Celebrating Life, Inspiring Hope: The Meaning of Worship
Rev. Tim Temerson
UU Church of Akron
December 2, 2012
I know we have a number of visitors here today and I want to begin by
thanking you for worshipping with us this morning and by expressing my hope that
you find in this church community a place of welcome, of kindness, and of love. The
Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron welcomes all people into this community of
love and acceptance as we journey together, sharing that love with each other and
with the world.
I can still remember what it felt like to visit a Unitarian Universalist
congregation for the first time. It seems hard to believe that is was almost 15 years
ago when my family attended our first service at a UU congregation in the Boston
area. My wife, Carol, and I had both grown up in traditional Christian
denominations but had basically drifted away from organized religion as adults.
After welcoming our daughter, Carissa, into the world and after having pretty much
dropped the ball when it came to religion with our son, Christopher, who was 10 at
the time, we decided to give a nearby Unitarian Universalist congregation a try.
Although neither of us knew very much about Unitarian Universalism, what
we had heard intrigued us. We learned that although Unitarian Universalism looked
and felt like a "religion" in that it was organized into churches and congregations
that held services on Sunday mornings, there were some pretty interesting and
important differences between it and the religions of our youth. For one thing, the
UU church we began attending did not have a creed or a single belief about God
that we were required to affirm in order to belong. In fact, we soon learned that
Unitarian Universalism welcomes people with very diverse beliefs and religious
backgrounds and actually celebrates that diversity rather than trying to ignore or
eliminate it. And, finally, we found in Unitarian Universalism a religion that affirms
values we hold dear and that strives to live those values through acts of justice,
compassion, and peace in the world.
It wasn't long before Carol and I joined the UU congregation in Duxbury,
Massachusetts and it soon became a very important part of our lives. We felt so
blessed by the religious education program, which helped our children find their
own spiritual path while inspiring them to live lives of meaning and integrity. Our
own spiritual lives were nourished by programs like Small Group Ministry, which
enabled us to journey with other UUs as we listened deeply and learned from one
another. And our entire family was challenged and inspired by Unitarian
Universalism's commitment to service and justice. Perhaps most importantly, we
learned that being a person of faith can be as much about serving as it is about
believing, as much if not more about deeds rather than creeds.
And if there was one moment in the life of that congregation which brought
everything we experienced and cherished as Unitarian Universalists together, it was
the worship service on Sunday mornings. There was something important and
special about simply coming together as a community. The service included many
of the elements you've experienced this morning - a sermon, readings, ritual,
silence and meditation, music, and an affirmation of the key values and principles
that brought us together as one community of faith. But as important as any of
those specific elements were, there was something comforting, something inspiring,
something so transforming about taking time every Sunday morning to slow down,
to be in community, and to worship.
Now, I don't think I'm alone among Unitarian Universalists in saying that
while I've gained so much from participating in worship, the word itself has been
cause for confusion and, at times, consternation. As I said earlier, Unitarian
Universalism is religion of common principles and values, not a common creed or a
shared belief about God or the supernatural. But doesn't the word "worship" imply a
belief in God since to worship means, as the dictionary tells us, “to show reverence
for a divine being." I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to explain how
a religion that doesn't have a creed or doctrine in which God is at the center can
call what they do on Sunday morning "worship." And to be honest, quite a few
Unitarian Universalists, including at one time myself, have wondered why we have
to use such a traditional religious term to describe what we experience on Sunday
morning.
Well, let me simply say that my attitude about the use of the word "worship"
in Unitarian Universalism has changed dramatically. I am now convinced that
“worship” most assuredly describes what we do in this sanctuary on Sunday
mornings. Think back to the definition of worship I read earlier in the service. The
root of the word worship means worth, not God or a supreme being. So to worship
is to reflect on or to consider something of worth. Of course, that something of
worth might be a divine or supreme being. But it doesn't have to be. Worship, as it
turns out, is really worthship - lifting up and celebrating those things that bring
worth and worthiness to our lives and to the world.
And if worship means to consider things of worth, then I believe Unitarian
Universalism is one of the most worshipful, most spiritual, most potentially
transformative religions in the world. Every Sunday morning we gather to
celebrate, to experience, and to reflect on that which is worthy and important in our
lives. Through ritual and song, through meditation and a sermon, we come together
to grow, to learn, to be challenged and inspired, and to make a positive difference
in the lives of others and in the world.
Before leaving you this morning, I want to take a moment to explore what I
consider to be one of the most exciting and important developments in the worship
life of Unitarian Universalism. Throughout its history, Unitarian Universalism has
celebrated the open mind and the use of reason in religious life. For many years,
this led Unitarian Universalist worship to be geared largely towards the mind and
the intellect. Our worship, our worthship, was very much an intellectual, headoriented consideration of things of worth.
While Unitarian Universalism will always be a religion of the open mind and
will always value the use of reason, in recent years I believe we have begun to find
some balance by increasingly becoming a religion of the heart and the spirit. There
is in our congregations a growing hunger for spiritual depth and contemplation.
There is a need not simply to consider or think about things of worth, but to
experience them on Sunday morning. And that hunger for spiritual experience and
worthiness has impacted our worship life in many different ways, including and
especially in the growing use of ritual, of meditation, of prayer, and of silence.
In some ways, I think what we are seeing in Unitarian Universalist worship is
a growing appreciation of the importance of Sabbath for our spiritual and worship
lives. Sabbath is not a term one hears a great deal in Unitarian Univeralism and it
can be just as confusing a term as worship. I've always liked the way the spiritual
writer Wayne Muller defines Sabbath. "Sabbath," according to Muller, "is a way of
being in time where we remember who we are, remember what we know, and taste
the gifts of eternity and spirit."
And I believe that is precisely what is happening in the worship life of
Unitarian Universalism. We are creating spaces for genuine Sabbath - spaces in
which we can both reflect on things of worth and experience them, spaces in which
we can celebrate the open mind, be embraced by the loving heart, and experience
the awe-inspiring beauty of the spirit - beauty which can enable us, in Muller's
memorable words, "to taste the gifts of eternity.
And it is that transformation of our worship and spiritual lives that makes me
so hopeful, so optimistic about the future of Unitarian Universalism. We are
honoring the essence of who we are while at the same time growing into who we
can become. We are building congregations rooted in things of worth unconditional love, radical welcome, and openness to the wisdom and beauty that
lives in all. We are also building congregations where genuine Sabbath can be
experienced – where people can come together to slow down, to connect deeply,
and to take time for simply being rather than always doing. That is the shared
journey of the spirit we are making at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron
and it is my hope you will make that journey with us.
May your journey be blessed.