Section 5
SERMONS
Two complete services with sermons and one sermon are included below. My objective is always to speak to the orientation of the congregation.
Please click on the links to take you to the service or sermon
The first service written in 2001 addresed an urban UU congregation in Philadelphia with a theological orientation of predominately humanists and earth-centered spirituality.
2001 Philadelphia service
The second service was conducted in 2009 at First Church in Lancaster, Massachusetts. The church is a traditional New England Unitarian Church with a decidedly Christian focus but with interfaith leanings.
2009 Lancaster service
The third sermon (but without a service) was given in 2002 in Lancaster, MA. and presents an interfaith perspective on forgiveness.
2002 Lancaster service
* * * * * * *
A SERVICE
FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE
OF THE REVEREND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
UNITARIAN SOCIETY OF GERMANTOWN
PHILADELPHIA, PA
January 14, 2001
THIS SERVICE DEMONSTRATES A PARTICIPATIVE WORSHIP SERVICE
On December 11, 1960, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King preached at the Unitarian Society of Germantown.
This service contains portions of that service and sermon.
INGATHERING MUSIC
OUR LIFE IN COMMUNITY <5>
INTROIT <4, =9>
CHALICE LIGHTING Paula Bryant, Co-Chair, Ending Racism Committee <1, =10>
.
OPENING WORDS <1, 11> Rev. Paul G. Hull
Welcome everyone. I’m Rev. Paul Hull, Interim Minister of this congregation. I would like for you to know that the order of service used today is similar to the one used in December 1960 when Dr. King spoke here. The quotations are the same, the greetings are the same, and the type is the same.
So . . .
Come into the place of peace and justice.
Come into this place of hope and trust.
Come bring what you have
To find the spirit of love
Within each and among us all.
Let us know that the sacred walks
with us in our journey.
May we always know
that we are the ones chosen
to complete the work of the ages,
For the journey of the ages have lead to this moment.
And these moments will lead
Those who will follow us on their journeys of the ages.
May this moment and every moment
Be a time for love and the working of our hearts.
Come and sing praises for the life within you
Sing praises for the love of life.
Stretch your souls and find love.
OPENING HYMN 149 “Lift Every Voice and Sing” <3, =14>
REFLECTIONS: “If Dr. King Were Alive . . .” Mel Silver, Co-Chair, Ending Racism Committee <5, =19>
CANDLES OF JOYS AND SORROWS <5, =24>
This church, this beloved community of the free mind and open heart, is a place big enough for your gladnesses and joys, concerns and sorrows. Where else could you rise and speak of what lies deepest in your heart? May we now share our joys and concerns by coming forward, lighting a candle, telling us your name, and sharing your joy or concern.
<sharing>
For those how did not speak, but hold joys and concerns, may your unspoken joys and sorrows be blessed by the nurturing place of your inner silence. <silence>
OFFERTORY <4, =28>
This offering is a reminder of the voluntary nature of this church’s existence. Let this and every offertory be a reminder that we are here because each of you wants this Unitarian Universalist church here, and you back your wants with your support.
We will now have the morning offertory.
READINGS
from “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life”
A sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Delivered at the Unitarian Society of Germantown, December 11, 1960
Readers: Robert Anu, Paula Bryant, Dennis Brunn, Betty Hankins, Mel Silver
<17, 45>
The following people are readers of selections from Dr. King’s sermon that he delievered here: Robert Anu, one the newest members of this church, Paula Bryant, co-chair of the Ending Racism Committee, Dennis Brunn, chair of the Social Action Committee, Betty Hankins, co-chair of the Ministerial Relations Committee, and Mel Silver, co-chair of the Ending Racism Committee.
REV. HULL: On December 11, 1960, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King preached here. I will speak in a few minutes about the circumstances around Dr. King’s life when he preached here and what his words challenge this church to do forty years, one month, and three days later. Now Paula Bryant, Betty Hankins, Dennis Brunn, Mel Silver, Robert Anu and I would like to share with you words from his sermon. The title of the sermon was “THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF A COMPLETE LIFE.” Dr. King began by referring to a passage in the Book of Revelations when John, the author, had a vision of the new Jerusalem. This new Jerusalem had perfect dimensions of length, breadth, and height. Dr. King observed that these three dimensions stood for the three dimension of a person’s complete life in this way–
ROBERT: The length of life as we shall use it here is not its longevity . . . . It is the push of a life; forward to achieve its personal ends and ambitions. It is the inward concern for one’s own welfare. The breadth of life is the outward concern for the welfare of others. The height of life is the upward reach for God. So those are the three dimensions. On one hand we find the individual person. On the other hand we find other persons. At the top we find the supreme, Infinite person. These three must work together. . . for the complete life is a three dimensional life.
REV. HULL: Dr. King went on to relate that the length dimension of life demanded that we have a healthy self interest.
BETTY: . . . before we can love other selves adequately we must love our own selves properly. Many people have been plunged into the abyss of emotional fatalism because they didn’t love themselves properly. We have a legitimate obligation to be concerned about ourselves. We have a legitimate obligation to set out in life to see what we’re make for.
DENNIS: There is within all of us a center of creativity seeking to break forth, and we have the responsibility of discovering this. Once we discover what we are called to do in life, we must set out to do it with all of the strength and all of the power we can muster up. [Our response to this calling] is for the upbuilding of humanity.
REV. HULL: Dr. King reminded that it is dangerous to stop with just self-interest and emphasize the length aspect of one’s own life. One must emphasize the breadth aspect as well–
PAULA: The breadth of life is that outward concern for the welfare of others. I submit to you this morning that unless an individual can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity he hasn't even started living.
REV. HULL: Dr. King related the parable of the Good Samaritan from the Bible–a story of a man was robbed and beaten. As the man lay in a ditch, he was bypassed by two of his own people–who were among the most respected in Jewish society of the time–the priest and Levite. But the man was helped by someone of another people–the despised Samaritan. Dr. King explored the motivations behind the actions of these three men in these words:
MEL: this Samaritan was good because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou." When we read this parable we tend to use our imagination a great deal. We begin to wonder why the priest didn't stop and why the Levite didn’t stop. . .It is really possible that those men were afraid. . . .The robbers could still have been around. . . So may it not be that the first question, the priest and the Levite raised was this, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" Then the good Samaritan came by and in the very nature of his concern reversed the question, "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" And so he was a great man because he had the mental equipment for a dangerous altruism. . . . He was a great man because he discovered in his own life that he who would be greatest among men must be a servant.
REV. HULL: Then Dr. King opened this parable to the situation of segregation that he was so courageously confronting.
ROBERT: I am absolutely convinced that the problems which we face today in the Southland grow out of the fact that too many of our white brothers are concerned merely about the length of life rather than the breadth of life, concerned about their so-called way of life, concerned about perpetuating a preferred economic position, concerned about preserving a sort of political status and power; concerned about preserving a so-called social status.
If the [breadth] dimension were equal to the self-regarding dimension [of length], the jangling discords of the South would be transformed into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
BETTY: Segregation is wrong because it substitutes an I-it relationship for the I-thou relationship. Segregation is wrong because it relegates persons to the status of things. Segregation is wrong because it assumes that God made a mistake and stamped a badge of inferiority, on certain people because of the color of their skin.
DENNIS: Therefore, all men of good will have a moral obligation to work assiduously to remove this cancerous disease from the body of our nation. . . . In the final analysis segregation and discrimination must be removed from our nation because they are morally wrong . . . wrong at the very core.
REV. HULL: Dr. King then turned his vision to the coming times. He said that the oppressed blacks and those oppressors who support “the old order” both must be concerned with the breadth aspect of life–concerned for each other.
PAULA: It is my primary conviction that those of us who have been on the oppressed end of the old order have as much responsibility to be concerned about breadth as anybody else.
MEL: This is why I believe so firmly in non-violence.
ROBERT: Our aim must not be merely to achieve rights for Negroes or rights for colored people. If we are concerned only about this, we will seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage thus subverting justice. The aim must never be to do that but to achieve democracy for everybody. This is why I disagree so firmly with any philosophy of black supremacy, for I am absolutely convinced that God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers and every man will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality. . . .So the aim of the Negro must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man but to win, his friendship and understanding.
REV. HULL: Dr. King’s vison was far-reaching. He then turned to the world and related a trip to India that Mrs. King and he had returned from a little more than a year before. He spoke of the poverty he found there and how our concerns must become international–extending to all of humanity.
BETTY: Maybe in America we spend too much of our money establishing military bases around the world rather than establishing bases of genuine concern and understanding. And all I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated. Somehow we’re tied in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
DENNIS: As long as there is poverty in this world you can never be totally rich even if you have a billion dollars.
ROBERT: Strangely enough I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you, ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way the world is made. I didn't make it that way, but it’s like that.
REV. HULL: And finally, Dr. King turned to the height dimension of life–to God. In this, the mystical, spiritual side of Dr. King was revealed. He spoke of good people who were concerned and socially involved but who neglected the heights of life and lived in a horizontal world “And so,” he said, “ they seek to live life without a sky.” Yet Dr. King did not condemn those who have doubts about God and religion. He spoke with compassion for those who doubt God’s existence because of the problem of evil in the world. Dr. King acknowledged that too often, in his words, churches “served to crystallize patterns of society that were often evil. How often in the church have we had a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds." Dr. King then continued saying that most people are not theoritical atheists but practical athiests--people who do not deny the existence of God with their words but with their lives. He spoke of our worship of material things and the materialistic denial of the hidden invisible presence behind the appearances of things.
BETTY: But in spite of our theoretical denial we still feel in life another order impinging upon us. In spite of our doubts we go on in life having spiritual experiences that cannot be explained in materialistic terms.
DENNIS: In spite of our inordinate worship of things something keeps reminding us that the eternal things of the universe are never seen. We go out at night and look up at the beautiful stars that bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity.
PAULA: For the moment we think we see all. Then something tells us that we can never see the law of gravitation that holds them there. We look at this beautiful church building and we see the beautiful architecture, and we think for the moment we see all, but we can never see the mind of the architect who drew the blueprint. We can never see the love and the faith and the hopes of the individuals who made it so.
ROBERT: So it may well be that God is still around. So let us go out with a cultivation of the third dimension. It can give life new meaning. It can give life new zest. I can speak of this from personal experience. Over the last few years circumstances have made it necessary for me to stand so often amid the surging moment of life's restless sea, moments of frustration, the chilly winds of adversity all around. There was always something deep down within me that would keep me going, a strange feeling that I was not alone in this struggle. So many times have I been able to walk with my people and never get weary because I am convinced that there is a great camp meeting in the promised land of God's universe. Maybe St. Augustine was right. We were made for God, and we will be restless until we find rest in Him.
MUSICAL INTERLUDE <3, 48>
SERMON “When Dr. King Spoke Here” Rev. Paul Hull <10, =58>
Introduction
When Dr. King spoke here forty years ago, on Sunday December 11, 1960 from this pulpit, segregation was legal in many parts of this country. Voters were denied the right to vote because of the color of their skin. The marches in Selma, Alabama had not occurred. That would happen in five years in 1965 when Unitarian Universalist minister the Rev. James Reeb was killed in Selma. His death outraged the nation and resulted in the quick passage of the Voting Rights Act. When Dr. King spoke here, it still would be three years until Dr. King would give that triumphant “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Some of the phases he used here were in that speech.
Yes things were different then, and similar too. King spoke on that Sunday in 1960 in this church of values that we Unitarian Universalists hold fundamental. He spoke of the principle of the worth and dignity of all people. He spoke of the interrelatedness of all of life, and how that called us to a mutual responsibility. He spoke of the need to work for justice for blacks and all people to assure the continuation of democracy. He spoke of one world where needs for justice for human beings extended beyond borders in a world that had become geographically one that needed to become spiritually one. Over twenty years later, Unitarian Universalists would affirm our principles statement that included statements about fundamental worth and dignity, interdependency of all of life, use of democratic processes, and the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.
And other things were similar too: In 1960, 11 AM on Sunday morning was the most segregated hour of the week, and it still is. It is dissimilar now from then in 1960 in that most segregation is largely unintentional–an artifact of another time, but it still exists–as does racism..
Things Were Different Then
Things were different in 1960, and they were changed by the commitments and sacrifices of people like Dr. King and Rev. James Reeb–those who died struggling for these values we hold of human worth and dignity, interdependency of all of life, democracy, and world community. We owe much to those people who were willing as Dr. King said here that day “to stand so often amid the surging moment of life's restless sea, moments of frustration, the chilly winds of adversity all around.”
Just five years before Dr. King spoke here, almost to the day, Mrs. Rosa Parks, tired from working all day, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person and was arrested for violation of the segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama. This started the Montgomery bus boycott and moved Dr. King to international attention. Just eleven months before Dr. King spoke here, he resigned his pastorate of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery and moved to Atlanta to become co-pastor with his father of the Ebenezer Baptist Church and to be closer to the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dr. King’s objective at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was to challenge segregation and laws that restricted voting of African Americans.
Just ten months before speaking here, Dr. King had been indited by a grand jury on trumped-up charges for income tax fraud. After much anguish throughout the preparation for the trial and at the trial, Dr. King was found not guilty just seven months before he spoke here. Throughout all of this, Dr. King was traveling the country raising funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Just ten weeks before Dr. King spoke here, he was arrested at a sit-in at Rich’s Snack Bar in Atlanta. Dr. King and seventy-five others were protesting the refusal of service to blacks at “whites only” restaurants. While the others were released, Dr. King was held and sentenced to four-months at hard labor at Georgia’s Reidsville prison for a parole violation. He was on parole for driving with an expired driver’s license that resulted in a $10 fine and one year parole. The condition of the parole was that Dr. King not get in trouble with the law. Dr. King was released after the intercession of John F. Kennedy who would in November of 1960 defeat Richard Nixon for President of the United States. If Kennedy hadn’t interceded, Dr. King wouldn’t have spoken here that December day, and some historians say that Kennedy would not have become president: the black vote that Kennedy gained by getting Dr. King out of prison may have swung the election in his favor, they say. Dr. King’s release from prison was six week before he spoke here.
Just three weeks before Dr. King spoke here he debated segregationist journalist James J. Kilpatrick on national television. Dr. King had been afraid that his busy schedule had not given him time to prepare and that he would say something that would further the segregationists’ cause. The issues from the debate must have been fresh on his mind when he spoke here.
Ending Segregation of the Heart
When Dr. King spoke here, he was thirty-one years old. Dr. King would be assassinated eight years later at the age of 39. So many times have I walked up to this pulpit and looked at this plaque on the wall and felt the honor and moral weight of speaking from this pulpit from where Dr. King spoke. As I read Dr. King’s sermon from a copy of the manuscript he used that day, I was awed by the example of his life, and his words moved me to tears. His words about segregation rang out to me from the page. Dr. King said, “In a very real sense the system of segregation itself is wrong because it is based on the question of length and not breadth. It is exclusive and not inclusive. . . Therefore, all men of good will have a moral obligation to work assiduously to remove this cancerous disease from the body of our nation.”
As I read these words, I had to ask where do I stand amid “the surging moment of life's restless sea [and] . . . the chilly winds of adversity” on this issue of segregation and racism that plagues our society today–mostly unintentional–an artifact of another time– but sometimes not and almost always underground and hidden?
The spirit of Dr. King jumped out of those pages and made me confront the experience of living in Mt Airy section of Philadelphia and begin a minister here. Sometimes when I go to the Acme Market on Germantown Avenue or to the Mt. Airy Post Office, both only a few blocks from this church, I am the only white person there. When I go to the Superfresh Market just off Stenton Avenue in Chestnut Hill, I notice that about half of the people there are African American and the other half are European American, and I see people of Asian ancestry and Latinos there as well. And then I come to this church on Sunday morning and I stand in this pulpit from which Dr. King spoke about ending segregation, and I see mostly white faces–faces of those of European ancestry.
Now I know that this church is not unique in that. And I know that we are not intentionally excluding African Americans from this congregation. I know that every member would abhor racist remarks made in their presence. I know that the members of this church can be proud of this church’s long history of social action and advocacy for integration and understanding between races.
Nevertheless the membership of this church is nine percent African American with another four percent Asian, Native American, and Hispanic while Mt. Airy, according to the 1990 census is sixty-five percent African American and one percent Asian. Estimates for the year 2000 indicate that the percentage of African Americans is higher today in Mt. Airy–approaching seventy percent, and Northwest Philadelphia is about fifty percent African American.
This Church’s Opportunity
This is not to say that this church is unique among Unitarian Universalist churches. Despite Unitarian Universalism’s strong support for anti-racism as a denomination, we mostly are a white, upper-middle class denomination. What is unique about this church is its opportunity to make this congregation reflective of the community that surrounds it. This church’s challenge and opportunity is not to let our own comfort in our traditional Sunday morning worship and our programs become the discomfort for those who visit us from the surrounding community.
So what can we do to overcome this discrepancy between the neighborhood of this church and the membership of this church? First this congregation needs to decide if you want to do something about it. If you do, then the vision of this church, it’s dream, might become, not an abstract statement of values, but a true vision of looking around you on an average Sunday and seeing an equal number of white and black people here. Imagine that! From such dreams and imaginings realities are born!
If that is this congregation’s vision, then this congregation would need to make some changes that will make this a more comfortable place for African Americans and other ethnic minorities. One way that some churches have accomplished this is to continue with a traditional Sunday church service and programs to meet the needs of the existing members and friends, and then to start a second Sunday service and programs that appeal to those in the community that surrounds the church. Some churches have committed to having two complementary professional staffs–one to meet the needs of the traditional congregation and the other to meet the needs of the surrounding community. That is one option; there are others.
This church’s Ending Racism Committee is a good place to start to explore such things as a more ethnically and racially diverse church.
Conclusion
Why should Sunday morning at 11 be the most segregated hour in America? This church is in a unique position to change that. Remember small deeds like a woman refusing to give up her bus seat can create momentous changes. This church can grow in many ways–in the number of members–that’s growth in length, in diversity–that’s growth in breadth, and in spiritual appeal– that’s growth in height. This church can become a shining city of hope on this hill in Mt. Airy–one of many churches–shining cities that open the path to a new way of being a church, of being that beloved community of the heart and mind and soul. May it be so. In a world without end. Amen.
HYMN 169 “We Shall Overcome” <3, =61>
BENEDICTION, SPOKEN Rev. Hull <1, =62>
The benediction is the final paragraph of Dr. King’s sermon. Let these words be for us a prayer:
Love yourself, and that means rational, healthy and moral self-interest. You are commanded to do that. That is the length of life. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded to do that. That is the breadth of life. Never forget there is a first and even greater commandment love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. That is the height of life. When an individual does this, [that person] lives a complete life. Thank God for John who centuries ago caught vision of the new Jerusalem. And grant that those of us who are left to walk the streets of life will also catch vision of the new Jerusalem, and decide to move toward that city of complete life in our individual lives and in our national lives in which the length and the breadth and the height are equal.
May we follow Dr. King’s words to a new vision. Amen.
CHORAL BENEDICTION AND EXTINGUISHING THE CHALICE FLAME
POSTLUDE
---------------------------------------------------------------
THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST UNITARIAN
Lancaster, Massachusetts
A Welcoming Community of Spirit and Service
Gathered in 1653
THE ORDER OF MORNING WORSHIP
October 18, 2009
PRELUDE
GREETINGS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
LIGHTING OF THE CHALICE “Touch the Earth Lightly” (#569, New Century Hymnal, v 1 & 4)
CALL TO WORSHIP
One: God’s breath stirs the trees in the forest and the traffic lights in the city.
All: God, we feel your presence.
One: God’s voice speaks in thunder and surf, in poem and concert hall.
All: God, we listen for your word.
One: God imagines blooming fields and bustling markets, silent lakes and welcoming meals.
All: God, we seek your will. Come let us worship our God!
*OPENING HYMN “All Beautiful the March of Days” (#434, New Century Hymnal)
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER (said in unison)
Gracious God, your amazing love extends through time and space, to all parts of your creation, which you created and called good. Your covenant with the human family is remembered in every rainbow in the sky, symbolizing your promise of love and blessing to every living creature, and to all successive generations.
In Jesus, you invite us to enter into a new covenant of faithfulness and love that extends to the whole creation. Today we pray for the healing of our planet so that present and future generations may enjoy the fruits of creation, and continue to glorify and praise you. Amen
~ By Carlos J. Correa Bernier, Minister for Environmental Justice, United Church of Christ, adapted.
SILENCE
THE LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
STORY FOR ALL AGES “The Man Who Planted Trees” by Jean Giono as told by Rev. Dr. Paul Hull <As is my custom, this story was told and not read. The following is my written paraphrase from which I learned the story.>
Nearly 100 years ago, a man Jean Giono was walking through an area in the Provence region of France–a place of barren, rolling hills with a broad, flat plain to the west and the Alps rising to the east.
Just close your eyes for a minute and imagine that you a looking out across the street and there is a barren flat plain with no trees. It’s brown and patches of blowing dust. And the other direction past were the horsesheds are in the distance you can see high beautiful, blue and white mountains.
The place where you stand is deserted–no wild life, no trees, no people–completely barren except for hills covered with wild lavender.
Jean Giono had been walking for three days through this barren region and camped one night in an abandoned village. He was out of water and found what had once been a spring but it was dry. The wind whistled through this barren land rattling the steeple of the abandoned village church and slamming broken shutters against gray tumbled-downed houses. After spending a dry thirsty night when he was continually awakened by the wind blowing through the old village church, Jean left the abandoned village in search of water. He walked for five hours without finding any.
Though the day was perfect for June, not one tree was present on this land to stop the wind and without shade, the sun seem unceasing, and the wind swirrled and shook the bare bones of dried and dead bushes and trees.
Jean then saw a person in the distance. Perhaps he could show Jean where to find water. The person was a shepherd and soon offered Jean a drink of water from his gourd. After a few words, the man invited Jean to his house where Jean filled his canteen with water from a deep well. The shepherd’s house was much like the houses in the village where he had spent the night before, but it was obvious that the shepherd had reclaimed this house and provided it with a strong roof. As was the custom of farm folk from that region in France, the shepherd said little to Jean but offered him some of the soup that we warming on his stove.
The shepherd invited Jean to spend the night in his house as the next village was thirty miles away–a day and on half of walking. Jean knew that these villages were inhabited by wood cutters who built their cabins amid the oaks that grew in the few sheltered valleys of the area. It was a hard life, with the unceasing wind and sun of summer and the freezing bite of wind in the winter. The wind was said to drive some men and women insane.
By the lamplight that night Jean saw the shepherd take acorns from feed bag. The shepherd placed the acorns on the table and examined each closely–only saving the ones without any crack or flaw. Soon the shepherd had one hundred flawless acorns and he got up and went to bed.
Jean liked being near the shepherd as he seem to have a great inner peace about him. The next day Jean asked if he could go with the man to tend his flocks. Jean, the shepherd and the shepherd’s dog took the sheep to a valley a mile away. When they arrived, the shepherd would stuck his steel tipped walking stick into the ground and put an acorn in the hole and covered it carefully. Soon his 100 acorns were planted.
During lunch the shepherd told Jean he had been doing this for three years, and that he had planted one hundred thousand acorns, and that twenty thousand had sprouted.
The man’s name was Elzéard Bouffier. The shepherd told Jean that years ago he had been a farmer but his son and wife had died so he retired to that dry land to live a simple life in solitude as a shepherd. He thought that the reason the land was barren was because all of the trees had been cut down years ago, and he decided to do something about it. He said that he was experimenting with growing beech trees as well as oaks. The next day Jean said goodbye to Elzéard Bouffier.
The next year Jean became a soldier in World War I. For five years he was in the French army, and when the war ended he decided to go back to that area to get his life together again from all of the bad things that he had experienced during that horrible war. Jean found Elzéard Bouffier still there, and he was still planting trees. Now the first trees he had planted were taller than a man. He was also successful in growing beeches. They were shoulder high and covered this hillsides. Elzéard Bouffier’s forest of young oaks and beeches covered an area eight miles long by two miles wide. He also had planted birches.
Wildlife had returned. Meadow flowers grew in meadows sheltered from the wind by the trees.
Jean returned frequently to visit Elzéard Bouffier and still he planted trees. Soon there was water in once dried springs. Streams flowed year around and fish came back. And the people came back to the area and restored the villages, rebuilt the churches and schools. There wheat grew in the fields. In the old village where Jean had camped years ago, six families lived and they had built a fountain at the center of the village that flowed from spring from a nearby hillside.
Elzéard Bouffier died in 1945, and his faith in the power of the simple act of planting an acorn had changed everything.
What does this story mean to you?
It means that if we have faith and continually work day in and day out and not get discouraged, in the long run what we do will make a great deal of difference. The same is true for work in the environment. Some people say that the problems are too big for one person to make a differrence. But take hope from Elzéard Bouffier–all you need to is plant one hundred of something each day–maybe it is 100 good thoughts about other people, maybe it is 100 words written in a letter to someone about helping the environment, maybe it is 100 nickels or $5 each day sent to an organization that helps make this world a better place. We can all make a difference. So let’s do our part in making this a better world.
*HYMN “All Things Bright and Beautiful” (#31, New Century Hymnal) (After the first verse of the hymn, the children may leave for the children’s program)
CANDLES OF JOYS AND SORROWS
VERSICLES
Minister: The Lord be with you.
People: And with thy spirit.
Minister: Let us pray. O Lord, show thy mercy upon us.
People: And grant us thy salvation.
Minister: O God, make clean our hearts within us.
People: And take not thy Holy Spirit from us
PASTORAL PRAYER
May the words of this hymn be our prayer:
<I sang the pastoral prayer from the pulpit.>
May only good cross this door,
and may good fortune always ply
about these windows,
May the roar and rain go by.
By faith made strong, the rafters will
withstanding the battering of the storm.
This hearth through all the world grow chill
will keep you warm
May peace shall walk softly through these rooms,
touching our lips with holy wine,
till every corner blooms
into a shrine.
May laughter drown the raucous shout,
and though these sheltering walls are thin,
may they be strong to keep hate out
and hold love in.
In the silence of this moment, please say a silent prayer for this church, its people and all the people and events that touch our concern at this time.
SILENT PRAYER
OFFERTORY
We will now have the morning offering–a ritual of the free church–reminding each of us that this church is here because we support it and find it valuable to our lives.
Anthem
*Doxology
From all that dwell below the skies
Let the Creator’s praise arise
Let the Redeemer’s name be sung
Through every land, by every tongue! Amen.
*Prayer
May this offering be a prayer and affirmation
of our generous thoughts and our deeds,
that we are not indifferent to another’s need.
May this offering be an affirmation too
of our commitment to make a difference
in our lives and in the life of this church. Amen.
FIRST LESSON Mark 12: 1-12
The Parable of the Wicked Tenants
12Then [Jesus] began to speak to them in parables. ‘A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watch-tower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. 6He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But those tenants said to one another, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.
RESPONSIVE READING “If We Have the Wisdom to Survive” by Wendell Berry
One: If we will have the wisdom to survive, to stand like slow-growing trees on a ruined place,
All: Renewing it, enriching it,
One: If we will make our seasons welcome here, Asking not too much of earth or heaven.
All: Then a long time after we are dead the lives our lives prepare will live here,
One: Their houses strongly placed upon the valley sides, Fields and gardens rich in the windows. The river will run clear, as we will never know it,
All: And over it, birdsong like a canopy.
One On the levels of the hills will be green meadows, Stock bells in noon shade. On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down the old forest,
All: An old forest will stand, Its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
One: The veins of forgotten springs will have opened. Families will be singing in the fields.
All: In their voices they will hear a music risen out of the ground.
One: They will take nothing from the ground they will not return, whatever the grief at parting.
All: Memory, native to this valley, will spread over it like a grove, and memory will grow into legend, legend into song, song into sacrament.
One: The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling light.
All: This is no paradise or dream.
Its hardship is its possibility.
SECOND LESSON “The Ecological Age” from A Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry
In honoring Thomas Berry, I want to read the following section form an essay titled “The Ecological Age:” published in 1988–21 years ago. Consider that what he said then applies today–even more so. We will be exploring the “more so” today.
As we think our way through the difficulties of the late twentieth century, we find ourselves pondering the role of the human within the life systems of the earth. Sometimes we appear as the peril of the planet, if not its tragic fate. Through human presence the forests of the earth are destroyed. Fertile soils become toxic and then wash away in the rain or blow away in the wind. Mountains of human-derived waste grow even higher. Wetlands are filled in. Each year the ozone layer above the earth is depleted. Such disturbance in the natural world coexist with all those ethnic, political, and religions tensions that pervade the human realm. Endemic poverty is pervasive in the Third World, while in the industrial world people drown in their own consumption patterns. Population increase threatens all efforts at improvement.
Such a description of our human presence on the earth tends to become paralyzing. While that is not my intention, it is my intention to fix our minds on the magnitude of the task before us. This task concerns every member of the human community, no matter what the occupation, continent, ethnic group, or age. It is a task for which no one is absolved and with which no one is ultimately more concerned than anyone else. Here we meet as absolute equals to face our ultimate tasks as human being within the life the life systems of the planet Earth. We have before us the question not simply of physical survival, but of survival in a human mode of being, survival and development into intelligent, affectionate, imaginative persons thoroughly enjoying the universe about us, living in profound communion with one another and with some significant capacities to express ourselves in our literature and creative arts. (36-37)
ANTHEM
SERMON: “What Is This Business about Climate Change?” ~Rev. Dr. Paul Hull
Across the globe in every religious tradition– Evangelical Christian, liberal Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jew, Taoism, Shinto, and on and on– people of faith are demonstrating for control of greenhouse gases to stop climate change. A worldwide religious movement is afoot making climate change, not a just scientific issue, but a religious issue of global proportions.
Let me tell you about a conversation that I had sixteen years ago with a climate scientist about climate change. I have had the honor of being Minister of the Week twice for the Natural History Conference at Star Island Conference Center in the Gulf of Maine–first in 1993 and again last June.
In 1993, Dr. Edward Brooks, Professor of Geophysics, at Boston University was the conference theme speaker. Professor Brooks spoke about long range climate patterns. He was rather good at predicting long-term weather, and businesses sought out his advice to help them manage weather risks associated with their businesses. Dr. Brooks thought that the varying heat output of the sun was what caused warm periods and ice ages on the earth and that the energy input from the sun would make any human contribution to global warming negligible.
I am not sure when I became concerned about global warming.. I had a 25 year career as an environmental engineer and consider myself an environmentalist. My awareness probably went back to the 1970s when I read a book by Paul and Anne Ehrlich of Stanford University called Human Ecology in which they mentioned the influence of the greenhouse effect and its potential to increase global temperatures from deforestation practices and burning of fossil fuels (197-200).
So sixteen years ago on Star Island, I had a conversation with Dr. Brooks about human-caused climate change. He said he doubted that global warming was an issue of concern due to human causes. He said that there was no evidence to suggest that the Earth was warming. In fact he thought the climate was cooling. I said it seemed to me that if there was melting of polar icecaps and the permafrost in the arctic, then that might be proof that there was significant global warming occurring. He said that my observation was perceptive but that he didn’t think that was happening.
I don’t know what Dr. Brooks’ position would be today, but there is melting of polar ice and permafrost. Recent studies have shown, over the last 30 years, there is significant permafrost melting in some regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Arctic sea ice continues to melt. NASA has recorded that the Greenland’s massive ice sheet is losing ice at significant rates over the last few years. In 2007, the US National Ice Center announced that the fabled polar shipping route–the Northwest passage–was wide open for shipping. Some scientist are predicting if the current rate of arctic sea ice melting continues that the Arctic Ocean will be free of ice in 2030–including the North Pole.
Of course none of this proves that global warming is happening due to human greenhouse gas emissions– proof depends on scientific data, modeling, and verification of those models by other scientists with the data.
I am not going to go into the science of the green house effect but briefly and only to mention that the Earth receives radiant energy from the sun continuously. Water vapor and carbon dioxide as well as trace atmospheric gases trap some of the infrared radiation before it goes into outer space. This is good because without the greenhouse effect the average temperature of the Earth would be minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit instead of its balmy 60 degrees–at least for New England that’s balmy.
But what is happening because of burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and other land use practices, the amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are increasing. Higher levels of greenhouse gases mean more heat is trapped and the average global temperature rises.
As the average temperature of the Earth increases, we can expect rising sea levels due to melting ice sheets on Greenland and the Antarctic, more violent and extreme weather, increased desertification in some areas of the planet and flooding in others , massive shifts of population as costal areas and islands flood, and in some areas, increased disease, and on and on the list goes.
Most climate scientists think that this is a likely scenario, and only a small few do no think so. In 2007 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report confirming most of these findings and stating:
Warming of the climate is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level.
The UN Panel included the participation of 619 climate scientists from across the globe. These scientists have their names on over 20,000 scientific, peer-reviewed papers about climate science. Only one of these scientists, on the UN Panel, has signed a position skeptical of global warming; whereas, 160 of these scientists have signed statements supporting activists policies on climate change.
Now I realize that true science is falsifiable. It only takes one contradictory set of data to upset an entire hypothesis or theory.
Most of the scientific skeptics are so because they say the data and climate models are inconclusive–not because they say they are wrong. One of those scientific skeptics is Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology in the US. She eventually became NASA's lead weather researcher and has authored or co-authored over 190 scientific papers. She said this about global warming from human activities:
What should we as a nation do? Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the [UN panel on climate change] because if we do not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and the climate models are right, the planet as we know it will in this century become unsustainable. But as a scientist I remain skeptical.
To me her assessment of the situation makes sense.
Some have argued that if we go through the expense to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it could throw the world into a global economic recession. But if the models are reasonably right, global warming will cause a world economic recession beyond imagining because this planet, all at once, will not be able to support its population and nations will collapse and their entire economies.
The other point is that even if global warming models turn out to be wrong and the planet is not warming due to human activities, many of the actions to address global warming would need to be done anyway–like more use of renewable fuels to reduce reliance on dwindling fossil fuels, sustainable use of the oceans and the land, and many more actions. And these actions will have a positive economic impact–creating jobs and new industries, keeping money in local economies that now going to the oil companies and cartels.
The specter raised by global warming makes it crucial that we not delay and we meet the challenges of the present on-going global climate change. The United States and Western Europe are challenged by climate change to control over consumption. With twenty percent of the world’s population, the US and Western Europe consume 80 percent of the world’s resources and contribute to two-thirds of the human-caused carbon dioxide emissions.
To point to point to economically underdeveloped countries and tell them that they need to control their populations is only to divert the responsibility from us to someone else. With Western nations contributing two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions, we as citizens of the United States. The greatest impact have a responsibility to reduce our over consumption and to work for reduced greenhouse gases
Global warming is not just a scientific issue, it is a human justice issues and it is a religious issue.
Jesus parable of the vineyard is about those who would abuse a privilege and how in time if the abuse continues the abusive tenants of the vineyard will be destroyed and the vineyard will be given to others.
The problems of global warming are so serious and the scientific consensus so strong that if we don’t do something soon, modern human civilization will be thrown out of the vineyard and humans will no longer be a dominant global species. Maybe in the scope of geological time and for the health of the planet Earth, that will not be a bad thing, but I am not so cynical to want that for humanity. The civilization that we are part of has achieved many wonders–science, the arts, music, medicine, a diversity of religions, philosophy, poetry, Shakespearian plays.. Imagine a world without Mozart or Shakespeare, without the ability to communicate instantly around the planet or without the human triumph of putting people on the moon or without the wonders that we behold of this marvelous and mysterious universe from the Hubble telescope. Without our world civilization, none of this would be possible and we will lose all of this if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at current levels.
I know that some here may not agree with what I say and will criticize me for saying it. One of the great traditions of liberal religion is the free pulpit. The Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Thayer used the free pulpit of this church to denounce the War of 1812. Liberal ministers have used the free pulpit to call people to action in the mid-nineteenth century against slavery, in the 1960s to call for equal rights for African Americans, and now this liberal free pulpit and other pulpits throughout the world are calling forth each one of us to act to support actions that will reduce greenhouse gasses and save this planet was we know it–not to just save it for us, but for our children and grandchildren and generations to come.
Next Saturday, church bells throughout the world will be ringing 350 times to call world governments to take actions to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to below 350 parts per million. If some of you want to do something, you can request this church’s Standing Committee’s for permission to ring the bell 350 times next Saturday. If you want to do something, you can gather next Saturday at 11 AM at Nashoba High School to get on a bus to go to a rallying point in Concord where you will join hundreds of others and you will be televised in a worldwide broadcast supporting reduction of greenhouse gases. There is a sign up sheet in the hall if you want to go. Each of these steps is another acorn that will sprout a tree.
There is nothing more important that each one of us can do can do than to support a world wide effort to stop climate change caused by our human species. Next Saturday may well be the combined Selma and Washington marches of the environmental movement. Will you take a stand?
In the words of the poet, Will we have the wisdom to survive? Will we “stand like slow-growing trees on a ruined place, renewing it, enriching it.” Say yes! In a world without end. Amen.
Let us make a joyful noise to God our creator.
*HYMN “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You” (#4, New Century Hymnal)
*BENEDICTION
Because of those who came before, we are;
in spite of failings, we believe;
because of, and in spite of the horizons of their vision,
we, too, dream.
Let us go remembering to praise,
to live in the moment,
to love mightily,
to bow to the mystery.
Amen.
POSTLUDE
----------------------------------------
Faith and Forgiveness
A Sermon
by
The Reverend Paul G. Hull
Presented at
First Church of Christ Unitarian
Lancaster, Massachusetts
October 20, 2002
INTRODUCTION
In a recent national survey, churchgoers were asked if they agreed with the statement, “Because of my faith, I have forgiven people who have hurt me.” Nearly 60 percent of churchgoers strongly agreed.
Forgiveness is at the heart of faith. At the center of Christianity is the Lord’s Prayer that implores God to forgive us as we forgive others. A noted Jewish rabbi and ethicist observed that “granting forgiveness is one of actually one of the most important things we can do, and the most important privileges which God grants us.” In Islam, “the Prophet Muhammad taught his followers that the individual who pardons his enemy, even while having the power to extract revenge, will be nearest to [Allah] in the Hereafter.” Hindu scripture states, “the [person] of wisdom should ever forgive for when [a person] is capable of forgiving everything, [that person] attains Brahma.” Forgiveness runs throughout Buddhism in the doctrines of loving-kindness and compassion.
Forgiving is a spiritual practice and is at the root of being a spiritually committed person. Forgiveness is also a key to happiness. <2>
The Logic of Forgiveness
The Dali Lama once was asked if he could forgive the Chinese for killing 1.2 million Tibetans since 1960 and he replied, “My logic is quiet simple . . . . If I keep a negative feeling toward the Chinese, it will not harm the Chinese, it will harm myself. I will lose sleep, I will lose appetite and ruin myself. Compassion and forgiveness are something very important and crucial . . . Without anger and with a friendly attitude . . . . you can act more effectively.” There is a simple appealing logic in what Dali Lama says. Grievances that we hold against others do not rectify wrongs. They simply are emotional blocks that we hold inside ourselves.
There is a common misunderstanding about forgiveness. It doesn’t ask us to excuse wrongs. Forgiveness doesn’t even ask us to trust the person or people who did harm. Forgiveness doesn’t ask for reconciliation. Forgiveness is a decision that entails the deeply personal emotional process of saying, “I will let go of what happened – the hurt, anger, hatred, resentment, the guilt.
Someone once said that we should always forgive our enemies, because nothing annoys them quiet so much. But that’s not forgiveness because we are still holding a grievance that we desire rectified. But what if it doesn’t come. Without forgiveness, all we have are grievances, and we emotionally bind ourselves and others. Without forgiving and being forgiven, psychologist Hanna Arendt observed, “our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to a single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victim of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer’s apprentice who lacked the magic formula to break the spell.” <Arnold 123>
And yes we all have the need to be forgiven as well as to forgive. Having a clear conscience may be nothing more than a just bad memory. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote,
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of [their] own heart? <Arnold 81> <3, =5>
Breaking the Victimization Cycle Through Forgiveness
Joseph Ben-Eliezer was born in 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany to Jewish parents. In 1933, because of the increasing persecution of Jews by the Nazis, Joseph’s family moved to Poland. In 1939, when Joseph was ten, the Germans entered the town in which he was living and demanded that all Jews gather in the town square. The Jews, including Joseph and his family, bringing what they could carry, were herded to the bank of a nearby river, stripped of all their money and valuables, and forced to cross the river. The family under great hardship and near starvation kept moving east until they ended in Siberia, and in 1943 were able to escape to Palestine. In Palestine at the end of the war, Joseph, now in his early twenties, was full of hatred for the Germans who did such horrors to the Jews, and the British who occupied Palestine, and the Arabs who the Jews were fighting in Palestine. He joined the Zionist army in Palestine because in his words, “I was convinced that I could no longer allow myself to be trampled on. . . . .”
In one incident, Joseph’s army unit was ordered to remove Palestinians from their homes. Joseph and his fellow soldiers beat and interrogated them brutally. Some were even murdered. “Suddenly,” Joseph related, “my childhood in wartime Poland flashed before my eyes. In my mind I relived my own experience as a ten-year old, driven from my hometown. Here, too, were people–men, women, and children–fleeing with whatever they could carry. And there was fear in their eyes, a fear that I myself knew all too well. I was terribly distressed, but I was under orders, and I continued to search them for valuables. I knew that I was no longer a victim. I was now in power.” <Arnold 89> The incident created a crisis for Joseph. He soon left the army, then Palestine, and wandered the world seeking answers. Finally through a religious experience, we was able to forgive himself and then he was able to forgive the Nazi’s soldiers who had done to him and his family what he had done to other ten-year old boys and their families.
Sometimes our own grievances can drive us to cause suffering in the way that others caused our suffering. Forgiveness breaks the cycle. Often it comes down do we want to feel right and justified or happy and free! <4, =9.5>
The Continuous Process of Forgiveness
Forgiveness is about letting go of the emotional attachment we have to the hurt done to us or that we did to another. If the hurt is deep, it can take a lot of work to forgive, but one place to begin is with the words, “I forgive.” Then you start the process. The New Testament reading this morning related a process that Jesus gave for forgiving a grievance against another. First you talk to them in private. If they don’t agree to talk, then you take one or two other along with you. If the person still doesn’t talk with you, then you take it to the church community. If that still doesn’t work, then let it go–give up the attachment to the situation. Following this Peter asked how far we should go with this forgiveness, and Jesus responded “seventy time seven.” This passage tells you the process of trying to work out a grievance with someone and what happens if you can’t work it out. You let go. You forgive.
That is spiritual practice. It opens our hearts to the other person, expands our horizon, helps us develop compassion and to see that we are all human beings with flaws. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.” <Arnold 75> <2, =11.5>
Restoring the I-Thou Relationship
John Plummer, a Methodist minister in Virginia, was a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam. On one mission, he napalmed the village of Trang Bang. To his horror, he soon saw in a magazine the photo of a naked nine-year old girl running with arms outstretched with napalm exploding behind her. That photo has become probably the most famous photo from the Viet Nam War. He realized that he was the one that dropped the bombs on the village. John was haunted by the image of that photo for twenty-five years. His marriage ended. He struggled with alcoholism. He sought therapy. Nothing seemed to help.
On Veterans Day of 1996, John was at the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. A Vietnamese woman, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, was speaking there as part of her personal quest to bring forgiveness and reconciliation for all of the wounds her people and Americans suffered in Vietnam. You see, that young woman, Kim, was that little girl in the photo, now a young woman.
She spoke of how she suffered from her burns and how many Vietnamese had suffered. She said that she forgave those American who bombed her village. Although she could not change what had happened, now she wanted to promote peace. John couldn’t contain himself. He pushed to the front of the crowd and called to Kim that he was the pilot responsible for bombing her village. The young woman held out her arms and they embrace. All John could say was “I’m sorry; I’m sorry.” And Kim responded as they hugged each other, “It’s all right; I forgive you.” John still struggles with his memories, but they are less haunting, and he is more at peace than he has been for twenty-five years.
Stories such as this one and those of Holocaust survivors who can find forgiveness in their hearts for such great suffering and wrongs need not shame us into forgiving lesser hurts, betrayals, and disappointments in our lives. These stories are to encourage us to forgive for they demonstrate the capacity for forgiveness in the human heart. The stories possess a profound spirituality that recognizes a unity in our human experience beneath the prevalent differences. When we draw the lines of grievances in our hearts, we deny that essential unity. The “I-thou” becomes “me” and “them,” and if we allow it to continue, the grievances become me verses them. The heart of forgiveness does not deny the need for justice and accountability, but behind forgiveness is the recognition of our unity with each other and that we all sin–that is we all transgress against the divine nature. The readings from Daniel and Psalms recognize this, but add that God forgives. <4, =15.5>
CONCLUSION
One wag, a German poet, observed “I love to sin. God loves to forgive sins. Really the world is admirable arranged.” Certainly we needn’t sin deliberately as the poet suggests. But behind the quip is a sense of cosmic humor that removes us in our grievances from the center of the universe. Forgiveness clears the air, makes room for others in our world, and recognizes that we all fall short of the divine nature and sin against ourselves, each other, and God. A wise person wrote that we should start each day with the resolution “to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aging, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant with the weak and wrong because sometime in your life, you will have been all of these.”
So as spiritually committed people, we all have work to do to make this a better world. The place to start is where we have grievances and to do the work of forgiving others. Another place to start is where we hold guilt and do the work of forgiving ourselves. Forgiveness is truly the key to happiness. Try it and you will find the key. In a world without end. Amen. <1.5, =17>
