“Loving From the Insight Out”
Rev. Greg Ward, Zackrie Vinczen and Ann Riley
Unitarian Universalist Church Berkeley
February 21st, 2016
BEGINNING THE JOURNEY: <<Zackrie Vinczen>>
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be
brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your
playing small does not serve the world. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to
make manifest the divine that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let
our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are
liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
READING
“Guidelines” by Rhina Espaillat
Here’s what you need to do, since time began:
find something—diamond-rare or carbon-cheap,
it’s all the same—and love it all you can.
<<Rev. Greg>>
It should be something close—a field, a man,
a line of verse, a mouth, a child asleep—
that feels like the world’s heart since time began.
Don’t measure much or lay things out or scan;
don’t save yourself for later, you won’t keep;
spend yourself now on loving all you can.
It’s going to hurt. That was the risk you ran
with your first breath; you knew the price was steep,
that loss is what there is, since time began
subtracting from your balance. That’s the plan,
too late to quibble now, you’re in too deep.
Just love what there still is, while you still can.
Don’t count on schemes, it’s far too short a span
from the first sowing till they come to reap.
One way alone to count, since time began:
love something, love it hard, now, while you can.
SERMON <<Rev. Greg>> "Loving from the Insight Out"
It wasn’t Evil or Chaos that broke the pieces apart. Nothing bad from the outside had the power to
break the pot. In the end, it was something good from the inside. The light. Energy. And
Love. The goodness within that could no longer be contained.
Light. Energy. Love. When something of great imagination and possibility finally realizes it’s true
purpose… and grows so strong it can no longer ignore the impulse to gather together all that is
fragmented into something harmonious… it’s like a million sparks becoming a single stream of light –
that shines so bright everything finally sees what it’s really part of and how far what it is part of
stretches into the world… THAT – that has the power to change everything.
All change begins when each piece discovers – listens to - the light and love at its core. When that
light and love finds a good environment to grow. When it begins to prompt connections with other
individual sparks until they catch fire… Then what is divine gets infused in everything. And
everything is sent out everywhere.
That’s why that kind of spark – that light at our core – is powerful. So powerful, it can be scary.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We
ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who
are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the
world. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the
divine that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our
own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As
we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Have you ever felt that? Felt drawn toward something larger than yourself? Then, suddenly, realized
that larger something had big plans for you? So big it scared you?
If you felt that, then you probably know what the people of Harriman, TN felt in the late 1890s when
they attended Grace Universalist Church. If you’ve never felt, then you’re probably the kind of people
that members of Grace invited to come to their church.
Grace Universalist Church was the clay pot of light in the southeast at a time when most of the light in
people’s lives had been snuffed out. It was a hard time. A time when western expansion was strong
and, ironically, it was at this very time when the various individual pieces of UUCB were just coming
together. But many in the south were struggling with faith. Struggling with a way to appeal to the
goodness within the people and call them to stand together. Struggling with figuring out how
communities might change the way people lived. Struggling with the power of religion to be anything
other than an opiate.
And in the center of it all, in this tiny little town was Grace. The attendance at Grace on a Sunday
morning outnumbered the population of the town. The mayor and the sheriff as well as all the town’s
founding families were members. The mayors and sheriffs and founding families of several
neighboring towns were members as well.
It’s not that there weren’t other churches in that part of Tennessee. There were. Lots of them. Fancy
churches. Famous churches. Churches with well-known charismatic preachers. But there was no
gathered community anywhere that anybody knew of quite like Grace.
And as much as you might like to think that the reason that such a church drew people to it was
because of some dynamic powerful minister, that doesn’t really seem to be the case. In fact, in all the
notes people took and letters people wrote about Grace, one of the hardest pieces of information to
find is the name of one of Grace’s pastors – it just wasn’t what made Grace what it was. Which was
to say… a place on fire because it was a place that saw the spark in each person. That brought
people together and helped them shine.
<><><>
In my second year in the ministry – when I was still a little unsure about ministry, what I had to offer or
how this ‘church thing’ was going to turn out, it happened. That Damascus moment that gave me a
whole new way of seeing things.
Some months before, at my installation, I’d asked Meg Barnhouse to come sing. She did. And she
was amazing. Meg, if you don’t know her, is a singer songwriter and UU minister – now in Austin, TX.
But, at the time she was a few hours up the road from me in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and she
had a regular program on the local NPR station, called ‘Bubba Free Radio.’ She’d also just written a
couple books: “Revenge of the Karma Fairy” and “Did I Just Say that in my Out Loud Voice?”
Wanting to repay the favor, I told her I’d come up and preach for her and give her a Sunday off. So
we arranged a date. And as that date was approaching, I called her and asked what I should preach
on. She said something I will never forget. She said, “Hon, you preach about what whatever makes
you shine!”
Isn’t that nice? My heart melted. It was like – even through the phone – she could see into my soul
and see the spark burning there – a light I always knew was in me but I had constantly allowed to be
discounted or covered up until I stopped believing it was real. And she saw it and called it out. And
for a second I just glowed. If you’re like me you’ve probably had that moment where the forces of
light and darkness face each other, and you know the deep breath of gratitude that follows, and the
feeling of your feet coming back to earth and the reflexive impulse back to your doubting voice,
asking you to say – like I did – “No, really, Meg. What would you like me to preach on?”
<><><>
This morning, after worship, we’re going to have a conversation about light – and what it would look
like if we gathered it, grew it, trusted it and channeled it into something great. So I wanted to preach
this morning on what makes us shine. What calls us to stand up and want to join together with that
larger ideal we were made to connect to and cast a brighter light - proclaim it to the world. Today I
want to preach about the call to look down - deep into our messy, complicated lives – and see that
part within our very core and see something on fire. That emanates goodness and possibility. Today
I want to suggest we try growing that. Instead of denying it or ignoring it or covering it up like most
people in our society eventually get encouraged to do. I’m asking us to grow as bright as that shining
part within us.
<><><>
That’s what Grace did for people. It reminded them of what was possible in their lives – in their world
– and taught them how to lean into it. It was one of those rare places that truly possessed the power
to change people. The kind of place you’d walk in good and walk out wanting to be great – and
heaven-bent on working toward it. Grace unlocked the person you wanted to be from the insight out.
<><><>
The sermon that I ended up writing for Meg’s congregation started with me telling the story of how
Meg said I should preach whatever made me shine. But as I was writing my sermon and recalling
that awakening – that ‘lit up’ feeling I’d had – I had a Freudian or spell check moment. I meant to
write, “I smiled from the inside out”. But when I read back what I’d written I discovered that I’d said, “I
smiled from the insight out.” I smiled again. And, then, it dawned on me. It wasn’t a mistake. It was
a revelation. When we finally really realize that we are brighter, more loving and called to greater
connection than our fear had been allowing, OF COURSE we can’t contain that light within us. When
we really recognize our own light, nothing can keep us from growing into our greatness. But until we
recognize it, nothing pry us out of our smallness.
<><><>
Grace Universalist, for years, was on fire. And it was bound and determined to set fire to everything
around it. One of the main issues that it dealt with was temperance. Today, we think of temperance
as a punitive agenda led by puritanical believers leading to prohibition. But in the early 1900’s
temperance was actually very progressive issue. In those times it was common for husbands to drink
all the rent money and then beat their wives and children for being hungry. At that time, wives had no
course of protest. They couldn’t testify in court. Couldn’t seek divorce. Couldn’t make a property
claim. Temperance was actually the early forebear of programs for alcoholism, domestic violence,
children’s welfare and women’s rights – before all those causes had names. It was a movement that
talked of justice, fairness, love, and good news for everyone. It praised a God who promised it, a
church that practiced it and people who supported it.
The fire coming from Grace was so bright and so sweeping across towns of the southeast, word got
up to Boston. One of our Universalist forebears, Quillan Shinn, gave up his prosperous conventional
Boston church to become the superintendent of all southeast Universalist churches – mostly so he
could be part of Grace Universalist. Over ten years he carried the flame burning at the heart of Grace
to help more than 20 other churches catch fire – including the church that eventually became the UU
Church of Atlanta. The church that helped seed and birth a burgeoning new church a few miles north
– the first church I served.
<><><>
So why mention any of this? Two reasons.
There’s an old saying that I just made up which says, “A fire will burn only so long as it has something
at its center keeping the spark alive and something at its edge ready to be transformed.”
I believe both of those things are here. A people who, at their core, have a spark – ready to catch
fire. People who have had that fire dampened down, covered up, put out or stuck inside. But they
are still waiting for the light and the heat and the love at the center to really catch fire and explode
onto the landscape around it with a radical, transformative call to connect. A landscape around it that
needs this kind of energy.
In case you haven’t noticed we are living in a world growing more hard and cold every day. And we
are at a pivotal moment in those times where we are ready to call for a new leader – not only of this
congregation – but of this country. And leaders are emerging who speak with arrogance and
entitlement rather than connection. They talk of building walls, and new prisons and refusing to deal
with systemic prejudices, unregulated violence, corruption in Wall street and poverty on Main Street
and the subjugation of people to the best media and government that money can buy.
When you hear this are you not on fire?!!? Are you not seeing the myriad of obvious ways your
values – your energy, your light, your love are needed out there? Or you’re just trying to keep it to
yourself? Is it because you’re not sure if it’s real? Or because you’re not willing to be transformed in
the process?
The second reason I mention it is this: In 1925 – almost 89 years ago - Grace Universalist was sold
outright to the Christmas Lumber Company of Tennessee for scrap lumber. The once mighty church
renowned through the region, closed its doors and became a mere footnote in religious history. I
doubt if the mayor or the sheriff or the city’s founders attended the sale. They had certainly stopped
attending the church.
There aren’t notes in the journals that explain why. No description in any church or city archives. No
historical record. There is no clear reason anywhere for what caused Grace Universalist to fail. All
we know is that the fire which was once such a bright beacon on the southern landscape - burned
out. And with it, the social gospel that lifted the people out of their ordinary thinking into extraordinary
living.
We don’t know why the fire at Grace went out. But we do know that the conditions in the southeast
during the 1920’s didn’t change so radically that the people stopped needing Grace in East
Tennessee. And East Tennessee didn’t stop needing Grace in the people – because within a few
years – and within a few miles – of that church’s closing came the Scopes Monkey Trial (40 miles
away in Dayton) – and the epicenter of the Ku Klux Klan at the height of its power (a little over a
hundred miles away).
<><><>
In his second book, author and UU minister, Robert Fulghum, pondered on a newspaper story he’d
read about a small town fire department being summoned to a house from which smoke was pouring
forth. When the firemen broke into the house they found a smoldering bed with a man sound asleep
on it. After rescuing the man and dousing the fire, the obvious question was asked. "What
happened?" The man, thinking he was being accused, responded, "I don't know. It was on fire when I
laid down on it."
Most of us, if we’re honest, look for a church in the same way that man purported to look for a bed.
We choose the one that’s on fire – even though we, ourselves, don’t always want to be transformed.
We don’t want to be consumed. We’d rather preserve our lives the way they are.
But take heed of the words from the reading
don’t save yourself for later, you won’t keep;
spend yourself now on loving all you can.
It’s going to hurt. That was the risk you ran
with your first breath; you knew the price was steep,
that loss is what there is, since time began
subtracting from your balance. That’s the plan,
too late to quibble now, you’re in too deep.
Just love what there still is, while you still can.
from the first sowing till they come to reap.
One way alone to count, since time began:
love something, love it hard, now, while you can.
Remember, it’s not the fire around us that has the power to change us. It’s the fire – the light and the
love – within us.
And for the record, I don’t believe it is just me who is asking ‘what should I preach about’. Each one
of you, every day, whether you realize it or not, has something in you – some light, some love – that
calls you to proclaim something powerful – to gather and connect the pieces around you and preach
a sermon that brings everything together. The question really worth asking is, ‘are you preaching
about what makes you shine?’
To the Glory of Life.
Copyright Wardswords, 2016
GOING DEEPER
(Slide one)
Take a moment to reflect on one or two ‘Moments that Mattered’ (the times you will look back on with
gratitude, pride and appreciation).
(Slide two)
Ask yourself
- How did those moments help you grow?
- Looking at what you lost and what you gained, would you trade?
- What do you most want the world to notice from your life?
- What part of the world do you most want to influence into a better place?