Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County - Sermons

Rev. Dr. Forrest Church served as the spiritual leader of the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in New York City for nearly 30 years. During his ministry, the church became both a haven for spiritual seekers and a beacon of social outreach to the community.  During his lifetime, Church authored and co-authored nearly twenty books on the topics ranging from American history to liberal religion and spirituality.  When he was called to All Souls, membership hovered at around 100 congregants, and when he left it exceeded 1,000.

By all measures, Church’s

ministry was public, prolific and powerful. 

But as with all of us frail and fallible human beings, Forrest fought

his demons, too.  In the year 2000 he

acknowledged his alcoholism, joined AA and remained sober for the remaining

years of his life.  He faced other

struggles as well, and what perhaps made him a popular pastor and preacher is

that he faced those struggles head-on, and he used them to inform his

ministry.  In February 2008, he was

diagnosed with esophageal cancer and the doctors expected him to live but a few

more months.  With this death sentence in

hand, Forrest did what he did best, and picked up his pencil and paper and

began to write.  The book that resulted

from these efforts is called “Love and Death (My Journey Through the Valley of

the Shadow).” 

In that book, Forrest Church revealed

a “mantra” that he had come to live by later in life: It is ‘Want what you

have; Do what you can; Be who you are.” 

“Want what you have; do what you can; be who you are.”  As a summary of a philosophy, a theology, a

statement of faith and a way of life, these three statements warrant some

attention.  And so, in tribute to Forrest

Church, a colleague whom I never knew but whose words and life were

inspirational to many, a colleague who died ten years ago this fall, I will

spend this Sunday and the next two unpacking these statements.  This Sunday we’ll consider “Be who you are.”

As part of my seminary training,

I spent a summer working as a hospital chaplain, assigned to the psychiatric

floor.  I found it to be deeply

gratifying work, and I was able to build relationships with many of the

patients.  Some were long-term and others

had a quick turnaround.  Some were what

we called “bouncers.”  These were people

who would be admitted to the unit because of some behavioral issue – often

times they had simply gone off their meds and needed to be re-stabilized –

treated and then released.  But within a

matter of days or weeks, they’d “bounce back” to the unit again.  In the course of my eight weeks at the

hospital, some patients bounced several times.

My favorite bouncer was “Rose.”  Rose was a lovely woman who was about 80

years old who suffered from schizophrenia. 

Rose would be brought into the unit very agitated and aggressive, but

within a day or so, with the proper medications, she’d be sweet as a

peach.  Rose and I had many long

conversations about God and love and heaven, and she was rock-solid in her

Baptist faith.  During one of our

conversations, Rose expressed to me her concern about all the people who were

interviewing and examining her.  She was

tired of being treated like a lab rat, and told me that she was afraid to talk

to the doctors.  I tried to reassure her

that they were there to help her, and I suggested that she be honest with them

in answering their questions.  “Just be

yourself,” I told her, “and they’ll take good care of you.”  Rose’s response to my sage advice was a

priceless gem that I’ll never forget: 

“Be myself?” she said.  “Of course

I’ve got to be myself.  Everybody else is

already taken!” While this witticism, I found out later, has been misattributed

to Oscar Wilde, I’d not heard it before.

In his writing Forrest Church admits, of his three admonitions – Want what you have. Do what

“It felt like coming home.” “When I walked through the doors, I could breathe again.” “I didn’t know it could be this way.” “I found my people.” “Where have you been all my life?” “Who knew there was a place like this?” “I immediately felt like I belonged.”

No, I’m not talking about the Magic

Kingdom. Or Camelot. Or Brigadoon. I’ve heard these sentiments expressed, over

and over again, by newcomers to our church. I’ve uttered some of these same

words myself, and I’ve heard them come out of the mouths of many of you here today.

UUCDC is a place where so many of us experience a deep and abiding sense of

belonging. It’s a place where we can let down our guard and be who we are,

without fear of judgment or competition or derision. It’s a place of acceptance

and authenticity, a haven from the rat-racing hamster wheel of our lives. Here,

we’re allowed to take off the masks we wear. The masks that are hung on a peg

by the front door and that we put on whenever we grab the car keys and head

outside. The masks we wear to impress our boss or our neighbors. The masks that

shield us from criticism and judgment, or even hatred. The masks we wear to

help us fit in to whatever expectations are placed on our shoulders to be or to

do something we might prefer not to be or to do.

When we walk through the doors of this church, we can simply be who we are, knowing that we’re surrounded by like-minded people. People who share the values we ourselves are committed to. People who want what we want for ourselves, for our children, for other generations to come. People who are searching for spiritual sustenance in a world that withholds it, like some miserly uncle who magically produces a quarter from behind your eight-year-old ear, but then puts it in his own pocket instead of handing it to you. We are a community where gratitude, giving, and grace abound. Where our gifts are treasured instead of measured. Where, in giving, we receive. Where, in loving, we find love. We are a place where we’re allowed, where we’re encouraged, where we’re maybe even expected, to grow a soul. We are about the warmest, most welcoming place in the world. It reminds me of that scene in the movie Field of Dreams, where one of the ballplayers is packing up his gear and getting ready to return to the cornfield and he asks Ray Kinsella, “Is this heaven?” and Ray answers, “No. It’s UUCDC.”

UUCDC, and our larger Unitarian

Universalist faith, is all this and more to all of us. This is a place and this

is a faith that I love with all my heart. It’s no exaggeration to say that

being part of a UU congregation saved my life, and I know it has done the same

for some of you. And so, it’s hard to stand up here today and to say that, for

all of the great things our faith and our church are, all the great things that

we say and all the great things that we do, we are not these things to everyone.

It’s hard to stand up here and say that we’re falling far short of our

aspirations to be the beloved community that we sometimes believe ourselves to

be. Because, while all of us here in this room may feel like we’re home, like

we belong, we might feel all those great warm and fuzzy feelings that I just

talked about a minute ago, there are lots of people who don’t. There are lots

of people who walk through our doors and then turn around and walk away. And

I’m referring today specifically to people of color who come here, hoping to

find exactly what it is that we say we offer – what we say we, as white people,

experience – and leave disappointed or even damaged.

We have some hard truths to admit to

ourselves and, yes, I’m preaching to the white folks here today, including

myself. Truths like the fact that, depending on the research you rely on,

Unitarian Universalist congregations on the whole are between 80% and 90% white,

and ours is even more so. That African Americans make up only 5% of our denomination’s

membership, and far less than that here at UUCDC. Truths like the fact tha

In a meeting earlier this week here in church, I posed what I thought was a simple reflection question, based on our monthly spiritual theme of “Belonging.” I asked “Where are you most at home? Where do you feel you best belong?” The question brought up a lot of emotions for folks around the table, and the answers were wide-ranging. A couple folks talked about the place where they grew up and the family members they grew up with there. Others talked about feeling like they most belong out in nature. Some identified “being at home” with being with their spouse or partner. A couple of folks named this church as the place they feel they best belong. Reflecting on the answers to this question later that night, I realized that there’s a single thread that wove through all of the responses: We feel most at home where we feel most connected. Home, or the place where we best belong, is never in isolation. It’s always in relationship. Relationship with other people. Relationship with other beings, like the trees and the birds. Relationship with tender memories that make our eyes well up with tears when we bring them to mind. No one in that small sample on Thursday night said that they feel they best belong sitting in a room by themselves, alone in the dark.

In this month’s Soul Matters packet,

Douglas Steer, a Quaker teacher, takes the question I asked the other night

and, naming the truth of our longing to be connected with others, asks a

slightly different question. He writes:

“The ancient question, ‘Who am I?’ inevitably leads to a deeper one: ‘Whose am I?’ – because there is no identity outside of relationship. You cannot be a person by yourself. To ask “Whose am I” is to extend the question far beyond the little self-absorbed self, and wonder: Who needs you?  Who loves you?  To whom are you accountable?  To whom do you answer?  Whose life is altered by your choices?  With whose life is your own bound up, inextricably, in obvious or invisible ways?’

“Whose am I?” “Whose are you?” Just asking that question, instead of that self-centered, isolating and perhaps even loneliness-inducing question “Who am I?”, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. “Whose am I?” assumes connection and relationship. It reminds us of an essential part of our nature: that we’re never alone. But at the same time, this question of “Whose are we?” is a kind of challenge as well. Because, in asking it, in reminding us that we’re never alone, it also reminds us that what we do, what we say, how we behave matters. It matters not just to us, but to others. To all those to whom we’re connected. It reminds us that, because we’re part of an interconnected web of existence, when we set a strand of that web to vibrating, it resonates and rebounds and vibrates across that entire web. It’s like the so-called “Butterfly Effect,” which delivers the somewhat daunting news that when a butterfly flaps its wings here, it will cause a hurricane on the other side of the planet. Or, if you prefer, you can think of it as dropping a stone into a calm lake. Our actions are the stone, and when we do something it causes ripples and waves to spread out in all directions.

But there’s another element to this question “Whose are we?” that I’d like to take a little closer look at today. It’s not about where or how or on whom we have an impact, or who our actions affect. Douglas Steer asks: “To whom are we accountable? To whom do we answer?” In this question of responsibility and accountability I find the image of the pond and the stone and the ripples to be equally helpful. Because I picture the answer to this question as a series of concentric circles, spreading out from a center that is us.

First, I think we can all agree that

we’re accountable to ourselves. That we are called each day to act in ways that

are consistent with our values, whatever those values are. This means making

choices that allow us to gain some sense of self-satisfaction, or at lea

Last week, during her time for all ages, Chrissy asked us to name some things that spark a sense of awe in us. Some of the answers included standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon and seeing the Aurora Borealis, contemplating the vastness of the ocean and the universe, being outside on a star-lit night, and being present at the birth of a child. I’d agree with this list completely, although seeing the Northern Lights is still on my personal bucket list. I remember seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, on the North Rim, which is much less commercialized than its southern cousin, and it gave me goosebumps. When Irene and I went to Alaska a few years ago, it was the same thing. About 10 days into the trip I remember saying to her, “I wish we had started counting how many times we’ve said “Wow” on this trip.” Because it seemed that, around every turn in the road there was a “Wow” moment. A moment of awe.

In her brilliant little book, “Help – Thanks – Wow,” author Anne Lamott says that “Wow” is one of the three “essential prayers.” “Wow,” she writes, “is about having one’s mind blown by the mesmerizing or the miraculous…’Wow’ is often offered with a gasp, a sharp intake of breath when we can’t think of another way to capture the sight of shocking beauty or destruction, of a sudden unbidden insight or an unexpected flash of grace.”[1] “The words ‘wow’ and ‘awe,’” she observes, “are the same height and width, all w’s and short vowels. They could dance together.”[2]

We are just beginning to uncover the power of awe in our lives, and how necessary it is. Scientists experimenting with the effects of awe have found that experiences of awe lower our blood pressure and reduce the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in our brain. But even beyond that, they’re learning that awe makes us kinder and more generous toward each other. Awe produces a social good. Social psychologist Paul Piff says that “It’s clear that awe results in a sudden and dramatic reduction in attention to the self, and people lose themselves in this all-encompassing event. Awe seems to kind of dissolve the self, to give rise to this feeling that the self has been lost and perhaps to allow the novelty and freshness of the world to seep in.”[3] In a variety of experiments it’s been shown that those who experience awe treat others more kindly and that those experiences, even in relatively small doses, generate a more open, accepting, grateful, and generous approach to the world. We’re simply better people when we allow or actively seek out experiences of awe in our lives.

Now, sometimes awe takes us by

surprise. Some might even say that surprise is an essential part of awe, that

awe comes from the unexpected. But I don’t think that’s so. Certainly, an

unexpected encounter with beauty or destruction can spark that sense of

overwhelming awe. But don’t we go to the Grand Canyon expecting to be awed?

Don’t tourists pay thousands of dollars to travel to Iceland or Norway to see

the Northern Lights, anticipating a breathtaking experience? While sometimes anticipating

awe can set us up for a disappointing experience, I don’t think the expectation

diminishes the experience when it arrives.

Awe is our internal, subjective response to an encounter with an external event – a sunset, a panoramic mountain-top view, a brilliant painting, a moving piece of music. What’s awesome to you might be ho-hum to me. Like beauty, awe is in the eye of the beholder. But there are ways, I think, that we can all cultivate a sense of awe, a sense of wonder. Ways that we can invite awe into our lives. While buying a ticket to Iceland may be one way to invite awe, there are more personal, more intimate and much less expensive ways to do that. And, as with most things spiritual, it starts by slowing down and paying attention. Because, as author and actor Eden Philpotts wrote, “The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” To invite awe into our

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, when my grandsons needed a break from all the wrestling and rough-housing, my daughters plunked them down in front of the television and put on a show called “Too Cute.” Have you heard about this show? It’s hours and hours of video of kittens and puppies. Kittens and puppies playing. Kittens and puppies nursing. Kittens and puppies doing all the adorable things that kittens and puppies do. I looked it up and discovered that there are six seasons and a total of 63 episodes of “Too Cute,” so there’s no danger of ever running out of this cuteness.

As the three boys sat and watched “Too Cute,” I heard them exclaim, over and over again, “Aww.” The grownups who took a break from the leaf-raking and the pie-baking had the same reaction to these cute and cuddly critters.  “Aww.” “Aww” seems to be our natural human response to puppies and kittens and infants and their antics. Picture in your mind, for example, a baby – any infant animal – and picture it yawning. It’s cuteness overload, and we just naturally say “Aww” in response. Biologists and psychologists have actually studied this “cuteness-response” and found that it’s a universal human reaction that includes relaxation of the muscles, lowering of blood pressure, and a general sense of calm and wellbeing. You know how we sometimes say that we get a “warm and fuzzy” feeling from watching and interacting with puppies and kittens and babies? Well, we actually do!

It’s a season of warm and fuzzy feelings. Sitting by the fire in our comfy slippers. Lighting candles in the dark. Huddling under a blanket for warmth. Enjoying the glow of Christmas lights and Hanukah candles. Maybe we even have a puppy or a kitten to snuggle with. Warm and fuzzy is what gets us through the winter, the long nights and the cold, crisp days when the sun barely has the strength to climb over the horizon. Feelings of “Aww” help connect us to beauty, to joy, to life itself – especially new life – in what we sometimes call “the dead of winter.” I think it’s important that we seek out opportunities for “Aww” whenever we can, if only for the temporary healing and comforting powers they have.

And, I think it’s important that we not stop at “Aww,” but that we seek out experiences of “Awe” as well. That we move beyond the cute and the cuddly and the warm and the fuzzy. Because “Awe,” that feeling of being somehow overwhelmed, moved to tears, the breath catching in our throats, is an essential human experience, too. We are, after all, in the season of miracles and wonder. A small bit of oil that lights a sacred lamp for 8 days. The sun returning to warm the land. Hope embodied by a baby born in poverty and simplicity. While “Aww” experiences make us feel good in the moment, experiences of “Awe” echo and reverberate in our souls. Some call us into deeper connection with the earth, the sky, the stars. Others call us to question our very place in the universe. “Aww” experiences speak to our hearts, while “Awe” experiences speak to our souls. Unlike the warm and fuzzy feelings we get with “Aww,” a sense of awe quickens our pulse, raises our blood pressure, gives us a feeling of being overwhelmed. Awe, that sense of wonder and astonishment can be disorienting and dislocating. It can shift our entire perspective. While “Aww” experiences are comforting, “Awe” experiences can be disruptive and life-changing. The Jewish Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes that “The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era.” Awe moves us to tears and moves us to wonder and moves us to embrace the mystery of our very being, of our very lives.

And, so, as we celebrate this season of mystery and wonder, let us all seek out both experiences of “Aww” and experiences of “Awe.” May we find comfort in the former, and may we find meaning, purpose, and a place for ou

This Sunday we begin our month-long reflection on the spiritual theme of “Awe.” Guest preacher Latifah Griffin offers the first of her two-part sermon series on “Being Awed by the Regular”, speaking to embracing the sacred awe and wonder of life.

There is no text for this sermon, so please listen to the audio.

Latifah Griffin’s shares the second part of her two-part series on “Being Awed by the Regular”, reflecting on how we might tap into our spiritual awesomeness for the new year using UU principles.

There is no additional text for this sermon. Please listen to the audio.

There’s a scene near the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy has almost reached the sacred grotto where the Holy Grail – the cup of Christ – resides.  Our hero has dodged bullets, jumped from speeding trains and defeated most of the Nazi army to get to this point. He’s decoded clues, pieced together puzzles, and outwitted the bad guys.  Suddenly, as he emerges from a tunnel, he finds himself at the edge of a cliff.  Looking down all he sees is a sheer rock face and a thousand-foot fall.  And across the impossibly wide expanse, too far to jump, hundreds of feet away across this yawning chasm, is his goal.  Being Indiana Jones, he does what any adventuring archaeologist worth his salt would do:  he consults the clues he’s compiled during his quest.  His book assures him that there’s a bridge from where he is to where he wants to be. But, as he looks across the empty space, he sees nothing, not even the remnants of a span.  His goal is so tantalizingly close, yet impossibly far away.  After contemplating his situation (he could always go back the way he came), he takes a deep breath and steps out into the void.

Can you see yourself in this scenario? Maybe not having to outwit enemies, maybe not literally standing on the edge of a cliff with our toes hanging over the edge. But working and striving to get to a goal, and getting tantalizingly close but still impossibly distant? Or maybe our lives are simply a journey we take for a while, and we reach a decision point. A crossroads. A place in which we have to choose, “Do I move forward or back? Do I choose Option A or Option B?” Sometimes we get to these places voluntarily, and at other times they’re thrust upon us. Sometimes these decision points present themselves with clearly defined choices laid out before us.  Do we turn left or do we turn right?  Perhaps we can see a little way down the two paths and predict how our choices will turn out. We may be able to do some measure of due diligence, to weigh the pros and cons of our decision and make an informed choice.  Other times, often times, we feel more like Indiana Jones, standing on the top of a cliff and we have to decide whether to turn back or to step off into the unknown. To take a leap of faith. 

We hear that term a lot, don’t we?  “Leap of faith.”  It’s a beautiful metaphor, really, for any action we take when we don’t know or can’t predict what the outcome will be.  Although it’s in some dispute, many attribute the phrase to the nineteenth century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.  Kierkegaard used the term “leap of faith” is his conception of how an individual would believe in God, or how a person would act in love. He said that a belief in God, or a person’s response to love, is not so much a rational decision, as it is a rejection of rationality in favor of something more elusive. That is, faith. As such, he thought that to have faith is at the same time to have doubt. So, for example, for one to truly have faith in God, one would also have to doubt that God exists.  The doubt is the rational part of a person’s thought, without which the faith would have no real substance. Doubt, therefore, is an essential element of faith, an underpinning. According to Kierkegaard, to believe that God exists, without ever having doubted God’s existence, would not be faith-full. For example, it takes no faith to believe that a pencil or a table exists when one is looking at it and touching it. In the same way, to have faith in God is to know that one has no perceptual or any other access to God, and yet still to believe in God.  This is the leap of faith.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I like Kierkegaard’s linkage between faith and doubt.  There is, he implies, no such thing as “absolute faith.”  This reminds me of a discussion that I had with a conservative Christian friend of mine a few y

I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions. I guess it’s because I generally feel like January 1 doesn’t really hold any particular significance. It’s just another date on the calendar, like any other, and maybe an excuse for a party, but not much more. After all, every day we wake up is a new day, and we can claim it however we might want. March 11 might be a good day to start a new, healthy habit. October 23 is just as good a day as any to try to get out of a rut. I think I mentioned this last year at this time, that I actually made – and kept – my first New Year’s resolution at the turn from 2017 to 2018. It was a modest, easily achievable one, and I’m unreasonably proud to say that I kept my streak going for another whole year. For two years running now, I’ve only used one paper towel to dry my hands in the rest room. Huge, right? I’m going to stop climate change dead in its tracks. But I guess that it’s good to claim small victories where we can find them.

But here I stand before you today, ready to publicly make another resolution. And this one feels icky on so many levels. One, because it feels so cliché. Two, because I know so many share in the same struggle. And three, because I don’t want to make anyone else feel like they have to do what I’m planning to do, or at least try what I’m trying. Which is to lose 25 pounds. That’s what I aim to do this year, and I’ve joined this online program called “Noom” to try and help me. But isn’t that just the oldest New Year’s resolution in the book? To try and lose weight? But the truth is that my weight has been creeping up for years, at the pace of about 5 pounds a year, and I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel as fit and nimble as I want to, and I don’t like the fact that even my “fat pants” are feeling snug around the waist. Plus, I’m going out to Utah in March to ski with my brother and I’d like to be nicer to my knees by shedding some pounds before I go.

Now, before we go any further with

this, I want to acknowledge that I’m talking about me and the physical and

emotional feelings I have being at the weight that I am. I am not trying to

shame anyone by revealing my plans to you, and if you’re happy with wherever

you are on the scale and the body type you have, more power to you. I’m happy

for you, truly. I’m not trying to recruit anyone to get on the diet and

exercise bandwagon. And I’m also not telling you about my resolution so that

you can try and make me feel better by reassuring me that I’m really not that

heavy. I’m sharing this with you because I want you to know that I’m not

feeling particularly good about myself right now, and because it’s hard to

admit. Although it feels a little risky to tell you this, I believe I can count

on you to support me, to check in on how it’s going, and maybe to lovingly hold

me accountable, like when you see me eyeing the cookies or cake at coffee hour,

or the desserts at our Chili, Chocolate and HomeBrew Challenge later this

month.

Now, did I have to reveal this to

you today? Of course not. And maybe some of you will think it self-indulgent

for me to spend your precious time here on Sunday morning to talk about myself.

But here’s why I wanted to do it: I wanted to model, if even in just a small

way, how we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable with each other. How we can

share with each other something of our real and meaningful struggles in our

lives. How we can ask for help and support with those struggles. Because, to be

honest, most of us just aren’t that good at it. At admitting our frailties, our

faults, our shortcomings. Of admitting when we’ve made a mistake or screwed

something up, apologizing for it, and asking for forgiveness. Of allowing others

to peek behind the curtain, to see beneath the veneer, to see beyond the image

that we so carefully curate that tells all the world that everything is fine,

that we’ve got it all under control.

In her book Daring Greatly, researcher, author and speaker Bren

As we continue our reflection on February’s theme of Resilience, guest speaker Latifah Griffin offers her thoughts on “building resilience as a spiritual community: a message of hope and encouragement for difficult times.”

There is no text for this service. Please listen to the audio!