In No Time at All

In No Time at All

Can you remember a time when something happened that changed your perception of things? When your eyes were opened, and you saw with a deeper understanding or more nuance or greater clarity? Maybe it was one Sunday here, when you realized, “Hey, church can be uplifting and even fun!” Maybe it was in a relationship, with someone who’s always bugged you, but something shifted that helped you to see them as worthy of your care and respect. Maybe it was something that caused you to see the world in a whole different way, that caused you to start redrawing your map.

Transcendent Faith

Transcendent Faith

As I prepared to write this sermon I wrote the word “transcendence” on my computer.  I looked at it for a little while. I couldn't help but be stuck trying to find a way out of the irony: I am supposed to be talking about something which is beyond talking about.  I am supposed to be using words to describe something that cannot be described with words.  This feels like the ultimate Catch-22. 

Transformation From the Inside Out

Transformation From the Inside Out

Sermon given by Rev. Karen Tse, April 15, 2018. Rev. Tse was the ministerial intern here from 1998--2000. She's the founder and CEO of International Bridges to Justice, which works in over 30 countries to end torture and support the right of people to due process. Rev. Tse lives in Geneva, Switzerland with her husband and two children. She recently traveled to Massachusetts to receive the Peter Gomes Memorial Honors at Harvard Divinity School for her public voice and witness for justice.

Transformation Station

Transformation Station

Breaking news: sometimes the church, and church people, get it wrong! Like how church folks can focus more on the death and suffering part of the Easter story, than on the resurrection part; because sometimes it’s easier to stay walled up in the tomb. I know this in my own life—I can focus on the negative, can tend toward the melancholic. So this Easter season, I have a simple goal: to be happy more. Like we heard earlier from Wendell Berry, his confession “that I have not been happy enough, considering my good luck.”

Signs of Life

Signs of Life

We just heard the end of Mark’s gospel, the story of that first Easter morning, when those friends of Jesus, the women grieving his death, go to the tomb and find it empty. Here now is a second reading for Easter, from a contemporary source. It’s from psychologist Miriam Greenspan, writing about her child Aaron, who was born with a brain injury from lack of oxygen. He never left Children’s Hospital in Boston, and died two months after he was born. Hear now his mother’s words about the December day she buried her baby:

 

“At the cemetery, we lowered his small casket int the cold ground and took turns shoveling earth over it, as is the custom in Jewish burials. We sang to Aaron the songs we’d made up for him while he was alive and that we recorded for him to hear when we weren’t with him. Then, softly, as though spoken in my ear, I heard these words: You are looking in the wrong place.

Joining Hands, Marching Together

Joining Hands, Marching Together

Today I ask you to use your imagination: to think about Palm Sunday as if you were there. To wonder, who would I be in the story? Would I be marching along with Jesus, or in the crowd cheering him on? Would I be hanging back, worried that this was going to get me into trouble? Would I be one of the religious leaders, saying “This is not how we do things”? Or one of the soldiers, trying to maintain the status quo? Today I ask you to imagine Palm Sunday as not just an old story, but as a reality that happens again and again.

Companions on the Way

Companions on the Way

There’s a hymn I would have picked for today, but I don’t remember us ever singing it here, so I didn’t want to take the chance. It’s not the greatest tune, but the first line captures what I want to say to you today: “sing out praises for the journey, pilgrims we who carry on…” 

I’ve been talking about this way of transformation, this journey from brokenness toward healing and wholeness. And I wonder how you have been imagining the trip. Are you picturing it as a path of pain and struggle, something you know you should do, but really don’t want to, like cleaning out your closet or going to the dentist? Certainly it’s not a cake walk, this way of transformation. Certainly the path of becoming a wounded healer will involve some growing pains and some letting go. You know that change can be hard. But that’s not the whole story! 

Wounded Healers

Wounded Healers

Do you know the name Henri Nouwen? He was one of the spiritual giants of the 20th century. But his was not the typical path; as a young priest, he asked his bishop for permission to study psychology instead of theology. He taught at Yale and Harvard divinity schools, he published 39 books and hundreds of articles, he inspired a generation of seekers across denominations, but he struggled with loneliness and depression all his life. 

What gave this simple man his power was not the usual combination of bravado and shameless self-promotion. Henri Nouwen didn’t have a brand; but if he did, his brand would be brokenness, it would be humility, it would be a simple and heartfelt and long-suffering faith.

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart

We live in a transitory world. As we just heard from the poet William Stafford, 

Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

The earth is forever turning, the seasons come and go, time keeps moving on; life is beautiful and sweet and sad sometimes. Do you know what entropy is? I don’t pretend to understand it. But in thermodynamics it’s the degradation of matter and energy in the universe, the movement from order to disorder. Things unwind, unravel, things fall apart. I don’t know about you, but entropy makes me sad!

WELCOMing. Caring. Faith. Community.

Universalist Unitarian Church of Haverhill
15 Kenoza Avenue, Haverhill, MA • 978-372-5173 • office@uuhaverhill.org
Mailing & office address: 16 Ashland Street, Haverhill, MA 01830