Weaving the Fabric of a Caring Community
A Sermon By The Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
November 13, 2005
What is religion really about? Do we come to ponder the mysteries of the universe, or human existence, or what? We could probably fit just about anything under the heading of religion, but there must be a guiding light of some sort to illuminate our search, if search is what we’re really about. Exploring the meaning of life, creating change, surviving, living healthy, protecting…is this religion? In the December issue of Discover Magazine there was an article entitled “Field Guide to the Entire Universe.” (p. 28) The preface to the article reads like this: “Let’s face it: You have no idea how to make sense of 70 sextillion stars scattered across 27 billion light-years of space in the visible universe, not to mention what you should make of dark matter and dark energy.” I’m not sure we’ve ever been able to make sense of the universe, but we sure have tried. It’s enough to turn us all atheists, and it’s enough to turn us all theists, always depending on your point of view, which now-a-days is more than just your front door. Considering 70 sextillion stars pretty much makes our point of view the earth, not a tiny, infinitely unimportant piece of barrier wood. Maybe our point of view is larger even than the earth. Maybe it’s the Milky Way Galaxy, or even our Local Group Galaxy cluster. With that perspective, our minds are boggled enough.
In ages past, humans used stories, or mythologies, to try to make sense of what they did know of the universe, which consisted of their daily lives on earth and that fabric of stars that spread across the sky each night. Since weaving was an industry integral to their survival, it became an appropriate analogy for how all life is interrelated, and even for how the universe was created. The Egyptian deity, Neith, wove the world into being. The Great Weaver in mythology is the Creator “who spins the thread of life from its own substance and attaches all people to it by this umbilical cord.” (Animal Spirits, Saunders, pg. 108) And, of course, we here in Arizona have heard of Spider Woman. To the Hopis, she led the first people up from the underworld. To the Navajo, Spider Woman became one of their most important deities and taught them to weave. (Mythology of the American Nations, p. 74)
In this century, the twenty-first century, we stand and look at the stars at night and wonder how any anthropomorphic god could possibly exist. A god or gods in the image of humankind seems absurd placed within the cosmic picture unfolding before us day by day. So then, what about religion? Is religion only about ancient mythologies and wisdom analogies for understanding our universe and life?
Let’s face it: we can’t understand sextillions of stars nor dark energy and matter nor how we even have come to be aware that we can’t. Religion will have to catch up with science one of these days, but until then, if ever, we can wonder at the mystery and still search for ways to live our lives better, more peacefully, more lovingly, all within the realm of religious community. There is a guiding light besides the stars, or guiding lights, which contain the essence of the human search for understanding existence. We might call them gems within the inherited wisdom of the ages.
One of these gems is found in many world religions. It is an essential teaching spoken in many tongues. We know it as The Golden Rule:
(from We Are One)
Just as we don’t look to only one star to understand the universe, so we ought not look to only one religious tradition for truths that pertain to this complex web which is life here on earth. And when we find that a teaching is expressed among many of our religions, then we can weigh it against our own lives and measure its truth all the better. So we could safely say that how we treat each other is an essential aspect of religion, and the common teaching is to be kind and to treat others by the measure of our own desires for compassion and health and love and forgiveness and survival.
My favorite teaching relating to this is from Mark 12. When one of the scribes comes up to Jesus and asks him to tell him which commandment is the first of all, Jesus responds, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (29-31)
In my limited experience with Christian texts and teachings, this is the gem that has risen to the surface over the years. I grew up in the generation that proclaimed “God is Dead!” at the same time as proclaiming that “God is Love!” I measure Jesus’ teaching against my own life, and from my cosmic doorstep, the concept of God expands to mean something way beyond life on earth, and if so, to love “Your” God means to love what you deem most divine in all of existence, what is most precious, most beautiful, most loving, the best that we can aspire to be, however that is meaningful to you within the context of our limited viewpoints, always bowing humbly to the mystery, now measured as containing 70 sextillion stars and, just on the literal cutting edge of our awareness, this stuff called dark matter and dark energy, invisible yet filling up the universe all around and through us.
Far easier to love one’s neighbor as oneself! Or is it? One could assume that one’s neighbor is simpler to understand than the concept of a cosmic god-energy. The key word here, though, is love. The common denominator is love. Treating others as oneself and loving others as oneself, are these the essential teachings of religion? Are these what make up the interwoven fabric of religious community?
For today’s purpose, let’s just say “yes!” Let’s bring ourselves down to this place and this time, to these people, and leave all that cosmic mystery hanging over our heads where it belongs. Let’s focus on one essential teaching of religion, both throughout the ages and in our own time: that of love of neighbor.
Now-a-days, we are very aware that the word “neighbor” no longer means just the people who live next door to us. By internet standards (which is another web, by the way), and environmental standards, and economic standards, we are a global community, and our neighbors truly do live on the other side of the earth as much as across the street. We are part of that interconnected web which our Principles and Purposes affirm and promote. But, again, for today’s purpose, let’s focus literally. Let’s focus on those people who really do live within our neighborhoods, whose lives are interwoven with ours at least geographically, and whose care and concern can become a part of our religious practice, if we so aspire.
One place to start is this religious community. Religious communities are like tapestries of people who care about similar beliefs and practices, people who gather together forming a covenantal neighborhood that’s more cohesive than a geographic neighborhood. Each person who comes to join a religious community is one thread in that tapestry, and everyone interwoven together forms a picture of that community. From afar, the picture can easily be seen, but from close up, the individual threads begin to stand out, and one can see where weaknesses lie, where some threads are frayed and where others are holding the pattern together almost by themselves.
The cohesiveness and strength of the tapestry is really dependent upon as many of the threads as possible being strong and interwoven well. You are the threads. When you first came to church here, you didn’t know anyone and you were not interwoven. You came because you were searching for something, maybe support in a time of grief, or acceptance on your spiritual journey, or communication with open-minded people, or just plain, beautiful love from your brothers and sisters on earth. As you began to participate, every touch, every connection, wove your thread deeper into the pattern. Your reason for being here began to change, for as our threads become more interwoven, we begin to care less for those reasons which first brought us here, and more for the simple human interaction with those people we have come to know. We begin to love these people, our covenantal neighbors, as ourselves. That’s why people stay with religious communities long after the dogma no longer holds meaning: they are interwoven, and it takes strength and determination to unravel one’s threads from such tapestries. Of course, moving away does it more easily.
Loving our neighbors as ourselves has a literal meaning in ministry. We create caring communities this way, communities which can affect our lives and the quality of life on earth. We care for each other and we care for our planet, and in religious community, we find ways to strengthen each other and ourselves for the work of love. Another word for this is “stewardship”. We are stewards of each other, our religious community, and our world.
Knowing what our gifts are is one way to keep our threads strong in the pattern, and doing those things in the congregation which we really care about and can be responsible to. The Finding Heart Ministries program, which started again last month, was created to help those participating explore their hearts and find their sense of ministry, and to act upon what they care most deeply about.
To keep our tapestry strong, we want to enable as many connections as possible among us, strong and meaningful connections. The Neighborhood Care Circles are one program which we are highlighting today to help you connect with each other and care for each other in a neighborly way. Dale will tell you more about it in a few minutes. We invite you all to practice the most important commandment to love, and consider what that means in a religious community. We might not be able to bring meaning to the 70 sextillion stars, but we can bring meaning to our humble interactions, that of knowing we are part of a web of life and a weaving of religious community that will provide love and support in our daily struggles to become the most divine, the most beautiful, the most creative and compassionate planet in the universe.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson