For our Christian friends and neighbors, today is the Day of Pentecost. Every year they celebrate the miracle of communication. I will now read from the Christian Scriptures: The Acts of the Apostles chapter 2:1-8
“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?”
Several years ago, I preached in a church that holds membership in the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and the United Church of Christ. I had done a history project with them, trying to help them organize, archive and reproduce some recordings of their one-time famous minister, the Rev. Dr. Preston Bradley.
If you ever gotten an email from me, you may have noticed that at the bottom of my email, I quote Dr. Bradley “The world basically and fundamentally is constituted on the basis of harmony. Everything works in co-operation with something else.”
Dr. Bradley’s church was, in it’s heyday, a Unitarian congregation of some 4,000 regular attendees and a radio audience of about 3 million folks. In the 1920’s the term “mega church” was actually coined to describe The People’s Church on the Northside of Chicago.
Their sanctuary seats about 4,000 people.
Well, seated.
Now it seats far less, as the top balconies have been closed off for years.
And the congregation, even though it hosts Chicago’s largest shelter for homeless men, at 150 beds, the congregation has shrunk to about 10.
Yes, 10 loyal followers, many of whom still remember, fondly, Dr. Bradley, who died in 1983.
Though it’s a complex story, with many nuances, The People’s Church has declined largely because it can not let go of it’s past.
Dr. Bradley, for his part, did not leave when it was time for him to retire, and 4 or 5 younger, dynamic ministers, spent years as his Assistant Minister, and were promised that he would retire “in the next year or two.” But Dr. Bradley was unable to let go of his influence, of his fondness for what was in years past, of his own desire to control the direction of the church that he’d built, starting in 1912.
And the church suffered greatly for it.
So here I was a seminarian, preaching in this large auditorium slash sanctuary, on Pentecost to a congregation that believed, at least partially, in the Miracle of the Pentecost.
What to do?
It occurred to me that I might change the question of the Pentecost from the Miracle of Speaking in Tongues, to the Miracle of Hearing Each Other.
What if, the miracle was in fact about listening, understanding and not speaking?
The Rev. Fred L. Hammond wrote:
There is only one place that I know of where people speak in other tongues and others are able to understand them. That place, my friends, is right here in a Unitarian Universalist Congregation. And it is a gift that we often fail to cultivate to its fullest potential.
What am I talking about? Did I suddenly say words that seem incomprehensible? I am going to do what many Pentecostal ministers do when preaching and refer back to the text of the day. The text states that when all of these Jews who came from all over the known world to worship in Jerusalem heard the disciples speak, they heard them speak in their own language and were amazed. The men and women, who had gathered still in grief over the death of their teacher, began to speak in words that others could hear and understand.
And who are we? We are a people who gather together professing no specific creed. Right here in this congregation we have people who profess a Christian faith, a Hindu faith, a Jewish faith, an atheist faith, a pagan faith, or possibly a New Thought faith. We are a diverse people who speak many different tongues. Yet here we are, covenanting together to create a community that welcomes, promotes our differences. We have chosen to dialogue together about our various creeds so that when we meet a person who has a creed that is different than our own, we can be open and affirming with that person. Because we have learned, some better than others, to hear those beliefs and creeds in our own language and at the same time honor the unique differences of their faith.
Fred and I are friends. When Fred was a student at our seminary, he attended church with me in Chicago.
This is what we are. Out here on the outskirts of Modesto, here in Stanislaus County. We are a gathering of people with different ideas about what holds ultimate value for us, and yet we meet week after week.
We meet not just to tolerate the beliefs of others, we come not to convince each other that our doctrine is better than theirs.
We come together and we happily drink in the diversity of theology, or no theology as the case may be. We revel in the ideas and the people who are not carbon copies of ourselves.
What other congregation in Stanislaus County has a Buddhist Sanga on it’s campus?
No one.
This is just one, albeit happily very visible, aspect of what makes this congregation special.
We are the place you can bring your Muslim friends, your Buddhist friends or your friends who are Sikh, or your friends who are seeking….something…. even if they don’t yet know what the name of that something might be, or how it will co-exist in balance with the other really important feelings and ideas that they have inside them.
Here we have heard members of our congregation say, over and over how this fellowship has been a life-line for them in the midst of their most trying times. When loved ones have died, when jobs and relationships were lost. When they felt alone and vulnerable, they turned to this congregation.
Here we have heard triumphs of the human spirit. We have heard of decades long hurts addressed. We have heard of graduations, of finding love. We have celebrated and cheered for new babies and victories of grandchildren. We have heard that we have saved someone’s life, because we were here.
This is exactly the importance of our ritual of sharing Joys and Sorrows each week.
It’s true that we may struggle with words like Mercy, Grace, Forgiveness, Religious Authority, God and other big concepts.
But this is part of what makes us so amazing! We struggle with them. No one tells us:
This is our doctrine, and this is the party line you must tow.
Instead, we wince at a word, like Amen, and then we try to figure out why we wince, and what that might mean.
We do this in coffee hour, and we do this in small group ministry circles. Each Fellowship Circle meets monthly and each circle is responsible for some act of service to the congregation or the world at large. Today’s lunch has been provided for by the Fellowship Circle led by Marcia Gilbert and Denis Paul. It’s members are Mary Randall, Jack Lackey, Doreen Souza and Avonelle Tomlinson, so you should thank them today.
At other churches, you can oooo and ahhhh over pictures of grandchildren, true enough. But you are not likely to find the rest of what happens here at any other place.
We are unique in this county. We are celebrating 60 years of fellowship here in the Central Valley.
We don’t have a creed, and there is not test of faith to be a member of our community. No one should ever tell you that you don’t belong here.
We are one of 1,100 independent churches that call themselves a Unitarian Universalist Congregation. That comes with both a legacy and a challenge.
This year we have heard stories from several congregants about how they found their way here, this oasis. About what it means to be a non-joiner, and to join. About being amazed that there were other people out here in the Central Valley who thought about things, and felt things, in a similar way that they did.
If we are going to continue to be not just a home, but an effective church, living our faith out loudly and boldly, we must stick together.
Even when that means that we don’t agree. Even when sometimes our ideas are not the ones that the majority go with.
All week I’ve had this image of an old-fashioned barn raising in my mind.
It may be sort of a funny image, I know. But imagine with me a short film of Amish men building a barn together. See them lifting walls, and hammering in wooden pegs. Imagine them yelling to one another, to be heard.
And see the women, cooking enough for an army. Watch them talk amongst themselves about what is important to them.
This community, even though it may have gender divisions that we might not agree with, this community is a thing of beauty. Each person, from the youngest to the eldest, does their part the best that they are able to do, for the benefit of all.
Who cares if the barn being raised isn’t yours…this time.
You may be next, you may not.
What matters is that your friends and neighbors come together, to build this barn, which will sustain your life. With hammer or wooden spoon, the entire community pitches in.
At your best, this is what this community does.
We are a beacon of liberal faith. We are the church of the open mind and the helping hand. We are the church with the big yellow sign out front that says “Standing on the Side of Love.”
We are a safe place for those who might feel otherwise marginalized. Be it because of their gender expression, who they love, their political or theological ideas, their first language, where they were born.
Here they can be safe. And new comers can be safe, but they must first know we’re out here.
We must let them know that we’re here.
To be a congregation that changes the lives of the people of Stanislaus County, we must let them know about us, and we must be strong. To be strong, we must come together, even if sometimes we bump into each other a room full of toddlers learning to walk.
When we bump into each other we must show grace, offer forgiveness and in doing so engage in the very practical and spiritual act of creating mercy here on Earth.
We don’t claim to know what happens in the afterlife, if anything happens at all. We do know, though, that we have only our own hands to change the world.
And many hands make light work of a heavy load.
May we all put our hands together, each according to their finest gifts, and get to work
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