An Everybody Church

My son thought very hard, looking intently at this new place his father had brought him.
“We have all kinds of people here,” Ruth explained gently, helping him make sense of what he was hearing.
“This is an everybody church!” shouted Ben, leaping up in his chair.

Why does this matter?

A sermon preached on Sunday, August 20 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC.

A recording of the sermon may be found here:

An excerpt of the transcript may be found here:

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Why does this matter?

 

Just look at the world. And look at us in it.

 

How powerful it is

to be in a place

of connection,

and belonging,

 

a place where difference

is not only valued

but is loved,

 

a place of truthful conversation

and deep encounter

without coercion, or threat,

or violence.

 

And why does this matter?

 

It matters how we live together.

It matters how we use our knowledge.

It matters how we share our resources.

It matters how we think.

 

It matters how we treat one another.

It matters what kind of world

we decide

this time around the sun

we will create.

 

And when we do this

with intention,

with risk,

cognizant of ourselves

in relationship to others,

 

something more happens—

not just goodness,

not just justice,

not just healing,

not just community—

although it includes all of these things—

 

Something more happens:

 

a kind of magic.

 

That is what an eclipse is:

bodies in relationship,

illuminating one another.

at the very moment of their mutual darkness.

 

We use the word “eclipse” to talk about something that is ending,

or being surpassed,

something losing its supremacy,

something dying and fighting for its life.

 

Hear how much

that echoes our own fears,

as individuals, as peoples.

But that is not what an eclipse is.

 

An eclipse

is bodies

very different from one another

coming into alignment

such that we see suddenly

in their relationship with one another

 

something startling—

 

darkness & light fused in cosmic glory—

 

which is also nothing more

than their very nature.

 

In an eclipse, sun and moon—

and our position on earth,

our small but crucial place in it all—

 

come for a moment

into a particular alignment.

 

And from this momentary vantage point

aspects of the sun,

its different colors and circles of light

can be seen.

 

In its very darkening,

through its relationship

with the moon,

 

we see the sun’s light

in a new way.

 

And not just the sun,

but all of life

is presented in a different aspect

during that brief intersection of bodies—

the temperature drops,

animals and plants become disoriented,

people—that particular form of animal that we are—

become confused too, frightened or ecstatic or both—

stars come out,

and astronomers

and astrologers

after long preparations

hasten to study

the heavens and our place in them

across this sprint of time.

 

In that moment

the light & the darkness

are not the same

but together,

mutually revealing

what is true to both—

 

what is really just their nature,

common and ordinary—

 

but unseen

when they are not together.

 

And when they are:

 

unearthly glory

people will travel the world

to encounter.

 

And so with us—

each of us

full of light,

full of darkness,

full of knowledge and religions

and resources and power,

 

full of life,

common & extraordinary.

 

So often we have chosen

to dominate and overwhelm

out of fear of what we will lose

if we don’t,

 

fearing that we will be eclipsed

and die forever

if we don’t conquer first

the world around us

and the people of this world.

 

So often we have chosen

the lie of supremacy.

 

And in consequence

we have destroyed worlds.

 

But if we choose instead

alignment

& relationship,

 

not a false unity or sameness

but a universe of different bodies

in relationship to one another,

 

connected to one another,

 

revealing the glory

of one another,

 

what brilliant darkness,

what luminous shadow,

 

might be seen in us?

 

This is an everybody church.

Every body,

earthly & celestial,

dark & light,

of every name

and gender

and origin

and belief

 

has a home

in this world,

 

has a home

here.

 

Whatever your orientation,

whatever your gravitational pull.

whatever your light,

whatever your darkness,

 

whatever your history

and your place in it

 

you have a place here.

 

Let us reveal to the world

what is so rarely seen,

something extraordinary

that is also just us,

 

bodies luminous

in our movement

together.