Below is
the text of my summer service given at First Parish Lexington on July 15, 2012. My altar looked like this:
Opening
words
I knew
this would happen that I would change my sermon slightly or hugely on
Star. I signed up for this summer sermon
slot for this very reason. We just spent
a wonderful week on our beloved Star Island, where I first discovered that I
have spirituality and where I have returned for the last 18 summers, to renew
myself, to dive deeper into my spirituality and to spend time contemplating
what is important in my life, our lives.
Please join me today on this journey during our time together.
Sally
holds up picture that Joni Lipton gave them and Reads:
If once
you have slept on an island
You'll
never be quite the same
You may
look as you looked the
Day
before & go by the same old name
You may
bustle about the street or shop
You may
sit at home and ponder
But
you'll see blue water & wheeling gulls
Wherever
you may wander
You may
chat with your neighbors of this and that
And close
to your fire keep
But you'll
hear ship whistle & lighthouse bell
And tides
beat through your sleep
Oh you
won't know why & can't say how
Such
change upon you came
But once
you have slept
On an
island
You will
never be
Quite the
same.
Rodney
Reads:
What I
loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never
mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was
many years ago.
Since
then I have gone out from my confinements,
through
with difficulty.
I mean
the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast
them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will
be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow
or another).
And I
have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have
become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have
become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have
become younger.
And what
do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love
yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.
~ Mary
Oliver ~
Grey
Hymnal 298
Wake now
my senses
Wake now
my senses and hear the earth call
feel the
deep power of being in all
Keep with
the web of creation your vow
giving,
receiving as love shows us how
Wake now
my reason reach out to the new
join with
each pilgrim who quests for the true
Honor the
beauty and wisdom of time
suffer
thy limit and praise the sublime
Wake now
compassion, give heed to the cry
voices of
suffering fill the wide sky
Take as
your neighbor both stranger and friend
praying
and striving their hardship to end
Wake now
my conscience with justice thy guide
join with
all people whose rights are denied
Take not
for granted a privileged place
God's
love embraces the whole human race
Start of
Homily
When I
was asked by Peter to do a summer service I immediately replied yes, and when
he asked me to pick one of the themes from this year I jumped on
stewardship. You might not know but our
chalice circles here at First Parish follow the monthly sermon topics and I
found that as an individual I grew the most during our chalice circle's stewardship
session. That is why I chose to tackle
it. Before I tell you my thoughts I
would be interested in how you would complete this sentence in 10 words or
less, Stewardship is ...
I had
drafted my homily 2 weeks ago, however, an incident which happened 10 days ago
caused my sermon to take a 90 degree turn.
My personality type is one which allows me to connect disparate thoughts
and make a casserole out of these disparate thoughts, and a pretty good
casserole. What it means for this morning
is that I will loosely connect this experience of 10 days ago with the title of
stewardship. Hang with me, this will be
a circuitous journey and we will get to the end and you might understand a bit
about how I view stewardship.
A brief
bit of history, while at General Assembly this year, I attended the vigil at
Sheriff Joe Arpaio's tent city which is a tent city, a detention center for
undocumented immigrants in Maricopa County in Phoenix, Arizona. Me and 3000 other yellow-shirted Unitarian
Universalists stood on the side of love, witnessed with the immigrant rights
partners and became allies. For those of you who do not know about Joe Arpaio,
google him, ARPAIO. He prides himself
on being the toughest sheriff in the US.
Conditions for the undocumented immigrants in his tent city are inhumane
at best. 120 degrees in the middle of
the desert, in a tent because the cells are full, 2 meals a day, no free access
to water, pink underwear and socks, (so they don't sell them on the outside). The most distressing testimonial I heard at
one of our plenary sessions, was from a woman who had been detained in the tent
city, and was handcuffed to the bed as she gave birth to her child. She was talking to us while holding that
child. The vigil was very moving! You
can read more details about it in my blog, sally-alwaysaskingwhy.blogspot.com which is listed at the bottom
of your order of service.
Last
Friday, Friday the 6th of July, before I left for Star Island I went to Waltham
to tutor my learner who is a 40 year old woman from Guatemala with a husband
and 2 children. I tutor her through an
agency in Waltham called WATCH, which provides education and support for
immigrant families in Waltham. A handful
of First Parishioners tutor at WATCH. I
am referring to her as a learner and not using her name to protect her.
She had been distant for a few weeks and did not want to
meet. She finally agreed to meet. I asked "How are you?" and with tears in her eyes she said "ICE
agents took my brother 3 weeks ago.".
ICE stands for immigration and customs enforcement. Needless to say whatever we were going to do
for that hour was pushed aside. She told
me his story, her brother has been here for 27 years, married to a Canadian
citizen who is in the process of applying for her green card. He has a 21 year old, an 18 year old and an 8
year old. The 21 year old is an American
citizen, and applied to sponsor his father, my learner's brother, for
citizenship. The cynic in me says this
is how they got his address, from the application. He was taken at 6am in front of his 8 year
old and is in Plymouth Massachusetts in a prison right now.
She also told me about 4 others in their community who have
been taken in the last month. They were
all arrested for doubtful offenses like scratching a car that was across a
parking lot from where he was making a phone call on his cell phone. Another one was arrested for trespassing by
standing in the parking lot of a neighboring business. Behavior like Joe Arpaio's is happening in
our back yard, one town away. Somehow
when it is happening in Phoenix, even though I went to the vigil, it seemed
unreal, or surreal. However, when it is
happening 2 blocks from the Waltham Library, which is where she and I meet
every week, it brought it home to me, literally. In the past year she has become my friend and
I get mad when friends get treated unfairly and live in fear. She is afraid that she and her husband will
be taken in front of their 11 year old son and 7 year old daughter and they
have lived in the US for 19 years. She
did not know whether to tell me since she is so fearful and doesn't know who to
trust. We gained trust with each other. I encouraged her to ask for help at WATCH,
and told her I would ask around to see if there are resources available for her
and other undocumented immigrants.
If you
know me at all you know that I have passion, and I get angry when things are
not right or fair. What we have here is
a broken immigration policy and ICE agents who are implementing it. Someone on Star kept reminding me that this
is an election year. That does not make
this right. My Facebook post read last
Friday: "Someone will be sorry they poked this sleeping lioness!".
What my learner said during our hour together is "we are not criminals, we
are hardworking people. This is not
freedom I heard about before I came here.". What I said is "yes, you
are a hard worker. You, meaning her
community, you mow our lawns, clean our houses and take care of elderly in our
nursing homes." BTW, Jobs that many
Americans would not/do not do.
The title
of my blog post right after I left her was "don't know whether I am more
SAD or MAD right now."
So how
does this tie into stewardship. For me
stewardship is being a steward with my money, time and energy. It means pushing forward on an issue that I
feel passionate about. It means pouring
my money and time into someone or something that needs my money and time.
My
husband Rodney and I in the last few years have narrowed the number of organizations
to which we donate large amounts of money.
We give small amounts to our alma maters, we always give at GA to the
local organization, we give a 20 bill when the congregation gives the plate
away once a month. Our two large
donation receivers are First Parish and Star Island. Unfortunately these are both institutions
which spend large amounts of capital to keep their old wooden buildings open
and safe. Why do we give to these two?
The short answer is that they are in line with our values, and they feed us
spiritually, and they are our intentional community.
It has
taken almost 20 years of attendance at both First Parish Lexington and Star
Island for us to narrow our donations down to these two, and for me to figure
out in my gut why. Some of it has to do
with aging and realizing my mortality.
Some of it is that I want these institutions to be around for my grandchildren
and my community. The biggest part is
community though. Where do I turn when I
have a joy or sorrow? Where do people know
me well and I know them well, and we really care about each other? What do I want to be around in 100 years, and
who needs my support and stewardship? We
have to have a community like this to feed each other so we can go stand at a
vigil, or visit immigrants in prison or work tirelessly to change legislation
and therefore erase implementation of broken policies.
Financial
stewardship is one part, but helping hands and loving hearts and minds is
another. I don't know about you but some
days, the number of people who need my financial support and helping hands is
overwhelming. Especially going to
General Assembly, where there are so many people doing so many good things, I
want to try to do it all. But, I know
focus is essential.
For First
Parish, I have been pretty involved since the day I stepped across the
threshold. Why? Because the organization
needs volunteers, and I want to be involved.
We are healthy pledgers and we give our hands and hearts to this loving
community, we participate in the stewardship of the congregation.
Star
Island also needs my help. I am in my
fourth year of service on the Star Island Board. I bring skills which the Board needs. It is a heavy fiduciary responsibility to
serve on this board. In the recession it
is touch and go whether we can fill the beds, keep the wooden structure up to
code and pay the bills. Kind of like
here except here we fill the pews instead of beds. We recently gave a healthy donation to a
capital campaign and every year donates to the Star island annual program fund.
Where do
the tent city vigil, Joe Arpaio and my learner fit in? I am prepared to work for immigrant rights,
to stand on the side of love with migrants and their families. My stewardship will include making the United
States a fairer place for immigrants.
Within an hour of leaving her that Friday I called up two people who
might know immigration lawyers I could talk to about this, and one who I could
send my learner to. Cindy sent me a link
to UU Mass Action for follow up opportunities from GA. At GA upon hearing the woman speak who had
her child in prison, we gave $1000 on the spot to a partner organization who is
helping undocumented immigrants with their rights.
I won't
probably add a third organization to First Parish Lexington and Star but I
might if I think it would help. I just
might become a steward of another needy important organization and one I have
passion for. I just might because as
someone at Star said, about his donation to the Star Island annual program fund,
you have to give until it hurts. May it
be so.
Our
prayer this morning will be sung, and will be slower than we usually sing it,
and will be sung through twice
Spirit of
Life - Prayer
Spirit of
life come unto me
Sing in
my heart all the stirrings of compassion
Blow in
the wind rise in the sea
Move in
the hand giving life the of justice
Roots
hold me close wings set me free
Spirit of
life come to me come to me
Participation
- Bethany Lowe in ten words or less how do you steward First Parish?
1020 Teal
“Singing the Journey” Woyaya
Benediction
Two hours
after I left my learner I texted her (((hugs))). Within two minutes she texted back,
"thank you my best friend". I
burst our crying with sadness and anger.
Sometimes to be a steward in a community it is as simple as texting
hugs. As you leave the service think
about who you might send hugs to today.
I ask you to think about your stewardship and how it has evolved. The world needs our hands and hearts in
addition to our money.
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