Opening Words

This weekend we celebrate our commitment to one another and to the continuing ministry of this community.  In that spirit, the words of George Odell remind us of why we are together:

"We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.

We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.

We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again.

We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone.

We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs.

We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.

We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.

All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us."

Reading # 468, by George E. Odell, in the hymnal Singing the Living Tradition.

Commissioning of Our Parish Nurses

We gather together each week to renew our spirits, and find here words of comfort and encouragement.  We come here to grow our souls and to have companions as we travel that path.

One of the truths that we are beginning to understand better as human beings, is that there is no clear boundary between body and soul.  If our emotional health is neglected, it will spill over into our physical health.  If our physical health deteriorates, it impacts our mental health.  There is no clear line, it is instead an intertwining, and intersecting of two important aspects of our humanity.

This is why hospitals, and hospice facilities, across the country are developing deeper relationships with the ministers, the chaplains, who collaborate with them.  While that has been happening in the medical field, churches have also been searching for ways to better support the physical and mental well-being of our parishioners.  This is how many churches, including now ours, have come to have parish nurse programs.

I feel incredibly blessed to be standing before you today with two remarkable, highly-qualified individuals, Leah Clendening and Linda Hoffmeister, who are freely giving their time to our community in the service of our collective physical and mental health.  It is a gift that they are uniquely qualified to provide, and in ways that I cannot.  We have different and complementary areas of expertise.  As such, the relationship we are embarking on will be a collaboration, one that will develop and deepen over time.

We begin that process of collaboration here, today, by honoring our mutual commitment to be in relationship with one another.  I would ask the congregation to please stand, as you're able, for the commissioning of our nurses.

The first act of building trust and relationship is establishing our intentions.  So, I will ask Leah and Linda a series of questions in this regard.

Leah and Linda, will you work towards developing trusting relationships with the people of this congregation?

(WE WILL.)

Will you do your best to care for the physical and mental well-being of this congregation's parishioners?

(WE WILL.)

Will you abide by all the ethical and moral standards of your medical vocation, in your work with us?

(WE WILL.)

Will you be honest, and loving, and caring with the people of this congregation?

(WE WILL.)

Thank you.  I will now turn to our assembled congregation and ask you some similar questions.

Will you, who consider this your spiritual home, be open to placing trust in Leah and Linda?  If so, please say 'we will.'

Will you turn to Leah and Linda for guidance on your physical and mental health?

Will you allow Leah and Linda to actively reach out to you, if they are concerned about your well-being?

Will you help develop this new relationship, making it useful for your own life?

Please be seated.

You may not realize this, but we have just made history in the life of this congregation. 

Leah and Linda, recognizing the trust we have now placed in one another, I welcome you into our community as our first ever parish nurses.

Offering

In the upcoming weeks, during this time of offering, you will be hearing from your fellow church-goers about their experiences at this church and why they financially support it.

On this first Sunday of our canvass, as we kick off our annual pledge drive, I'd like to share some words from the Christian tradition.

As part of his ministry to the people of Corinth, Paul wrote letters to them that contained words of advice and wisdom.  In one of these letters he discusses the subject of giving.  He wrote...

"The point [I'm trying to make] is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.  Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."             2 Corinthians 9:6-7

(Gee, I wonder why the minister picked out this quote...?)  As we embark on the task of reflecting more deeply on our financial generosity, may we each do so as cheerful givers.  This morning's offering will now be gratefully received.

Reading

One of the themes in today's service is that of the sankofa, a bird from the mythology of west Africa, from the mythology of the Akan speaking people of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire.  The word, sankofa, does not have a one word translation, it is a concept.  Translated into English, it means  "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we can understand why and how we came to be who we are today."

Well, Akan mythology is a very specific sub-set within the African context, and other than the most basic information about this myth, I have not yet turned up additional resources, such as analysis or commentary on the myth.  (I'm still looking, but haven't found it yet.)  So, instead of that, I'd like to offer you an original piece of writing, my creative understanding of it, one that I hope will hold true to the spirit and the intention of the Akan speaking people.
 

The Sankofa's Flight

by Rev. Manish K. Mishra

Clouds were overhead and a light rain fell on God's creation.  Among those touched by this gentle shower was a bird of wondrous beauty.  It was resting on a bank, by a river.  It was dazzling to behold.  Bold red feathers blended with pink across its chest and legs.  Its wings and tail were a rainbow of blue, green, yellow, and purple feathers.

The bird, the sankofa, drank water from the bank of a lazy, summer river.  It quenched its thirst and took off purposefully, towards the west.  Its bright wings caressed the warm, wet air and...it raced.  Above the trees, above the forest below.  Flying ahead, as fast as it could!  Naturally, it knew where it was going...sort of.  Instinct was its guide, and instinct is never precise.  It mattered not, because the tree line below was familiar.  The bird had been this way before.

It was in that moment that the sankofa slowed its flight.  It was troubled, but not quite sure why.  It circled above the trees trying to remember.  There was something important, something it had forgotten.  Tired of circling, it descended and rested on a branch.  It pondered its predicament.  What was it that it had forgotten...?

Time passed, as did the clouds overhead.  The rain transformed from a gentle heart beat to the heavy thudding of a drum.  Eventually, the sankofa lifted off the branch and traced its flight back, the way it came.  Past the river it drank from, it continued flying back and back until...there, there it was!

It dove down, green leaves crashing against its wings, until it alighted near the hollow of a tree.  There, inside, a fleck of silver shone brightly.  The sankofa reached in and wrapped its long beak around the precious egg.  Assured that it was held tight, it pulled the egg out...and it...remembered...

It remembered its mate.  Another brilliant sankofa, the two together, a perfect pair.  They had flown side-by-side since they were young.  It was as it should be.  The gleaming egg was their first -- through it, the sankofa would live on.  They had placed the egg in this hollow for safe-keeping, away from predators.

All that forethought made it ironic that it wasn't the egg but the mate that had died.  Yes, back across the river, back in the direction the sankofa had been heading...it was there that its mate died.  It wasn't attacked by another bird, no.  The sankofa was not sure what had happened, but one minute its mate was there, flying next to it, and the next it was no longer alive, it was falling from the sky.

It remembered now, and it thought to itself, "Death lives in that direction.  Why did my instinct mislead me?" 

With the silver egg firmly in its mouth, the sankofa took off.  This time it did not head west, but east.  This was a new and different course.  The sankofa had some hesitation, but, as it flew, as if for encouragement, the clouds parted, allowing the remaining rays of daylight to illuminate the way. 

The sankofa had turned its head, backwards, looking at the place from which it came.   It knew it would never be back, and so it gazed intently.  But it also knew that it had with it what was most essential.  Charting a new future, it flew on, into the east, towards tomorrow.  Hope lay alive, nestled in its beak.

Sermon

Universal truths tend to be grounded in the specific, with individual experiences, that over time tend to be true for a wider group of people, at times even all of us.  This is the role of mythology, it is to remind us of truths we can all relate to, in some way, and through that remind us of our common humanity.

It's with this in mind, that I'd like to return to that soulful flight of the sankofa -- it's a metaphor for both our individual and communal experience.  The sankofa races forward in one direction, only to turn around and end up where it started.  It is a reminder that in our busy lives we often run ahead, at full speed, and usually on instinct.  In doing so, we encounter familiar pitfalls again and again.  Befuddled, we then wonder, "why did that happen?"  Well, perhaps because we didn't stay still long enough to realize we were traveling down that same old road.  Perhaps what comes to us instinctively isn't always the right thing to do.

This experience of dejà vu, of encountering the same problems or challenges over and over again, is one I know well.  I think if you're human, you know this experience well.  We run from our past, afraid of some hurt or pain it might contain.  We eventually find that we cannot run away from the past, but must instead encounter it.  This is true for each of us, as individual human beings, and it's true for the human institutions we belong to, including churches.  The past repeats until we encounter it deeply enough that we can make different, conscious choices.

Why does this matter?  Why not just fly on instinct, non-stop?  Well, we can, and many of us do.  But, instinct doesn't help us process the hard stuff, it keeps our adrenaline up and keeps us running.  What we miss, when we don't stop long enough to notice, is that the past contains the seed of the future.  There is a gleaming silver egg.  Not all of the past, because some of it must and should be left behind.  But there are connections between the past and the strengths that can lead us into the future.  Perhaps an experience of hardship or pain has given you self-confidence, or courage, or resolve, or a deeper appreciation of honesty, or a deeper sense of empathy.  Whatever it might be, some of our most wonderful strengths emerge out of experiences we'd rather not think about.

This individual truth has rung true for entire communities.  In addition to the Akan speaking people of west Africa, the sankofa image is very important in large parts of our African-American community today.  In that particular context, the image is understood in relation to the experience of slavery.  The community reminds itself not to run away from, or avoid, the history of slavery, but to instead go back and understand that history from several different angles.  First, how did it even happen?  How did an entire race of people get so dehumanized and exploited?  This must be understood in order to help ensure it never happens again.  But, next, that history also contains the seeds for a brighter future.  There are stories of courage, virtue, and hope that can and should be claimed, that can inspire how the community lives in the present, and thereby help create a different and better tomorrow.

All of this serves as a context for saying how incredibly proud I am of this congregation.  This community has been on the sankofa journey for some time now.  Well before I arrived here as minister, the leaders of this congregation stopped running away from a trouble-filled history and dedicated themselves to understanding that history, ensuring that the unhealthy parts would not be re-created, and claiming those nuggets of wisdom and strength that could be found.  Some of that work continues, and will always continue - the sankofa doesn't stop looking back, even as it moves decidedly into the future.  But you must appreciate, as I do, that we are in the midst of experiencing the fruits of many years of hard work, self-examination, restructuring.  We are experiencing the resiliency and vibrancy of this institution, one built on the shoulders of your care and love.  Let there be no doubt, our sankofa is airborne, it is flying forward cognizant of its past, and it has a shiny silver egg in its mouth. 

So, where is that bird headed?  Where are we headed?  Well, it would take a soothsayer to tell you for certain, but let me lay out a vision, one that is based on my experience of how our faith saves and transforms lives.  It does so on several levels. 

At the level of our individual lives, we come here to be inspired, intellectually and spiritually; we experience worship together, creating a narrative we share; and, we long to be a part of a loving, spiritual community, one that reflects our most deeply held values.  We come here to be understood and accepted just as we are, without judgment.  And, it matters, a great deal, that if we encounter adversity in our lives that here, in this community, we need not suffer it alone.  This essential work of building a spiritually-grounded life must and should continue.

At the level of our families, we come here knowing that our many and diverse family structures will be understood, and beyond that cherished; this is a place where partners are encouraged to learn and grow, within a supportive community; new friendships are made here; and we create many meaningful ways to share our values with our children.  We also recognize that for many of us, this community, as a whole, is our family.  Supporting this community is the work of supporting our families.

And in terms of the world we live in, our particular religious message is needed, across the spectrum:

• Our nation continues to fight a senseless war, and despite that widely acknowledged truth, we somehow stand on the brink of sending even more of our military personnel in harm's way.

• We live in one of the most conservative states in the country, one in which the state government is not debating whether or not to get rid of the death penalty but instead how to conduct executions even more efficiently.

• We live in a county where one town over, in Largo, an accomplished civil servant stands to lose his job because he is in the midst of becoming transgendered.

• And let's not forget our very own backyard.  Our City Council Member, the one that covers Mirror Lake, Leslie Curran, is on public record this week as saying that homeless people are homeless because they want to be.

Friends, make no mistake, our city, our state, and our nation, need our liberal religious voice.  They need our Unitarian Universalist message of peace, of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all humankind, our call to acknowledge that each and everyone of us, regardless of circumstance, is entitled to dignity.  This community exists to be that voice of justice.

Many of you have shared with me the vibe that you've experienced here at church this year, on Sunday mornings, and beyond.  A certain enthusiasm, a sense of joy, a feeling of vibrancy.  Well, let me tell you something.  We are only six months into our new. shared ministry together.  If you like what you're seeing this year, then stick around.  You ain't seen nothing yet!  Watch how high we will go, watch how far we will fly.  It is not a question of 'if' it is a question of 'when.'

It takes a certain amount of boldness to take on the complex and diverse ministries that this community has.  It takes a certain amount of boldness to call, as the equivalent of let's say a tenured professor, a young, outspoken up-start like myself.  I admire that boldness, and I have since the first time I met you, and I must now ask you to be bold again.  We have the challenge this year of needing to raise about $20,000 more than we did last year, just in order to keep a static budget, in order to keep doing what we're doing today.

We are up to this task, but it will require all of us, newcomers and long-time members alike.  This is a necessary exercise, pledging, but it is also a spiritual discipline.  It is a question of valuing the ability to have a spiritually grounded life, of having a religious extended family, and of having your justice-centered voice amplified through community.  In the at times cold, shallow, and uncaring world we live in, isn't that worth as much as we spend on our physical health, or any other essential area of our life?

I think it is, and I encourage us to reflect on that together as we take a moment, now, to review the pledge materials you've been provided.

If you've never pledged here before, but have found your experience of the congregation meaningful, I ask that you please consider making a first time pledge.  You need not be a member of the congregation in order to make a financial pledge that can support our continued vibrancy. 

I invite you all to please review the giving guidelines we've attached, and consider making a minimal commitment of 5% of your after tax income.

Blessed be.