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  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  • Stewardship and Gift Policy
    • Saints We've Known
    • Charitable Giving and the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
  • Sermons 2022-23
    • A Waste of time
    • The Seventh Principle
    • Make Light of It
    • A Turn of the Screw
    • America: Part II
    • What Do You Expect?
    • Good Mourning
    • Beyone Repair?
    • No Signal
    • Absolutely, Maybe, Definitely Not
    • Do Guardian Angels Exist?
    • Right Here
  • Our Covenant
  • Minister's Welcome
  • Religious Exploration
  • Music & Choir
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  • Unitarian Universalism
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  • Photos of Us
  • Making the BUUC Accessible
  • LOVEUU
  • Community Resources
    • Mental Health Providers, Worcester MA
    • Southern Worcester County Parent Guide
  • Contact Us
    • Sermons 2021-22
  • Sermon Archives
    • Finding Joy in Uncertain Times
    • The Arithmetic of Joy
    • Of Muck and Martyrs
    • Doing Dishes
    • Idle Worship
    • The Fear of the Refugee
    • It's Not Just You
    • If We Choose
    • Lazy Busy
    • A Most Human Season
    • Running on Empty
    • Alone Together
    • Come Home
    • Winter Warmth
    • How Big Is Your Circle?
    • Thanksgiving Life
    • Kurt Vonnegut: Humanist Hero
    • In Costume
    • Again
    • Borderland
    • The Geometry of Life
    • Transformation and Growth
    • Come Build a Land
    • Our Brains, Our Minds and Our Hearts
    • Gifts
    • Repairers of the Breach
    • The Times They Are A-Changin'
    • Mission Possible
    • It Matters
    • Thanksgiving Reflection
    • Shoes That Fit
    • Winter
    • Ignorance, Answers, and Bliss
    • Questions, Questions
    • Living to the Point of Tears
    • Lost in the Shuffle: UU's Less Popular Principle
    • On the Turning Away
    • A Matter of Degree
    • A Collection of Near Death Experiences
    • I Know Her So Well, I Think. I Thought.
    • Faith-based Resilience
    • To Abet Creation
    • Who Cares?
    • A Matter of Life and Depth
    • Pass/Fail
    • Enough
    • O Holy Light
    • With New Eyes
    • Coming Alive
    • Beyond Words
    • Becoming
    • A Miracle Even Thomas Jefferson Could Embrace
    • Fear Not!
    • The Miracle of Change
    • Meeting Grace
    • R-E-S-P-E-C-T
    • Serving with Grace
    • The Pursuit of Happiness
    • When Heresy Met Sally
    • The Souls of All Living Creatures
    • What Are You Looking For?
    • Beloved
    • Let Me Count The Ways
    • Happiness
    • Chosen
    • Faith and Belief
    • Room To Grow
    • Blessed Fools
    • Don't Be a Superhero
    • Getting There from Here
    • Unfinished Business
    • Universalism's Origen
    • Yearn to Learn
    • Beauty Saves
    • Commentary on Freedom
    • Being Human: Religious Community in a Plastic Age
    • Questionable Certainties and Faithful Doubts
    • Commentaries on Murphy's Law
    • Children of a Lesser God
    • Fragile Nets of Meaning
    • Life Incarnate
    • So You Want to Be Happy
    • A Year's End Resolution
    • Where Stars Are Born
    • Thanking Eve
    • Anger, Our Teacher
    • Everlasting Punishment
    • Comprehending Moral Imperatives in a Me-centered World
    • Promises Kept
    • Dancing With The Stars: Science and Religion
    • Two Steps and Missteps: Church Membership for Human Beings
    • Light of the World
    • Dear God
    • Imago Hominis
    • CESA: Reflections on Drug Addiction
    • Falling in Love Again
    • How Does Your Garden Grow
    • Repent! No Guilt Trip Required
    • Go Out into the World
    • Thanks-living
    • Life and Not Life
    • Guilty As Charged
    • Dare To Hope
    • Don't Forget To Chew
    • Break the Silence - Stop the Violence
    • Living Among Strangers
    • What Is Religion Anyway?
    • East of Eden
    • Praying Attention
    • Wholly Human
    • The Healing Power of Forgiveness
    • All I Want for Christmas
    • Let It Be...Let It Go
    • Why Not?
    • People Like You
    • Vulnerable Trust
    • Thin Places
    • Now What?
    • Courageously Humble
    • The Last Butterfly
    • The Good, The Bad, and The Whole
    • Sacred Souvenirs
    • Made Whole
    • This Wild and Precious Life
    • Fragile Nets of Meaning
    • Where Our Future Can Begin
    • Taking Stock: Managing Our Spiritual Inventory
    • To Convert Life into Truth
    • Are We There Yet?
    • Family Matters
    • Ordinary Saints
    • All I Wanted Was Everything
    • Giving Thanks
    • To Be or Not To Be
    • Entering the Christmas Story
    • A Great Light
    • What's Real?
    • Troubling the Water
    • The Amazing Mr. Wedgewood
    • Lend Me Your Ears
    • Work That Is Real
    • Happy Melba Toast Day
    • The Great Pacific Garbage Dump
    • Plastics, Benjamin!
    • Surprise Beginnings
    • A Place at the Table
    • Norbert Capek’s Flower Communion: A Call To Honor Life
    • Voices of God
    • Hold On To What Is Good
    • The Little Stone Church That Rocks
    • What Would Jean-Luc Do?: A Tribute to Humanist Hero Gene Roddenberry
    • From Who am I? to Whose are We?
    • Turning
    • Spirituality
    • R & R
    • Spritual F-Words
    • Does Anyone Really Like Herding Cats?
    • Prepare to Be Amazed
    • The Greatest Gift
    • The Impossible Will Take A Little While
    • Taking Sides: Journey to the Center of the Universe
    • Help Wanted, Apply Within
    • Two Truths & Plastics and Water Don't Mix
    • The Third Conversation
    • Good People >
      • UU You >
        • Twitter and Covid and Wall Street, Oh, my!
        • I Do Believe in Spooks >
          • Holy Homophones >
            • What's in a Name?
            • So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!
            • Open-Mindedness, As Assigned
            • Going on a Journey
            • Cheap Love
            • Nonproductive Delight
            • The Persistence of Memory
            • Thoughts about the Historical Jesus
            • Lindens and Tiarella and Bearberry, Oh My!
            • Season's Greetings
            • I Still Have A Dream
            • Peace Corps - A Lesson in Caring
            • Spiritual Engineering
            • Thanks for the Memories
            • Our Stories, Ourselves
            • Anxious Gardeners
            • The Best Sermon Ever!
            • UUnited
            • We Are Courageous
            • A Right Way to Be Wrong
            • Sacred Ideals
            • This Wild and Precious Life Revisited
            • 20/20
            • Home
            • What About Now?
        • Fragile
        • Time Ravel
        • Now Is Not the Time for Hope
        • The G Word (It's Probably Not what You Think)
    • No Thanks, I'll Walk
    • Be the Change
    • I Don't Know
    • What Lies Within
    • Guest Perspective
    • Growing Panes
    • De Colores
    • Roots and Wings
BROOKFIELD UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH

Family Matters

Sermon Given at Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
October 20, 2013

The Rev. Craig M. Nowak

          This sermon begins with a confession of sorts.  People who know me as a lover of art, architecture, antiques, museums, classical music, poetry, and travel among other of the so-called “finer things” in life...people who know me for these things....are often surprised to learn I like really silly, often physical, stupid, or raunchy comedies.  When it comes to television or movies, I’d usually rather laugh than have to think.

          One movie I particularly enjoy starts appearing on television right around Thanksgiving, which, it seems hard to believe, is fast approaching.  The movie is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.  If you’re not familiar with it, it centers around the genuine, if not naieve, intention of Clark W. Griswold, played by Chevy Chase, to have what he calls an, “old-fashioned family Christmas.”   Clark envisions generations of family gathering together to share a magical holiday with another that no one will ever forget and everyone will always treasure. 

          As anyone who’s ever hosted a holiday with multiple generations of family present can guess, things don’t go quite as planned.  For the Griswolds events that might normally be mere inconvieniences become major catastrophies when paired with the added stress of attending to hyper-critical in-laws, whining teens, a bumbling, penniless cousin, a confused aunt who brings a Jello-mold made with cat food, and a boss who cut out Christmas bonuses.

          Towards the end of the movie as things really come to a head and the entire affair is all but completely ruined, Clark, utterly disillusioned, finds himself surrounded by his family who rallies around him as he rails against his boss and the loss of his annual bonus. Here, Clark is reminded of the bond of love that keeps the family together, however difficult, annoying, clueless, or infuriating its members might, at times, be.

           What strikes me about this ending is that in the moment of greatest tension despair, when all seems lost, there emerges a realization...we are all in this together...and the things that have heretofore separated each person from the others, recede.  This creates a more complete image of Clark’s family...once seeming woefully human, they, bound together in love, now appear woefully and wonderfully human.  Their actions demonstrate their ability, if not commitment, to transcend differences, personalities, and agendas.  In rallying around a member in need, they demonstrate family matters.

         

          While we might usually think of families as comprised of individual persons… institutions, including churches, are sometimes understood to be families or part of a family.   Indeed, our church is part of what we might call a family...the Unitarian Universalist Association or UUA.  The UUA was formed in 1961 through the merger of two denominations, the Universalists, organized in 1793 and the Unitarians, organized in 1825. 

          Like any family, the UUA has its share of dysfunction, though generally not as humorous as the Griswold family’s.  Dysfunction in the UUA family is often manifest as skepticism or resistance to UUA initiatives, statements, or positions which are sometimes taken as directives...or in more plain language, “telling us what to do.”  This can, in part, stem from a misunderstanding not only of who or what the UUA is and does, but also a lack of understanding of who we are.

          As the Rev. Erick Wikstrom notes, “When most people think of the UUA they think of the people who work at the UUA headquarters in Boston, (especially the president, board and moderator) or the people around the country who work with them (our district staff for example). But those people, Wikstrom reminds us, are more properly called “the staff of the Association. They’re the people who work for the UUA.”

          “The UUA itself,” Wikstrom reminds us, “is better known by its full name: The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.”  In other words, the member congregations of the UUA are the UUA.  The primary purpose of the UUA, including its staff is, according to its bylaws, “to serve the needs of its member congregations, organize new congregations, extend and strengthen Unitarian Universalist institutions, and implement its principles.” 

          The spirit of mutuality evident in this statement of purpose can be traced back to our Puritan ancestors and the congregational polity to which we are heir, outlined in a document from 1648, known as The Cambridge Platform. 

Within The Cambridge Platform is a section entitled, “On the Communion of Churches One with Another” which begins, “Although churches be distinct, and therefore may not be confounded one with another, and equal, and therefore have not dominion one over another, yet all churches ought to preserve church communion one with another...”

          Here a familial relationship is established comprised of autonomous congregations in communion with one another.  The document then explains the ways this communion or relationship ought to function, including, but limited to...”mutual care in taking thought of one another’s welfare...By way of consultation one with another, when we have occasion to require the judgment and counsel of other churches touching any person or cause wherewith they may be better acquainted than ourselves...in case of need, to minister relief and succor one unto another....and a way of propagation of churches.”

          Today, our communion or association of congregations we call the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations works to honor our relationship one with another by:

*   Assisting congregations in transition through the Settlement process

*   Supporting the Ministerial Fellowship Committee which establishes criteria and clears ministerial candidates for ordination.

*   Creating and making available Religious Education materials and curricula.

*   Training consultants to assist congregations with capital campaigns, stewardship services, and planned giving programs.

*   Connecting us with resources and programming for LGBTQ welcome and equality, Racial Justice and Multicultural Ministries, Reproductive Justice, and Environmental Justice, and provides opportunities for us to participate in service learning experiences through the UU College of Social Justice.

*   Helping mobilize UU’s to do justice work on a much larger scale than any of us can do as individual congregations.  

(Source: uua.org and stewardship.blogs.uua.org/search/UUA)

          That contemporary Unitarian Universalism remains rooted, in part, in certain basic relational ideals expounded upon in a  17th century document, is a humbling reminder, as our first reading notes, “We did not begin when we were born; our origin goes back to our parents, our grandparents, and beyond this to all who have gone before us.”  

          Though the specific tasks carried out in support of one another changes with the times, the awareness that informed and motivated our forbears remains the same, “We all belong to each other...we are all bound together in love.” In other words, family matters.

And this brings me to another aspect of our relationship with one another as an association.  “It was a wise person” writes Donald Culross Peattie, “who said that it is important not only to pick the right mate but to be the right mate.” As a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations we have picked our mate, or if you prefer, we have chosen to be part a particular family, the UUA.  As such we have a responsibility to be the right mate or member of that family…to “stand by this faith” as Olympia Brown implored in our responsive reading. 

As a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations....

* We stand by this faith by supporting the work of this congregation and the larger association of congregations to which we belong.  

* We stand by this faith by attending Sunday worship and district workshops. 

* We stand by this faith when we participate in the life of this community, serve on committees and in the community beyond our walls. 

* We stand by this faith when we exercise our right as members to vote at a congregational meeting or via our delegates at the UUA’s General Assembly. 

* We stand by this faith when we transcend the occasional personalities or statements of our co-religionists here or at UUA headquarters that that irritate or offend us in favor of our larger purpose.  

* We stand by this faith by availing ourselves of the resources, programs, and opportunities developed and provided here at BUUC and through the UUA to nurture and deepen our spiritual well-being.   

* And we stand by this faith when we share with one another and give of our own resources, financial and otherwise, that the hope and promise of this faith might shine more brightly and pierce the gloom of a hurting world.

Though we are many congregations..we are one association.  Together we can and will be a faith for our time and for generations to come.  Ours is a labor of love, though not without its challenges, to which we are called to lend our support as we walk, work, and build together in a spirit of mutuality, trust, and care a more just, peace-filled, and compassionate world.

          And so, in the words of Olympia Brown, “Stand by this faith”...“Rejoice that we are worthy to be entrusted with (its) great message.”  A message we bring to one another and to the wider world....

A message that proclaims…  Proclaims “We are one.” One woefully and wonderfully human family...

A message that promises… Promises “I will not leave you comfortless.” 

A message that demonstrates…Demonstrates in words and deeds, family matters.

  Amen and Blessed Be

       

                

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