BY GINI COURTER, MODERATOR OF THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION
Better yet—don't let me sleep at all.
Fill and light the lantern,
Hide my pajamas,
Set a fire to warm our conversation.
Take me to the countries that your heart inhabits.
Acquaint me with the patterns you are struggling to change. Don't just tell me, show me.
Make sure that I see.
Or tell me tales of the world that could yet be transformed by human caring.
Remind me of myself,
of a time of life half-forgotten,
half-remembered,
perhaps half-dreamed,
when I saw the bleeding, battered world and
in arrogance, or maybe in innocence,
believed it was my life's work to change at least one small piece of it.
Talk to me until I am more awake than I have ever dared to be,
and I pull on my coat and boots,
wondering why I ever wished to sleep.
Don't just tell me the walking is superb, take my hand and lead me out the door.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.
I write this sermon in celebration of “calling,”
because we are all called,
all summoned to the life religious and none of us, not one of us,
will leave here asleep.
We are called out of bed:
the summons comes whistling up the road,
hiking boots meet porch steps,
fist on door tentatively,
then loudly, persistently.
Or we wander off to bed, we really meant to go to sleep, really we did,
but we don't quite make it there.
Something calls us to remain awake,
to become alert,
to stay up just a bit later.
Day after day, night after night,
All are called, we are called,
and this calling leaves a mark,
whether or not we answer the door.
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. speaks to us of the significance of answering this kind of call, the calling to vocation:
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music,
or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well
that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here…
lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
King spoke in terms of calling, of a call so resonant it cannot be silenced…so strident it cannot be denied. A call that comes to pound, pound, pound on the door before the sun comes up and keeps pounding until we answer, put on a pot of coffee, and sit down to talk about what it all means.
Each of us is called. We need to gather our power and take it into the world, to dare to stand on the shoulders of the Universalists and Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists who built structures of love and justice that in more generous and gentle times were called the “common good.”
At our best, this is what we Unitarian Universalists can create. A world that’s comfortable enough in the soul to pull up a chair or a piece of carpet, or sit on the beach, or in front of a campfire and tell our stories, share our lives, so that we remember that we are immersed together in the human condition.
Don't hesitate: plan. Don't falter: move forward. Dare to run to the door as soon as you hear the whistle up the road, to throw the door open even before you hear the knock, to rush out on the porch. This is what we do.
Holy spirit, human spirit, human community, who some call god:
The needs of humanity are so vast that they numb us.
We hover so often on the edge of sleep, comforted by dreams of a world at peace where the work of justice, our work, has already been done. And we want to stay in that dreamtime, remain at peace just a bit longer.
Remind me that the dark cover of night is not permanent
That light reveals a world unchanged from when I went to sleep.
Do not allow us to flinch from the sure knowledge we are being summoned to our life work, and must awaken.
Help us remember that as far as the eye can see, and beyond,
we are all one family, one tribe.
May we make choices that are bold, choices of meaning.
May we learn to be both brave and humble warriors for our faith.
May we be true companions.
May we find strength to add to our strength so we may do the work that needs to be done.
And when we awaken, may we find that the world we can persuade ourselves to create together is so much more than anything we could have dreamed.
