The Worshipful Wanderer: Together We Can

October 21
“Together We Can”

Call to Worship

Come and enter into this sacred space of justice seeking and spirit growing

Holding each other's joys and sorrows of today

Holding each other's hopes and dreams for tomorrow

Welcome to our celebration of life

- Joan Javier-Duval

Chalice Lighting

All around the world, the light of honest thought shines, showing people the path to their own authentic faith.

All around the world, the warmth of community glows, drawing people in from loneliness and estrangement.

All around the world, the flame of justice burns, inspiring people to acts of faith-filled courage.

Here, too, may the light and warmth of this chalice be to us a beacon of truth, generosity and compassion, that we may learn the ways of faith and love.

-Rev. David Usher

Reading

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
- from Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez

Benediction

Let us go from this place with the fire of commitment in our hearts

Strengthened and renewed in our quest to build the beloved community

Let us go in peace and return again in love

- Joan Javier-Duval

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I have been asking myself a question over the past few weeks as I've been preparing for this sermon, for this service today: WHY international justice Sunday?

The institutional answer is that this congregation has a tradition of participating in and celebrating Unitarian Universalist efforts of international human rights and global justice and today's service continues this tradition. This is certainly an important answer to the question – why?

But, I have continued to come back to this – why? Why THIS topic? Why THIS Sunday? Some of you may be asking yourselves these same questions this morning.

To be honest, it has been a lot easier for me NOT to think about this big, looming question of international justice. I have felt overwhelmed by the immensity of the global challenges we face – global warming, humanitarian crises due to war, drought and famine, the trafficking of women and children – and, I have pushed the question away.

And given the current political climate, and the talk coming from the major presidential campaigns, it is easy to forget the global scope of the challenges we face. It is easy to forget that there are more than two countries in the world: the United States and China. Let alone that we are actors on a global stage rather than just cogs in the U.S. economic machine

And, it is easy to get bogged down and honed in on our most immediate concerns. To simply get swept up in the busyness of our day to day lives. In the kid-shuttling, text-messaging, house-cleaning, bill-paying busyness.

So, why international justice Sunday? Why take the time today to explore this topic? Well, I believe that a good place to start for this answer is our spiritual theme of the month. Belonging.

Last week we talked about the importance of having a sense of belonging. And especially of striving to find and create that sense of belonging here within our religious community. This is urgent work for the caring of our souls that we all need to participate in.

Our belonging, however, doesn’t stop here. It doesn’t stop at the walls of this church. It doesn’t stop at the end of Lincoln Drive. It doesn’t stop in our neighborhoods. Or with our political party of choice. Our belonging isn’t bound by the borders, fenced or just imagined, that mark the ends of our nation.

No, we belong to a global community.

As Unitarian Universalists we know that we in fact belong to “the interdependent web of all existence” as our seventh principle so clearly states. This sentiment is also the essence of ubuntu, an African concept of what it means to be human. Ubuntu says that each of our individual identities is formed interdependently through community. It can roughly be translated: 'I am because we are.' Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa explains it powerfully in this way:

“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”[1]

Our belonging-ness binds us together. My well-being is tied to your well-being. We are part of a greater whole.

This religious community is already claiming this spirit of ubuntu. We just recently accepted the congregational mission of “building beloved community with compassion, service, and empowerment.” What a beautiful and bold mission. And “embracing the interconnectedness of life” is included as one of our core values. So, this way of seeing the world is already at work here at the Unitarian Society of Germantown.

AND at the same time, we have yet more work to do to define what “building beloved community” means and looks like for us. As members of the global community, I believe this means engaging in the work of international justice. Belonging is not just an identity. It requires action. The words “building” and “embracing” that are in our mission and core values point to action.

As we build beloved community and embrace the interconnectedness of life we engage in the work of making our belonging-ness a lived reality of justice. In the words of author and activist Mab Segrest we “create a culture by our brave and conscious actions in which we all know we belong.”[2]

Unitarian Universalists have long felt this call to live into a sense of belonging and have been engaged on the international scene as defenders of human rights and promoters of peace. The UU-United Nations Office this year celebrates its 50^th anniversary. And today continues to fight for human rights causes, climate change policies, security and peace building for women, poverty reduction, and many other issues. The UU Service Committee has its roots in then separate responses to the atrocities of World War II as Unitarians and Universalists engaged in humanitarian relief efforts across Europe. The UUSC continues to advance human rights and social justice around the world through partnerships with organizations who, in their specific contexts, are confronting unjust power structures and challenging oppressive policies.

These are just two institutional ways that Unitarian Universalists have lived out their values on the international stage. And I know there are many members of this congregation who in your own ways take part in the global movement for social change. We have members who have served in the Peace Corps as a way of living out their faith. Others have participated in medical missions to Africa and Central America. And a delegation of youth and adults traveled to Guatemala for a service trip two years ago.

These are brave and conscious actions that are creating a culture in which we all belong.

And, how do we, those gathered here in this sanctuary on this Sunday morning, engage in similar brave and conscious actions? Where do we begin? I want to make two points that help us begin to answer this question.

First, it is important to remember that our efforts as Unitarian Universalists do not exist in isolation. All of our actions, no matter how small, are part of a much larger movement around the world. The environmentalist, Paul Hawken, takes on the task of describing this movement in his book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

He tells of his travels around the world over the past 15 years giving presentations about the environment. After each event, there would be a small group of people who would linger afterwards, asking questions of one another and exchanging business cards. As Hawken’s understanding of the issues grew deeper, the hands of those offering him these business cards grew more diverse. And, slowly, bit by bit, Hawken had accumulated thousands of business cards. He became curious about what he started to identify was a social movement outside of mainstream culture. He now estimates that there are over one and maybe over two million organizations working toward ecological stability and social justice around the world.

This burden is not ours to bear alone.

Second, issues of global justice are interconnected. Just as we acknowledge and lift up the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, we can also lift up and acknowledge that the struggle for justice is interdependent as well. None of the issues we face exists in isolation.

Take this example.

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is currently engaged in a campaign to defend the human right to water. Environmental contamination and pollution threaten the supply of clean and safe drinking water around the world especially for the poor and for people of color. The privatization of water supplies prioritizes profit over public access. And so now, nearly 1 billion people lack access to safe water.

In many countries, it is women who are responsible for finding and fetching water for their families. And women spend over 200 million hours a day collecting water. Meanwhile, bottled water travels many miles from its source. This contributes to the burning of large amounts of fossil fuels and also to billions of plastic bottles ending up in our landfills.[3]

In just this one example, we see the interconnectedness of women’s rights, poverty, environmental degradation, corporate responsibility, consumerism, and racism.

And what I want to say today is that the interdependence of these issues gives us even more places to make a difference. We can make a difference at many levels of change when it comes to matters of systemic injustice.

As complicated and overwhelming as the issues at hand might feel, as Barry Lopez writes, we can make our lives a worthy expression of leaning into the light. We can choose where to enter. Any entry point that is intentional, that is made from a place of curiosity – of asking, why do thing happen the way they do, and that recognizes our interdependence is a good place to start.

You can enter into the global fight for the human right to water by opting to drink public tap water instead of bottled water. You can enter into the global fight for women's economic security by purchasing ethically sourced goods that offer workers a fair wage. You can enter into the global fight against climate change by engaging in local efforts to move our country toward clean and renewable energy sources

And, yes, you can also support the efforts of organizations like the UU-UNO and UUSC and other international organizations with your financial contributions as we have already done today.

All of these entry points are worthy expressions of leaning into the light. Of making an effort to make our sense of belonging matter in the world.

No matter what our entry point, we know we cannot take on this work alone. It is all of our efforts together that builds the beloved community. Here is where belonging matters again. We need each other’s courage.

Congressman John Lewis tells a story of leaning on one another's courage. One stormy day during his childhood in Alabama, he was outside playing in his Aunt Sevena's dirt yard with his cousins. The wind started to pick up and lightning began to flash. As the sky darkened, his aunt rushed all of them inside her one room wooden frame house. The wind whipped and howled all around them. And the planks of the floor began to bend. Then a corner of the house began to lift away from its foundation. The storm threatened to lift the entire house toward the sky. That's when his Aunt Sevena told them to join hands. To line up. And to walk towards that corner of the house. They did as they were told and kept the house from lifting away.

And as the rain beat down on the tin roof and the storm raged on they walked to the next corner of the house as it lifted ominously toward the sky. And back and forth they went, walking with the wind, and holding the house down with the weight of their small bodies.

We, too, are in a storm. A storm of injustice and suffering on a global scale. Of threats to the health and security of so many of our sisters and brothers around the world and to the sustainability of our planet.

So, let us join hands in the storm. Walking with the wind. Moving in collective action. And building a land of peace and justice

Amen.

Blessed be.