote after his terminal diagnosis, entitled “The Cathedral of the World:  A Universalist Theology.”  Ten years before that, Church acknowledged that he was addicted to alcohol and he joined AA.  As part of his recovery, he developed a mantra that he said served him well for the remaining years of his life.  It consists of three statements:  “Want what you have.  Do what you can.  Be who you are.”  Last week we examined the statement “Be who you are.”  This week we’ll consider “Do what you can.”

“Do what you

can.”  This part of Church’s mantra, he

tells us, “focuses our minds on what is possible, no more, no less, thereby

filling each moment with conscious, practicable endeavor.”1  In this simple statement Church is at once

asserting that we have power and control over our destiny, while he is also

acknowledging the limitations and boundaries that we experience as human

beings.  He is orienting us toward the

feasible and the achievable, knowing full well that as individuals we are limited

in our reach and our scope.  In one of

the closing chapters of “Love and Death,” Church bemoans “how much wasted

energy we spend trying to do what we can’t. 

And how often we fail to optimize our efforts and thereby achieve the

significant goals that do lie within our power.”  He goes on to tell us that “When we quit

trying because we fail to achieve our pipe dreams, we overlook all we actually

could accomplish by putting our shoulder squarely to the right wheel.”2  To use the metaphor from Alyssa’s story

today, when we see we can’t save all the starfish, we don’t bother trying to

save any.

When Church

instructs us to “do what we can,” he is calling us to let go of dreams of

grandiosity and to focus on the meaningful tasks we can achieve within the context

of our everyday lives.  This statement

brings to mind the reading found in our hymnal, written by Unitarian minister

Edward Everett Hale more than a century ago: 

“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.”3

While I was

reflecting on this simple statement, “Do what you can,” my mind went back a

full 30 years, to 1989.  As you know,

just yesterday we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin

Wall. That same year, students and other pro-democracy forces in China seized

the opportunity to pressure their government to loosen its iron grip on its

people, and protesters flooded the streets of the capitol, Beijing.  The Chinese government acted swiftly and

violently to crush the peaceful protests, and hundreds, perhaps thousands were

killed.  There is one image from the

Tianamen Square protests that is burned indelibly into my memory.  It is the image of “Tank Man.”

We call him Tank

Man because his identity has never been disclosed, at least to the Western

world.  In the video that was smuggled

out of the country, we see a column of Chinese tanks rumbling down a street in

central Beijing.  And we see a lone man,

carrying what appear to be shopping bags, step off the sidewalk and into the

path of the oncoming tanks.  I