Churches, Bars, and Liquor Stores
A Sermon by the Reverend Chris Buice delivered on February 22, 2009
at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
A few weeks ago Grier Novinger, our congregation’s vice president, photocopied a newspaper
article from the Wall Street Journal and placed it in my mailbox with a little note that said
“Interesting.” The title of the article was, “In Hard Times, Houses of God Turn to Chapter 11 in
Book of Bankruptcy.” It is always nice when a parishioner is thoughtful enough to clip out an
inspirational article, something to buoy the spirit, lift the heart, a message of hope to those of us
who toil in the vineyard.
Then again there is something else we need (and this is probably what Grier had in mind);
periodically we need a reality check, a reminder that our dreams need to be grounded in substance.
Certainly, this is true in a time of economic recession. We need to be reminded that there is a
difference between the walk of faith and wishful thinking; that at the heart of spiritual living is that
practice of self-examination that seeks to make sure that our hopes are not grounded in hubris.
The article has some sobering facts. It reports that in some parts of the country church giving
is down by as much as 15%. It records the stories of churches that have filed for bankruptcy and
been forced to auction off their buildings. The stories in the article are echoed by stories I’ve heard
from some colleagues in the ministry, one of the flagship churches in our association is reporting a
$100,000 deficit for the next fiscal year, a problem they are solving in part by closing down the
church for the entire month of July and giving all staff some unpaid vacation.
Of course, the news on the ground is not all bad. I’ve also heard stories of churches who
have had budget increases this year, where giving has increased, where the congregations are
experiencing spiritual and material abundance, and by and large, churches tend to do better in a
recession than other organizations, but this said, everyone agrees that this is a year like no other
year in recent memory, where the reaffirmation of our faith and our recommitment to our values
must be prepared to face new realities.
Of course, economic recessions affect some parts of the economy more than others. Bars
and liquor stores are doing quite well. Whiskey distilleries are seeing their profits rise. Tobacco
products, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, dip, cigars, are seeing increased sales. Casinos and gambling
establishments are a growth industry. In recent years, many Unitarian Universalists have become
involved in ethical investing, investing in businesses with strong ethical track records. What most of
us might not know, is there is a counter movement, Vice Funds, where people invest in the
relatively stable industries associated with our worst personal habits. The philosophy of this strategy
Churches, Bars, and Liquor Stores
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
is that in a world of economic ups and downs, vice is a constant, something you can depend on, so
your money is safe there. What have become known as the “sin stocks” are considered by some
investment advisors to be a safe bet.
The other day I was walking downtown (an area that seems to be doing quite well in spite of
the economy), and I happen to pass a liquor store that had a sign out front that said, “If you had
purchased $1,000 of AIG stock one year ago…you would have $42 left. Lehman Bros… $6.60
left… Fannie or Freddie… You would have less then $5 left. But, if you had purchased $1,000
worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling
refund, you would have $214 left. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink
heavily and recycle. It’s called the 401-Keg plan.”
This is creative advertising, but despite the sign’s claims, this is not the best investment
advice. The recovering alcoholics among us, and those mathematical minds calculating other costs,
know there is some faulty logic here. But it does show that these are very different economic times
than years past, and it is inspiring some new ways of thinking about investment.
In some ways the church asks us to do something completely different than the vice funds.
Instead of asking us to invest in vice, the church asks us to invest in virtue. The church asks us to
place our faith in goodness. As Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Goodness is the only investment
that never fails,” and this should bring us some comfort in this time when so many other
investments are not doing nearly so well.
Instead of spending $1000 dollars on beer or cigarettes or the slot machine, this is the time
of year when we ask you to consider giving to the church; to consider what that money might mean
in the life of a child who grows up as apart of this community, who is inspired by its values, who
chooses to live a life based on the compassion he or she sees practiced regularly in this community.
I have seen many such children grow to maturation in this congregation, and I can say I am
impressed with the results. It’s a good investment. Consider what your investment might mean to
someone who walks in the doors of this church for the first time who has just learned about a
difficult diagnosis or just learned of the inevitability of a divorce and is looking for a community of
comfort. Consider what your gift might mean to all the people in our area who are looking for a
congregation who leads in the area of community service; a congregation willing to stand up for
justice, stand up for equality, that embraces diversity and celebrates life. Think about all the people
out there who need to see that sign at the door that says “Everyone welcome.”
Page 2 of 6
Churches, Bars, and Liquor Stores
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
When we invest in goodness we do receive dividends, but these dividends are not always
seen or felt immediately. The world places great faith on the measurable dividend, the one that can
be reported to you in a monthly mailing; the one that can be graphed on a chart, factored into an
equation, written on a piece of paper, in black and white on official stationary. It takes faith to
invest in goodness for dividends that cannot be seen, that are intangible, immeasurable and many
times may never be known. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the conviction of things
unseen.” Giving to a church is always an act of faith, an investment in things hoped for. It is taking
a risk for things unseen.
The practical world laughs at this kind of investment. The practical world makes no room
for the immeasurable or the intangible, but look where the logic of the practical world has gotten us.
The institutions of the practical world are failing in record numbers, the banks, the insurance
companies, the lenders, the economic leaders. Maybe it is time for us to revisit our ideas about what
is practical. Maybe we need to make room in our lives for much more than can fit into any system
of accounting. Maybe we need to diversify our investment portfolio to include new ways of
thinking about our investments, to make that which is immeasurable and intangible central to our
lives, central to who we are, central to the kind of community we want to live in.
Of course, even the church can become distracted by the lure of the measurable and the
seen. This explains the fixation that some churches can have on their buildings. It has been said that
some churches can develop an “edifice complex.” However, the building is merely the container for
the life of the spirit. I’ve been in churches designed to serve 700 people that could only attract about
85 people on Sunday morning and those 85 did not even seem to very pleased to be there. The
building was still there, but the spirit had left, the river bed was hollowed out, but the stream was
flowing in different channels. When we give, we do give to support this container, this sacred vessel
of our common life. Very few of us want the roof to spring a leak over our heads. But we know that
we must never mistake the container for the contents.
One night last week the power went out in our building because of bad weather, and so we
had to close down the building. The youth group had to meet elsewhere. The choir could not
practice in the dark. Our adult educations classes and Small Group Ministries could not meet. For
this reason and many others, we want to be able to be a church that can pay the power bill. We don’t
want the power to be turned off while we are cooking meals for those in need at the Volunteer
Ministry Center. We don’t want the power to go out when we are hosting families who would
otherwise be homeless overnight as part of the Family Promise program. Everything we do for the
Page 3 of 6
Churches, Bars, and Liquor Stores
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
building is not necessarily an edifice complex. Much of what we do for the building is so that we
can build a community, a community of shared work and shared values, a community where we
share a common life and work for a common destiny. Much of the measurable things we do for the
building are in service to the immeasurable.
We want to be able to pay the power bill, but I would be remiss in my responsibilities as a
minister if I were not to remind you that there is a power that is greater than that power supplied to
us by KUB, the Knoxville Utilities Board. Years ago when I was a new member to this church
attending a class called Build Your Own Theology, I was asked to write my own personal definition
of the world God on a three by five card, a small card for such a large concept. On that card I wrote
something that many of you have heard before. I wrote “Whenever two or more people gather
together to love, support and encourage each other, there is a power greater than ourselves that can
renew, restore and sustain us.” That power is in this room this morning. That power was present in
1949 when a group of people gathered to start this congregation, and it is still with us today. The
words we use to describe this power are not important to me, and they probably aren’t important to
you either. Sometimes it is in the absence of all words that we feel most profoundly the presence of
this power. When we treat each other well, as people with inherent worth and dignity, then we live
and move and have our being in this power. When this power goes out, we are right to evacuate the
building. When this power goes out, we are wise to head for the exits. The youth group should flee,
and the choir head for the hills. When our lives cease to be animated by this power, we are wise to
go somewhere else where the lights are on and somebody is still at home, where there is warmth
and love and compassion, and hope is still present.
Over the sabbatical, I went hiking by a river in the Big South Fork National Recreational
Area, and I came upon a very tall measuring stick that told me where the water once rose during
flood stage, letting me know that at one time the place where I was standing would have been
completely underwater, and I would have been in way over my head. It reminded me of something
Emerson once said that churches too often stand as markers for where the water once flowed, a
reminder of the past, rather than vessels for the presence of a living and moving power in the
present.
When I came to be the minister of this church in the year 2001, after serving a smaller
church, someone once asked me what the change was like, from a small church to a larger church. I
said it is sort of like paddling in a kayak on a small creek and then suddenly entering into the rapids
of a wild river. Friends, 8 years later the water is flowing here at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian
Page 4 of 6
Churches, Bars, and Liquor Stores
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
Universalist Church. If I sometimes look like I am in way over my head, it because the power is still
present in this room.
The Wall Street Journal tells us that some churches are going belly up, filing for bankruptcy,
auctioning off their buildings. And I want to say, that maybe that is a good thing. The church that
reinforces the values of the status quo deserves to go bankrupt. The church that reinforces our
consumer addictions and makes us obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses should fail. The
church that makes us want what we don’t have instead of appreciating what we do have, that makes
us want to pile up credit card debt and dig a financial hole so deep we can never climb out of it, that
church should die, so that a new church can be born. For after death there can be new life. For when
the old goes bankrupt, those resources can be devoted to building channels for where the water is
still flowing, where the lights are still on, where the people are still at home, where there is still
power in the room.
The economic news coming to us from the 24-hour media is bringing us bad tidings
everyday. But that should strengthen our commitment to create a community where we can be there
for each other in good times and bad, scarcity and abundance, hardship and celebration.
In the days ahead, some of us will be doing better than others. I know at least three people
associated with this church who work in liquor stores, so some of us are positioned to do well in this
new economy. And the last time I looked on the church email listserve, I saw an invitation to a
poker game, so some of us will be doing better than others in the days ahead.
In the days ahead we will discover whether churches can compete with such activities. To
paraphrase Rabbi Hillel, “If we are not for ourselves, who will be?” If we are not for the Tennessee
Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, who will be? If we are only for ourselves, who are we? Our
church invites us to continually grow in our generosity and our capacity to be of service. It calls us
to be for our ourselves and others.
So let us pool our resources, the young and the old, the weak and the strong, the employed
and those who have gifts still waiting to be discovered by the larger world. Let us aspire to be that
church where race, class, creed and every other kind of person unite as equal partners working for a
better world.
These are hard times to be sure, but I refuse to believe that our shared ministry as a
congregation is bankrupt. We have moral resources. We have spiritual wealth. We have a generosity
of spirit. We have been hurt this year, and we have united together, and we have overcome. We will
Page 5 of 6
Churches, Bars, and Liquor Stores
A Sermon by Reverend Chris Buice
not be derailed by our adversaries or deterred from our mission. We are 60 years old this year, and
we can envision 60 more years and beyond. We have staying power.
At the heart of our faith is a vision of Oneness. We do not divide the material and the
spiritual world into pieces but bring all things together into a marvelous sense of wholeness. So let
us recommit to vision of unity…
So that by faith made strong, these rafters will withstand the battering of the storm.
This hearth, though all the world grow chill, will keep us warm.
So that Peace will walk softly through these rooms, touching our lips with holy wine,
till every casual corner blooms into a shrine.
So that laughter will drown the raucous shout and though these sheltering walls are
thin, they will be strong to keep hate out and hold love in.”
(The final words are a paraphrase of the lyrics to the hymn May Nothing Evil Cross this
Door by Louis Untermeyer)
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
2931 Kingston Pike  Knoxville, Tennessee 37919  (865) 523-4176
February 17, 2016
We invite you to continue your religious/spiritual journey within our congregation
which affirms many paths and covenants to a free search for truth and meaning.
Page 6 of 6