Fred Rogers’ widow, Joanne Rogers, once wrote that the three words she thought best described her husband were “courage, love, and discipline - perhaps in that very order.” When I first read that, I found it quite surprising, to be honest. Surely love came first, right? But then I got to thinking about it.
I really don’t want to talk about the election, or politics today. You can find plenty of that from sources that are smarter than I am. But how can we not be mindful of the state of our nation in these days? How can we not be troubled and concerned, especially for those who are most vulnerable? How many of us gathered here have reason to worry, for ourselves, and for those we love? Our faith and our politics are inseparably intertwined; it was Gandhi who said, “Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.”
A couple of weeks ago, I was driving north from here up into New Hampshire, heading from Plaistow into Atkinson, and all of a sudden I was on a stretch of that two-lane road where there are trees, a solid mass of trees, on both sides of the road, and they arch over the road, making a leafy canopy overhead. For a stretch of at least a few hundred yards you are literally surrounded by trees, above you and around you. Our dear church member Delight Reese for many years lived a little farther up that road, in Hampstead with her husband Don, until she died in April of 2020. Well, Delight had a name for that stretch of trees; she called it “The Cathedral.” And it is just that—a place that feels holy and special and good, a cathedral of trees.
One of the challenges of the modern era is that we tend to take things literally. When we ask, “Is it true?” we mean, “Is is factual?” We see things as either true or false. And there are certainly places where telling the literal, empirical, factual truth is important and essential. Science is one of them, politics and government should be another, but you know that’s not always the case. It should be ok, and even expected, that journalists will fact-check politicians. That’s how the system works!
But one of the pitfalls of the age of science is that it has caused people to create this false dichotomy between science and religion that says, if one is true then the other must be false. When we need both, because they perform different functions and offer us different ways of understanding our universe and ourselves.
That’s a great old hymn we just sang: “O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.” I love how it addresses the transitory nature of human life: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears us all away.” And how it assures us that, in the midst of change and loss, the presence of God remains: “A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone.”
Or as Whittier put it: “The letter fails, the systems fall, and every symbol wanes; the Spirit overseeing all, Eternal Love, remains.” Apparently, change and impermanence are near to my heart these days. Maybe to yours too? We are in this season now that reminds us that what has been is going to fall away.
Our worship theme for this month is “Seasons,” and it’s timely, isn’t it? Sometimes planning actually pays off! We’d been in this long stretch of warm and dry weather, and then, something shifted. It was on Thursday, which dawned looking like another warm and sunny summer day—it was still summer, until this morning at 8:43 am—but on Thursday, in the afternoon, the wind shifted to the east, and started blowing harder (I know this because I was out fishing), and that chilly east wind blew in clouds and drizzle and what had started to seem like an endless summer flew away, like the birds you see overhead these days, flying south.
I’m not here to give you a weather report. But aren’t the seasons an apt symbol for our lives? Isn’t this how it goes?
I like to begin a memorial service with these words from Ecclesiastes:
To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die…
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
They express a timeless truth, that there is a time for everything, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. There are seasons in our lives; times of growth and expansion and happy excitement, and times of loss and sadness and decline.
Sermon given by Joshua Goulet, September 1, 2024.
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
The land now called Haverhill sits on the original homelands of the Pennacook and Pentucket Nations, Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy.
