Sermon by Elisabeth Hathaway, MA, PhD
January 14, 2007

I mentioned earlier that our Unitarian Universalism is a tradition without dogma, without identified divinities, yet our principles include encouragement to spiritual growth, and a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. It is also true that our Living Tradition, first and foremost affirms our: "direct experience of that transcendent mystery and wonder affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to all the forces that create and uphold life." Direct experience. And then we gather in our touchstone of our community, this community, in our ritual gathering place and time, a Sunday worship service. This is a spiritual gathering. So what if you, if I, do not believe in the "God" of the bible? What if we are not sure? What if we believe in divinity, but it doesn’t really look like what we hear others describing? What are we then doing at church? We need to ask and actively explore what relevance and form does worship have in our lives. And to what extent is this a personal choice and/or a community creation. What is it we UUs are Doing on Sunday anyway.

So let’s look at worship. Because, before we can talk about doing it we need to have some sense of what is worship, what does it mean? As a caveat I have to say that I’m aware this is very deep water to wade into--just scooping up a sip, a start, opens up a profound range and breadth of exploration. Perhaps this is just the first step in a deepening dialogue we as a community will begin to develop. I hope so. For the implication of asserting the reality of each of us having direct experience of that transcendent mystery and wonder is that worship will inevitably mean something different to each person who asks the question. Ultimately, these really are mysteries, and we can explore them from one thousand angles, with one thousand voices, and have only drunk but a drop in the vast pool of meanings. Rumi said it this way:

"Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down the dulcimer.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

Perhaps this is the point, asking the question creates in itself engagement in a meaningful pursuit. If there is one drop I encourage you each to take with you today, to hold on your tongue and savor, it is this: that what worship means to you, each of you, is important for you, and what t means to you is important for me, and for us all here.

That said: there is a cluster of words and concepts that feel relevant as a basis to our consideration today. Among them are faith, worship, spirituality and religion. I’m going to summarize and draw from each to offer to you a tapestry, a collage, of meaningful terms to hold, as you each consider your own sense of worship.

Faith. This is where it starts with each individual. Faith is traditionally defined as the act or state of wholeheartedly and steadfastly believing in the existence, power and benevolence of a supreme being, having confidence in his care, and being loyal to his will; it is also, more liberally, firm unquestioning belief in something for which there is no proof, having fidelity to one’s promises, conviction and adherence to cherished and fundamental values, ideals and beliefs. Faith defines one’s true religion.

Worship is derived from worthy, shaping worth, it is related to honor, dignity and importance, and refers traditionally to the reverence or veneration tendered a divine being or supernatural power, or performing in such rituals or exercises of veneration, offering respect, adoration, admiration or devotion to objects of esteem. In the Jerusalem Bible, worship is made synonymous with praise, and is related to other topics such as community, law, prayer, sacrifice, and Sabbath. Liberally, worship is related to a reverent attitude toward that which one’s faith determines worthy.

So in general we are talking about recognition of the sacred, of the profound and fundamental. Within that, worship suggests an active attitude of relating with that which you, I, we, consider sacred and significant. It must be a verb. We acknowledge and connect with what matters deeply to us, and what guides us each. Worship relates to what we bestow with reverence mingled with love and awe, to that which we bow deeply. Our particular worship has to do with when and in what attitude we praise or pray, when and howw we, as Czeslaw Milosz writes, "construct(s) a velvet bridge" to that which is not visible.

Sit with the feelings of your own faith. Think about what you worship. This might be difficult to identify consciously. Emerson, somewhat ominously, said this:

"A person will worship something--have no doubt about that.
We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts
--but it will out.
That which dominates our imaginations and thoughts will determine our lives and character.
Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship,
for what we are worshipping we are becoming."

What form does your personal worship take? What do you hold sacred, and then how do you live that faith? When you chose a seed, a nut, last week from Carol’s basket, what came to mind for you? Do you believe in the principles of Unitarian Universalism? Can you revere them, act through them? Take a moment to look at them in the front of the hymnal. Do they relate to your faith? Are they worthy of worship, in your eyes? We do choose what we worship, and can do so more consciously.

Now what of a differentiation of spiritual and religious. Get the sense of each of these terms:

Spirituality is of or relating to the spirit, inspiration, animation, the soul, the breath of life; it is of active essence, vital power, essential principle, relating to one manifestation of the divine nature, incorporeal but rational. It is as well, relating to religious or sacred matters and values. It is about the miracle of living and life.

Religion is related to tying fast, binding strongly, and is related to relying, as in to be able to rely upon. It has to do with a personal commitment to and service of, worship of, a particular God, including the will to obey and serve, often called the religious impulse. It has to do with conduct and a way of life in accord with sacred writings or authoritative teachings, and relating to an organized body of believers or a system of faith and worship, the body of institutionalized expressions of sacred beliefs, with particular observances and social practices found within a given cultural context; it often implies or demands scrupulous conformity. Spiritual then, feels to be about what we each have access to personally--life itself and the reverence which may arise, while religion is man made, it is more political, structured, and has to do with sacred allegiance. My personal observation is that we as Unitarian Universalists struggle with this difference between spirituality and religion. We are much more comfortable saying we are spiritual, and not necessarily religious, meaning we have a sense of the sacred but no one will tell us what it is to be or control how we do it. And this can make for tensions in creating gathered communal worship, as well in how to understand what it is UUs can come together and do. Emerson expressed a sense of this in his Spiritual Laws. He said:

"We are full of these superstitions of sense, the worship of magnitude. God loveth not size: whale and minnow are of like dimension. But we call the poet inactive because he is not a president, a merchant or a porter. We adore an institution, and do not see that it is founded on a thought which we have. But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like; but in a silent thought by the wayside as we walk; in a thought which revises our entire manner of life, and says ‘Thus hast thou done, but it were better thus," And all our after years, like menials, do serve and wait on this, and according to their ability do execute its will. This revisal or correction is a constant force, which, as a tendency, reaches through our lifetime. The object of the man, the aim of these moments, is to make daylight shine through him, to suffer the law to traverse his whole being without obstruction, so that, on what point soever of his doing your eye falls, it shall report truly of his character, whether it be his diet, his house, his religious forms, his society, his mirth, his vote, his opposition...a good man is contented."

Yet personal and communal do not have to be at odds. We are social beings, wanting belonging, and we can plant our seeds in a common garden. Alienation is not inevitable in a respectful group. The Rev Dr. Rebecca Parker, theologian and President of Starr King School for the Ministry writes this: "The choice to bless the world can take you into solitude to search for the sources of power and grace, native wisdom, healing and liberation. More, the choice will draw you into community, the endeavor shared, the heritage passed on, the companionship of struggle, the importance of keeping faith, the life of ritual and praise, the comfort of human friendship, the company of earth, its chorus of life welcoming you. None of us alone can save the world. Together--that is another possibility, waiting."

The question is how can we bring our personal, individual faiths and worships into this room today, into and part of our connection with one another here at UUP. How do our various individual and personal pursuits of worship become embodied in our communal worship service? Why are you here right now? (pause) I am assuming that each person here today has at least several really good reasons to be sitting here among us. That each person has deeply held convictions, aspirations, hopes, fears, needs. That each person has complex and profound reasons to want to come to our gathering on a Sunday morning. Part of the surprise and gift of Unitarian Universalism is its beautiful and horrible openness. We do not have authoritative teachings in the way many other religions do. Our organization skirts the definition of formalized religion. Instead we have the wealth of humanistic and wisdom teachings of history and the many words of prophetic men and women, and the passion of our subjective experience, faith and worship we each bring to our particular community. We get to make of this what we will, with our efforts, with our worshipful attitudes, with our willingness to be moved, and to feel significance. What do we want in our worship service? We mustn’t forget that another principle of Unitarian Universalism is that of acceptance of one another, the right of conscience and use of democratic process. Democratic process being that: supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly. We are a community of free individuals, and so our worship takes a form reflective of those among us who voice our opinions, those who stand to be active and are elected to our board and present in our committees. For worship, this means that the WA Committee has a vital role in the experience of worship at UUP. Dedicated people devote time and energy to seeking speakers and facilitating worship. We have a Suggestion Box, in the back, and we more than welcome suggestions about speakers, topics, anything. Each of us as a member or our community can seek to participate on the committee or give feedback. In fact, we are actively seeking feedback. Please take a moment to fill out one of the Worship Surveys today; they will be in the back with the Suggestion Box from now on. I hope that today’s topic will inspire each of us to really consider our own faith and worship, and how that is satisfied or not by what we experience today and other Sundays here at UUP.

So, as a member of UUP, my opinions then are my opinions. I personally love a feeling of sanctuary. Of silence. I love the ritual of our words for our Call to Worship and Affirmation. My personal joy is the shared stillness of the Embracing Meditation, and hymns like Be Ye Lamps:

Be ye lamps unto yourselves, be your own confidence,
hold to the truth within yourself, as to the only lamp.

The deep tone, the rich notes, the simple yet eloquent words. I am moved by reverence, by a sense of shared sacred experience, by the feeling of joining in sanctuary, a place to rest among like minds and hearts, a feeling of warmth, connection and inspiration.

The order of service is inscribed with these words:

"Come into this place of peace and let its silence heal your spirit;
Come into this place of memory and let its history warm your soul;
Come into this place of prophecy and power and let its vision change your heart."
--William Schultz

But then I am many things, as are we all. I am a member, and I am also the co-chair of the Worship Committee. I have a hand in scheduling all the speakers, working on the committee to craft worship. We on the Committee are all volunteers, amateurs, each drawn and committed for our own personal and subjective reasons. I love our group, and appreciate much of what we put together for the worship services. I also feel we could benefit from more involvement, more ideas and input, perhaps at some point from some well chosen professional mentoring in worship. It is an awesome endeavor, which we take very seriously. You probably have not heard our codified but fluid mission:

The Worship Associates Committee plans and presents Sunday worship services in cooperation with guest ministers, ministerial students, and lay speakers, and with input from the congregation. Our primary goal is to provide a variety of quality worship services throughout the year which nurture, inspire, and deepen the spiritual lives and religious commitment of UUP members, friends, and visitors. In developing and scheduling services the committee is mindful of the breadth of the Unitarian Universalist movement, and thus, strives to include services related to the UU seven Principles and sources of the Living Tradition (spiritual teachings or earth-centered traditions, humanist teachings, Jewish and Christian teachings, wisdom for the world’s religions, words and deeds of prophetic women and men, and direct experiences of transcending mystery and wonder), season events and holidays, and community, national and world issues, among other topics. The worship schedule includes services which call for congregational participation, services in the traditional sermon format, and intergenerational services coordinated with the Religious Education Committee.

So I care about how you each feel are we doing with worship. What is your opinion? According to The Commission on Common Worship, with our National Organization the UUA, The Goal of Worship is this:

"The aim of all worship is to help order the religious consciousness in the individual and the group. It is to help us know and feel how we relate as individuals to ourselves, to the world, to the totality of being. The aim of common worship is to help us face up to our individual and collective limitations and failures, to open us to sources of creative, healing, transforming, and renewing power. It is to help us discover how that which transcends our narrow individual existence can move us, challenge us, inspire us, stimulate us to think, feel, act, and be. It is to help us declare, celebrate, rejoice in those things we have discovered to be "of worth." The aim of common worship is to help us reorder, reopen, reshape, and reinterpret our experience and to help us find the power to reaffirm again and again in word and deed what is worthy of our ultimate commitment." --Leading Congregations in Worship: A Guide. Boston: UUA, 1983.

So back to our question at hand. A worship service, a gathering of worshipers, then has varied purposes, based on what does worship means for each of us gathered. This diversity of purposes and participants makes for an order of service with many components, to meet many needs. We are diverse in our sense of the sacred. For example, (show of hands) which components of our order of service typically meets some need you have in what you are seeking in a worship service?

The Coffee and tea time afterwards?

We can ask, and need to ask, if we doing what we, collectively, want to do with our worship time. The internet survey we conducted last year indicated that people among us want inspiration, humanistic teachings, intellectual stimulation, a feeling of community. How do we do that, what does it look like? Some have asked, if we are non-traditional, which implies non-Christian, what then are we doing with a virtually traditional Order of Service? This is a good question. In the Worship Committee we have talked about how the structure of a service is an expression of the range of preferences and needs we each and all bring. The variety of responses to the informal poll we just did about elements in the order of service support this. Too, there is a certain comfort in familiarity and structure. I feel that. Others may not. Some feel we could have more variety week to week, others are leery of this. It can be hard to break out of a certain ways of organizing and experiencing. Our services are a function of what is provided--yes, what we decide to do and say--but they are also a function of what is brought, by each of us who participates.

I challenge you each to truly step outside the paradigm of living within a tradition with an authority: there are no authorities here at UUP. We honor the wisdom teachings of world religions, historic and current prophets, philosophers, artists and scholars: but we have no authority. We honor the thoughts and feelings of our members, friends, founders and guests alike, as well as we are able. Each person here, each member of our community, is his or her own person of integrity and personal authority. There is no CEO, no CFO, no God, to tell us how to do what we are doing. We create what we create together. To the extent that we each have a vision--of worship, for our lives, for UUP--this is what we participate in creating. Some people have louder voices, more strongly expressed opinions, some are more active, or have more developed visions and dreams, but we each contribute just the amount we bring to co-create our vision that is UUP. How do we want to do worship? We will find out by how we do it. There had been talk of participating in a program through which we could hire a quarter time minister--one weekend a month--to help us develop in whatever way we would like to develop. Some would welcome the input, support and even guidance of someone trained to work pastorally, to design worship and to foster growth in a community. There are also some who are wisely wary of what this might mean to our community--would this bring in an authority then, someone who would try to tell us what to do? Notice I say try, as telling us what to do would likely not be all that successful.

This challenge is really a challenge to each of us to develop more deeply into our, your, my own spiritual practice. To deepen a conscious understanding of what worship means to each of us, what it is we each long for and create, and to bring this deliberately into this spiritual community. To take an active part, whatever this means for you, in being one voice in our gathering, creating our worship experience each week. Be devoted to your vision, your voice of reverence, and make your vision known. Join voices and harmonize. In closing:

"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the play time."
--W.E.B. DuBois

We come together this morning to remind one another to rest for a moment on the forming edge of our lives, to resist the headlong tumble into the next moment, until we claim for ourselves awareness and gratitude, taking the time to look into one another’s faces and see there communion: the reflection f our own eyes. This house of laughter and silence, memory and hope, is hallowed by our presence together.
--Kathleen McTigue

Prayer invited God to be present in our spirit and in or lives. Prayer cannot bring water to parched land nor mend a broken bridge, nor rebuild a ruined city, but prayer can water an arid soul mend a broken heart and rebuild a weakened will.
--Abraham Heschel

The holy is nothing but the ordinary, held up to the light and profoundly seen. It is the awareness of a creativity and a connection that we do not control, in a universe that is always larger, more intricate, and more astonishing than we can imagine.
--The Reverend Dr. Kendyl Gibbons

Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, an yet the greatest of all present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.
--Alfred North Whitehead (1863-1947)

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