Stewardship Sermon: Of Dreams and Acts

Offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, IN
On September 29, 2001
By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

Henry David Thoreau had a few wise things to say – although at times he could be short-sighted and even a bit self-centered. It has always been my thought that Henry would have been an even wiser and more remarkable man had he belonged to a creative, intelligent, and vibrant congregation – instead of just a convivial meeting of free spirits. We do belong to such a congregation and one thing that Henry said will be of use to us at this point. "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Well, we have been wise enough here to build castles in the air – now it is time to focus on the foundation. This is our time to speak of dreams acts, of castles and foundations, of principles and programs, of history and the future. This is Stewardship Sunday.

On September 16^th a circle of people from this church gathered on our Union Street land – the future site of our church. Despite the fact that the outdoor service was an impromptu idea, sixty people managed to meet among the trees. We poured out our sand and our water and the day was beautiful. In the cold shadow of September 11, the warm sunshine brightened our hearts and the children playing happily reminded us of the future and of hope.

At our Congregational Spring Retreat, everyone from elders to toddlers contributed to a giant sand painting adding form and color. We had swept the painting together at the end of the retreat. On September 16, I dipped my hand into a humble Rubbermaid container and scattered the sand we had used in a cloud of bright colors: our creativity, risking, visioning, and sharing. The sand fell to the ground like fairy dust, like grains of hope, like an artist’s vision of the beauty of community. We also poured out the water that was symbolic of our journeys and experiences of the past summer. At the moment that the water poured out I could remember so many of the thoughts and feelings that people had shared as we mingled waters: memories of family time, of beauty experienced, of adventure, of learning, sharing, play, planting, and especially the joy of reunion. Into the ground flowed a gathered world of life and experience.

With the water and the colored sand, we blessed the ground and one another. We honored the past, strengthened ourselves in the present, and promised ourselves to the future.

As we pour ourselves out so we are engaged in life – enriching the present and creating the ground of the future. It was as though – and I did feel this for a moment – maybe some of you did, too, – it was as though as the sand and water met our ground, the new church sprang up around us. I know that it might almost be a relief to some of us if it did spring up like that – like going to sleep and seeing a roomful of straw spun into gold in the night. Nevertheless, for the most part, I think the process of planning is our great pleasure – our sharing and adventure. Anyway, for a moment the church was present – it stood around us – in fact, it was us. The future came alive in the present. The foundation beneath it is in the present – in the steps each one of us takes right now, in the commitments each one of us makes right now. The church is greater than any walls. It is the assembly of the people – the hands joined in a circle, the people encountering one another. We’ve surely seen that the last two weeks as we’ve sought one another out so intensely. The church is the assembly of the people. But it is more than that. It’s not just any assembly that is also a religious community – a social club is an assembly of people, a university – a school. The church is the people and it is the sum of what we do together. It is the sum of our programs – it includes the music we share, the classes we teach and take, the discussions we enjoy, the support we give and receive, the children we love, care for, and educate, the meals and ideas we exchange, the services we meet in, and the service we do in the world. The church is the program – it is all that we do. And we do so much. And all that we do is more even than the sum of our actions – all that we do is the embodiment of our dreams and our principles.

These last two weeks, your dreams may have been covered in the thick gray dust of New York. They may have been painful beyond imagining, but I imagine that sometime – edging with difficulty, perhaps even bruised and cut, up out of the rubble and glass – they re-emerged – the deep ones

Not the car, the house, the dinner party, perfect vacation, even the perfect job – but the big stuff. It reminds me of something that Albert Camus wrote: of "that suffering, common to all, intermingling it roots with those of a stubborn hope." That is how I see Unitarian Universalism: in the face of such suffering we hold to a faith that humanity is neither good nor evil – but inherently worthy – inherently capable of choosing – inherently worthy of our struggle and work. A stubborn hope made of the best of our dreams.

Dreams emerged as you wrote your hopes for peace on slips of paper two weeks ago. I’m not sure if you know that every slip was read aloud as we stood on the land at Union Street. So, really, nearly all of us were present. We shared hopes for reason, for love, for understanding, for family, for friendship, for peace, for justice. The big stuff.

Everything we do here is an expression of our dreams meeting on the common ground of our Unitarian Universalist principles. Everything we do here is an expression of the dreams we dare to bring here. Not the little stuff we can get bogged down in – but the big stuff.

In the midst of grief, anger, fear, shock, we came here, we affirmed life, and envisioned the future. It has been a tender time – but rather than surrendering to despair we have given ourselves back to hope. This is particularly true in this past month of Stewardship. Each Sunday in September, a member of the congregation has continued to affirm our life here by speaking of the programs of the church – and for the last three weeks these Dianna, Jim, and Herschel have stood in spite of struggling with their own sense of pain and spoken instead of life – people connecting, of children nurtured, and grownups challenged. This congregation hasn’t ignored the world but has kept on tending life. Stewarding our common life. Stewardship is more than pledging it is giving yourself – you can pledge to your local NPR Station and they will shape the program for you. But the full program of this church is shaped by the people who come here, who give themselves to shape the direction in which the congregation will move. When Kim Harden spoke of Worship, a few weeks ago, she used the image of making a clay pot – we are the clay being shaped, we are the vessel that is formed, we and our dreams fill that vessel – holding one another, and above all – we are the hands shaping it and new forms to come. Clay pots or fertile fields or castle towers or the foundations beneath them – it is our hands in the clay and soil and brick, our choices that form the present – the foundation -- and our work that shapes the future. Our children are taught by us, our programs reflect long discussion and shared clarification of values, our service to the community rises out of commitments of the hearts here – out of the pledges we make here.

We have kept tending life. This has carried us through – what we have here has borne us through this critical time. However, really tending life means watching things grow – hoping and enabling them to grow. Really stewarding life means nurturing all that is already above ground and preparing well for what is emerging. And so much is emerging.

Thomas Bandy – who wrote Moving Off the Map, a handbook on congregational change, said: "Core values and bedrock beliefs help define who you are, but authentic vision will change who you are." How many times in the last few years, here, have you been asked to think about what you truly value? Or what you hope to see in the future of this congregation? This congregation has called forth authentic vision from you in a multitude of ways for years –in Searching for the Future, in Interim Ministry, Long Range planning, in retreats for Leadership, new Ministry Start up, New Building, and the Board. With all those exercises in bringing forth vision it is no wonder that there is excitement and the ground is bulging -- with all those retreats it’s no wonder that we are moving forward.

Inviting vision and life to flourish changes the standard for congregations. Bandy outlines it in terms of these shifts: When a congregation flourishes it’s pushed beyond maintenance to mission – that means that the focus changes from inward to outward increasingly – into service, into a desire to be of greater use in the world -- to take our light out from under a bushel. When a congregation flourishes it does more than keep the doors open – it opens new doors – finds more ways to welcome people, to let people in, to seek people out. When a congregation flourishes it moves from preserving something good to growing something even better -- that is the outcropping of imagination and we are lucky to have it here.

If you’re new here – this is one exciting, creative time in an exciting and creative church. Full forums, stretching Sundays, growing numbers in our religious education program, a lively college group, a youth group bright with vision, and adult education program rich with offerings, an exciting new building process, vigorous planning and envisioning of our future programs, transitions in our music program – so many things. If you’re not new here -- all the work of many years is culminating in interesting things. We’re growing and outgrowing more than space. We are at work on the foundation – but it needs to be strong enough to hold up, not the church as we see it now, but the one that you have been calling forth – building toward – the one that sits here in this room waiting to serve and the one waiting outside for more room to join us.

So we stand at this point – beneath our castle in the air – because we envisioned growth – and are in the midst of it, because we have dared to share our dreams and the evidence percolates around us, because our principles call us to act on our affirmation – affirmations of love, respect, freedom, peace, justice, spiritual growth, community, inclusiveness, care, and service. And even more we are here because the world is calling for us to be here – we are needed – we saw that clearly these last weeks – we have a voice and a presence in this community. We don’t have a message for a discreet and elite few – we carry a message profoundly needed by a great diversity of people. We have watered the roots of that stubborn hope of which Albert Camus wrote after the ending of the second world war – the roots of freedom and of deeply committed, spirited, and creative living.

What else are we here for? We can’t be here to get and spend. There was a New Yorker cartoon a few weeks ago where a guy carrying a backpack is talking with a woman passing out leaflets – and the guy says – I totally agree with you about capitalism, neo-colonialism, and globalization, but you really come down too hard on shopping." Well -- I love shopping as much as the next person but I know that, ultimately, I’m not here to shop – neither here in church nor here in this aching and needful world. We can’t be here to indulge and forget. We can’t be here to abandon the world – Unitarian Universalism is too much in and of this world and no other.

We are here in this church, in part, happy to find one another – kindred spirits in a tough world. Happy to find people to sit with, play with, and grow with. We are here, in part, glad that there is a tradition into which we, each in our unique way, can fit. We are here in part to share the wisdom we have found in life and learn the wisdom of others. I know that we’re here to marry our principles to our lives – we come to church, in part, to find the encouragement and support to do this. We hope that our programs will help, that the forums will teach us something new, even that the sermons will help – that the classes we take will make us stronger – more at home in the world and more capable of bringing our light out into it.

Can you feel the dreams of this congregation around you? I can feel them – I felt them before I moved here – in the hopes that so many of you shared with me. Have you brought them here secretly resting in you heart? Have you found them echoed in the words of others, in a forum, a conversation, a quotation on the wall, a portion of a church service? Have you felt them called forth – maybe not in exactly the form you imagined but called forth. How will you give your dreams feet and hands – your castle its firm foundation?

The extent to which we give our dreams feet and hands is the extent to which they can transform the world. The extent to which we give to this church will determine the extent to which the church can actually be that place to which we bring our hopes.

Just as we have brought ourselves here, we have also brought our church here, and have made new things grow. The programs of this church will help our dreams meet on the ground of our principles – the programs of this church will give hands and feet, companions and energy to our dreams. The programs of this church will create a place that not only holds our dreams in mind, but moves them into the world and forward into the future.

We have reached a turning point in the history of this church and there is no good going back. The moment has reached us in some turmoil. The world is tougher than we had hoped – yet this church gives me reasons to hope. Only – as I said at the outset of this sermon – only if we pour ourselves into this church – into this ground upon which we meet. If, as we make all of our decisions – like the one we made this morning to come here – if we make all of our decisions to affirm life at its most meaningful – if we choose to give our dreams hands and feet – our church a firm foundations -- if we do, we will find so many things both small and large for which the church aches. We will arrive in church to a full and joyful music program, a religious education program that grows with our vision and can serve the many children who come through our doors – so that they are eager to be here, eager to return, eager to be lifelong Unitarian Universalists, so that people from around our area will turn to us for ideas and community education, so that we will find an office filled with support and resources and above all we will find a church supported and strengthened in community and commitment to justice and service to our community and the world.

We have emerged from the Jewish Days of Awe – a time of introspection – but I suggest that the canvass should be a time of introspection – a time to look at your life and your dreams and to see if you are serving your most principled dreams or your simplest desires. Maria Nemeth wrote: "Money touches almost every aspect of living – work, food, creative activities, home, family, and spiritual pursuits. Everything we do and dream of is affected by our relationship with money. Our relationship with money calls on us to wake up. We are all born with the ability to bring our dreams into reality. In fact, this ability may be our best evolutionary tool – we have the capacity to focus our awareness on an idea and translate it into reality. We do this all the time." I offer that your pledge this year of all years is a way to build hope, to make real our principles in a world that so badly needs them. The gathered energy of the people here can accomplish so much – if we provide generous support. So this is time to think about the things you might buy, the lovely flourishes, the larger whatevers – not that I don’t love these things myself – but this is the time to think carefully about where the balance of your life should go – you know the expression – no one ever thinks on his or her deathbed – I wish I had spent more time at the office -- just so -- no one ends life thinking – I wish I had given less of myself to my dreams. Let this church at this critical time invite you to give more of yourself. More than last year, more than you had thought you might.

This transformation of the church has begun – you began it long ago but now it requires more support – a larger pledge than ever before, the willingness to give to deepen the present so that the future can flourish, to put your resources into your principles. Beyond Maintenance to mission, beyond keeping the doors open to opening new doors, beyond keeping the good thing we have to creating something greater. It is why the new church is being built – the time has come – in a long process -- to build the foundation now. To put a foundation beneath that church – that calls for more than we have dreamed of in the past – because it is not about the past – it is about the living present and the beckoning future.

Just as I could feel that church around us on a Sunny afternoon on Union Street so I stand here and know that each one of us chose to come here this morning. I see us each summoned by something heard within – perhaps sounding from within, perhaps echoing also something in the world. Summoned by love, hope, growing vision, pressing sorrow, unnamed yearning, and guiding principles.

And hovering above us I see, not the cracked ceiling we love, but the church we have been building, growing, with our gathered vision. This is the moment to support it – to build the foundation that will support it. Let us be strong stewards of a strong church because we each need it – a church that thrives because the world needs it – because we pour ourselves into it.

Canvass Dinner Remarks
Beloved community we are fortunate indeed to be together tonight. I would like to offer a blessing for this meal and for the canvass, which we celebrate together tonight.

This church and this meal are the gift of much vision and much hard work. The canvass committee -- chaired by Keith Brown, Don and Ruth Ann Ferris, and Ernest and Tippen McDaniel has worked for months not only to bring us to this lovely table, but to celebrate and support the ongoing life of this congregation together – that is the purpose of this dinner.

Our church and this meal are the gifts of much vision and hard work.
From ripe fields to busy markets to bustling kitchens to the tables where we sit together
we are connected as a vast ecosystem.
In the food we eat is the air
the water of distant countries
and the sunlight that burns at the heart of our solar system.
We are connected to one another.
May we enjoy this food in gratitude
– for all the world of life and work that went into it
In gratitude for the sustenance it brings us
And in gratitude for the sweet company with whom we share this meal.
May we be worthy of the world of life and work on our plates
May this meal sustain us for the work ahead
And may this celebration lighten our hearts and bring us all closer together and closer to the dreams and principles that we hold and share.
So may it be at this meal and at all our meals to come.

Amen, l’chaim, bon apetit.