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Thank you for inviting me and thank you all for welcoming me again to share worship with you. I have the best job, the best ministry in the world. I am called, day after day, to give thanks to congregations and individuals who make Unitarian Universalism the increasingly important liberal religious voice which it has become. So let me begin with gratitude.

This congregation has been a faithful supporter of the UUA for years. Congregations annually are asked to contribute what we call their "Fair Share" to the Association. This congregation has contributed that full amount almost continuously for many years. Thank you.

These gifts, and the contributions from congregations and individuals across this land make possible so much: the many services which the Association is able to offer and which we are working hard to improve. But they make possible something more: participation, and even leadership in offering a liberal religious alternative to the well organized and well funded voice of the fundamentalist religious right.

This is an important day, when you will be asked to express your commitment to and love of this church. Today is an opportunity to bear witness, in a very concrete way, to the importance of this church in your life and the ministry that, together, you offer to this community. It is a day for generosity, financially, but more importantly for generosity of spirit.

In my own devotional life, my prayer life, generosity is an important element. I, like most of you, am deeply blessed. I am privileged with an income more than adequate for my needs, with a ministry that is soul satisfying and is significant in our world. So lucky to have a family that I love and that loves and supports me.

Generosity in my life grows out of a deep sense of gratitude, a thankfulness for my many blessings. At best, it is not about whether I should be generous. There is no "ought", no sense of guilt. It is a joyful experience. Generosity is one of the miracles that make life worth living.

Do you believe in miracles?

The story of the loaves and the fishes is one of many miracle stories in the Christian Gospels. Jesus heals the sick, raises the dead, turns water into wine, and feeds a multitude with a few loaves and fishes. These stories defy rationality, and even offend the intelligence of those of us who live in a time and in a way where truth is defined by what science can prove. These stories cannot be true, in the scientific sense. And we tend to shy away from using them.

This is not a contemporary development. Thomas Jefferson, who named himself a Unitarian, was so deeply offended that he literally took scissors to the New Testament and cut out those passages which defied rationality. The miracle stories were the first to go. In two nights, he created what we call the Jefferson Bible which includes, basically, only the moral teachings of Jesus.

But, we rationalists of this time run the risk of confusing truth for wisdom. In our rejection of the rational truth of the miracle stories, we strip ourselves of the ability to learn the spiritual lessons which lie just below the miraculous claims of these stories. There is wisdom in them which can enrich our lives.

There is a different way of understanding these stories in the Jewish tradition. It is called "midrash". The foundational stories are re-told in each generation...amplified and made more relevant, contextualized in the reality of lived experience.

Do you believe in miracles?

Let me share with you a Unitarian Universalist "midrash" of the loaves and fishes miracle as told by Rev. Barbara Fast.

No Less a Miracle,
Barbara Fast
Easter Sunday, 1997

It was colder than I had expected... Spring had not yet fully arrived upon this hill. I could make out the slate gray Sea of Galilee below.

I tried not to shiver. I tried to justify to myself why I allowed my sons to drag me here to hear this man---Jesus.
It's been three days, and it looks like what little food people had carried with them, they have eaten by now. The crowd is large. People are hungry. I certainly am.

I have some few loaves left.... for my children. I work very hard to make sure they have food in their bellies. These loaves are for our trip home.

Ben runs up with Dan and tells me that we are to leave, that Jesus wants to collect whatever food we still have, so that he can share it with the crowd.

"Where is the bread", he asks so loudly I am embarrassed. People turn.
"What bread? " I reply.
"You know mom. The bread that you brought... You know!"

What am I supposed to do? If I give the bread to him there will be none left for our trip home. If I let on that I have food, well.... it will be gone as soon as I turn my back.

But if I lie to him. God. I am trying to be a good mother & I am afraid. It is all so easy for this Jesus to - to talk about loving your neighbor---My life is not like that, trusting one's neighbor.

Suddenly I can see this prophet.

He has received a few loaves of bread and four, yes, my god! - only four fishes.

Pretty old ones at that.

Maybe he'd make us all a feast out of these small few loaves and old fish.

Before I can leave, he asks all of us to sit down.

He is blessing this food. He is offering thanks to God.
I can feel his gratefulness.

He breaks the bread and gives it to those who came forward.
No miracle.
No feast.
Then---

He walks over to me.
I don't know how to say this...
I raised my eyes and met his eyes...
I saw myself through his eyes ... the way he saw me.

I don't know what else to tell you.
I just felt OK. Good enough
I felt like he loved me.
Even though he knew I was hiding these loaves of bread.

He gave me this large broken piece of bread and invited me to eat it.
He didn't even ask me to share that bread with anybody. Then he went on, sharing all that he had.

I felt for the loaves inside my cloak. I reached in and bought them out.

I turned round and started to break them into pieces for those behind me.
I met the eyes of one of them. I saw him in all his weakness and hope. Like me. His hand was inside his shirt and it came out holding two big rounds of flatbread he had hidden away. Like me.

He gestured that I share what I had with others. I saw him turn round to break bread with those behind him.

It seemed that it was the breath of God and not a cold spring breeze that rustled over us as we opened up our hiding places.

The story will say that all were fed and that 12 baskets of bread were left over. It was at least that many.

Later, my son knelt down before me, looked me in the eyes and hugged me. In my heart I prayed to keep his love, and respect.

This man - this Jesus. He did me a favor that day. He did us all a favor.
I will hold onto that miracle of the loaves and the fishes.


Miracles can happen.

Two years ago, our congregation in Portsmouth, NH decided that half of their Sunday offering would be given to worthy causes in that community...battered women's shelters, child care centers and the like. It was a controversial decision. The congregation relied on that income.

But a miracle happened. The congregation was so moved by the decision that contributions dramatically increased. No only have they contributed over $35,000 to worthy causes in the last year, but income to the church has substantially increased.

Miracles can happen.

My mother and I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio as I was beginning middle school. The Black schools in rural North Carolina were simply not adequate. It was a leap of faith. And though my educational environment was wonderful, it was not at all clear how we would eat. My mother took what jobs she could find. No college education. Few contacts in the community. She worked as a clerk in retail shops. At one period, she fed us by selling encyclopedias door to door.

But we had joined the Unitarian Church and a member told her of an opening in the juvenile court system. She listed our minister as a reference. When she went in for her interview, her future boss told her that our minister had not only given her a positive reference, he had refused to get off the line until the supervisor agreed to hire her. The job transformed my mother from a struggling single parent into a confident professional dedicated to helping the hundreds of children who came before her.

Miracles can happen.

The Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, in his autobiography describes a scene he witnessed as a youth. It is the procession of twenty thousand German war prisoners being marched through the streets of Moscow when he was eleven years old.
He writes:

"The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police. The crowd was mostly women---Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick, and with thin, hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans.

"They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear. At last we saw it. The [German] generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over the plebeian victors. 'They smell of eau-de-cologne, the bastards,' someone in the crowd said with hatred. The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.

"All at once something happened to them. They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty, bloodstained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down. The street became dead silent--the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.

"Then I saw an elderly woman in broken down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman's shoulder, saying, 'Let me through.' There must have been something about her that made him step aside. She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now suddenly from every side women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had.
"The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people."

I believe in miracles. I believe that hate can be transformed into compassion. I believe that fear can be transformed into courage. I believe that despair can be transformed into hope. I believe that scarcity can be transformed into abundance.

And I believe that these transformations, these miracles take place in our congregations, in this congregation every week. Nearly every one of you can recall such a miracle. Perhaps it is the shy child who is given a speaking part in the Christmas pageant and finds a confidence she never knew. Perhaps the woman who finds solace and turns back toward the light as she grieves the loss of a beloved partner. Perhaps you have seen the man who has learned here that the loss of a job need not mean the loss of a life.

Each one of us knows of a miracle that has taken place among us; a time when sorrow has turned to joy, when the unlikely has become the commonplace, when anger has turned to forgiveness and a soul has been set free. Yes, I believe in miracles. In fact, I believe miracles are our stock in trade. May you bless the miracle of this congregation with your generosity, and in your turn, may you find here the miracle that you need in your life.

So may it be. Amen.