A Community of Stories
[this sermon was prefaced by stories submitted by members of the congregation]
When someone learns that I’m pastor of a church their follow up questions fall into a couple predictable patterns. The inquirer either asks demographic and geographic questions–where is that, how many members do you have, how long has the church been there/how long have you been there? Or they ask categorization questions, beginning with, what kind of church is that? Given how small our faith movement is, it’s an understandable question. What kind of church is that? Usually, after they grasp that Unitarian Universalism is a denomination, not simply part of our church’s name, they ask again, what kind of church is that?
I could be wrong, but I think that second asking of the same question is more common in conversations about Unitarian Universalist churches than in conversations about mainstream and even independent Christian denominations. I maintain that the average person on the street has no idea what differentiates one Christian denomination from another–except perhaps for a basic understanding that Catholicism is different from Protestantism, maybe. But Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, various independent Chrsitian churches such as we have so many of here in Savannah–these feel like known quantities simply because the names are familiar. Most folks have known someone who goes to one of those churches or they’ve seen the churches in their neighborhoods or they grew up in one or belong to one themselves. But most people know they haven’t ever heard of a UU church and know they’ve never known anyone who belonged to one. So I hear the question, often. You probably do, too. What kind of church is that?
My answers also follow a few predictable paths–depending on how interested I think the questioner is or how receptive they’ll be to really learning about us. I leave it at, “it’s a small denomination on the liberal end of the protestant spectrum.” I may say, “Unitarian Universalism resulted when the American Unitarian Association merged with the Universalist Church of America in 1961.” I may say, “we don’t have a creed. There is no one thing you have to believe in order to be UU, so we have a wide range of theology in our congregations and throughout our association.” I may talk about our core values of justice, equity, transformation, pluralism, interdependence and generosity with love at the center.
And I may talk about this specific church, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah–telling about the history of this congregation through several iterations, dating back to the 1820 and through nearly a century of partial or complete dormancy until the establishment of this current congregation around 1958; tracing the movement of the various groups of Unitarians from meeting location to meeting location, including the the construction, occupancy, sale and eventual repurchase of this sanctuary building along with the other buildings on the block; mentioning the Pierpont brothers and other notable ministers; naming a few of our present day ministries.
All those are valid ways of answering the question about the kind of church this is. It’s a Unitarian Universalist church, which means it has a certain wide-ranging theological bent, and currently articulates its core values in a particular way. It’s a UU church in this city, which means it has a particular demographic makeup and a history, influenced by the legacy of slavery. And it’s a UU church in 2025, with programming reflective of the values common to the larger Unitarian Universalist body in the 21st century. Those are fine answers for the casual inquirer. They are probably similar to the answer you give when asked about your church, our church, this church.
But what kind of church is this, really?
It’s a church that weathered a pandemic. That made radical changes to the way it operated in order to keep members and staff safe. Meeting and worshiping remotely and sometimes outdoors, services without the choir, without congregational singing, no coffee hours, social distancing when face to face meetings were necessary–all the various changes to community that the pandemic brought to all churches. Changes no one wanted. Changes that didn’t feel like church. Changes that were argued over. It is the kind of church that came through those changes, those years, not unmarked but intact. Here for the members who survived those years and those changes, and here for all who have sought it since.
It’s a church whose members went out of their way–several states out of their way, through stormy weather–to be good faith neighbors to another congregation.
It’s the kind of church where the choir director invites everyone who remarks on the choir to join the choir. Not all of them do. In fact, most of them don’t. But all of them remember the invitation. And the ones who do join find a place of meaning and purpose in the choir, within the larger community of the congregation.
It’s the kind of church that invites members to bless the church with their personal passions–musical and otherwise–until it is hard to know which way the blessings flow or from which side they began: congregant to congregation; congregation to congregant in an everflowing stream.
It’s the kind of church where deep worshipful moments draw forth spontaneous expressions of emotion. And where the conventions of staying in one’s pew from the opening words through the benediction don’t constrain spontaneous gestures of compassion. And the stream of blessings flows through embodied presence.
It’s the kind of church that calls forth half a lifetime’s loyalty. Loyalty that comes not just from being a part of a congregation but is deepened through serving that congregation. And the stream of blessings flows through service.
It’s the kind of church out of which small groups arise, both formal and informal, appearing on the church calendar and convened by word of mouth–Old Guys being but one of many–for the solving of the world’s problems, for the staving off of loneliness and isolation, for support and socialization during the pandemic, for the discussion of books, for beautifying our Macon Street curbside in a sustainable way. And the stream of blessings flows in and through small groups that rise up and dissolve and reconstitute themselves according to the needs of congregation members and friends.
It’s the kind of church whose members care deeply about its physical structures and undertake its upkeep as often through hand-ons (and on belly) labor as through the raising of funds and hiring of experts. The kind of church that rests, quite literally, on the efforts of its members.
It’s the kind of church whose members learn from each other and teach each other, every day, through their lived example. Probably never knowing the effect they have upon one another, never knowing they are part of the everflowing stream of blessings. The kind of church in which people’s lives are changed through community.
It’s the kind of church that asks challenging and unexpected but not random questions that help its members discover the truth of their hearts.
It’s the kind of church that sometimes moves worship out of the sanctuary and into the world–even when there aren’t public safety concerns. That recognizes on an annual basis our deep connections to the animals we love and to all of creation. The kind of church that helps its members remember and celebrate their existence, not a part from the rest of Creation but as a part of creation. And the stream of blessing flows between and among species, sentient and otherwise.
It’s the kind of church that knows that this city’s, the south’s, our country’s complicated and shameful legacy of racial injustice is woven into its very being, from its earliest founding through the wealth of cotton traders and through its fame tied to a song written by a man who married into an enslaving family. A legacy neither undone by nor yet impervious to the effects of other legacies–the breath of the African American Episcopal community that once owned and worshiped in this very space intermingled with our own; our early adoption of the 8th principle; and our ongoing antiracism work. Knowing that all these strands are part of its DNA, it’s the kind of church that produces an annual MLK concert, callings us to sit beside our neighbors, sing arm and arm with our neighbors, a prayer for the day the reconciling strand will overcome the enslaving strand.
The Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah is that kind of church. The kind that changes lives, quietly, through nothing more and nothing less than the life of a community living its values, with love at the center.
It is also the kind of church that breaks hearts. That falls out of covenant with some of its members. That allows petty annoyances and squabbles to end friendships. That fails to live fully into values. I k
now this is that kind of church, too, because one of you sent me a couple sentences about such experiences, though asked me to share only the more positive reflection that was among those Raven and I read this morning. And I know this is that kind of church, too, because I’ve heard some of those stories–of resentment, pain, loss, of unkindness and cruelty–from some of you over these two and a half years I’ve been here. But mostly I know this is that kind of church, too, because it is a human institution. And human institutions are always imperfect, and the streams of blessings that run through them are never the only streams that run through them. Streams of bickering and bitterness, of mistakes and misunderstanding, of shortcomings and flawed oversight always run through through institutions, too. The healthy and continued existence of any institution is largely a matter of which streams are deeper and which ones are protected and fed.
All the stories of this congregation matter. And it matters that sometimes we are brave enough to tell and to hear the hard stories. In fact, someday I’ll probably ask you specifically for those stories and I’ll find a way to share them in worship that allows us to hear them, and learn from them, and heal from them without retreating into protective shells or doubling down on the attitudes or behaviors that are at the core of such stories.
For now, however, it is significant that while I didn’t ask for your most painful stories, I also didn’t ask you for your best memory of the church. For the story you love most about the church or its members. I didn’t ask what brought you here or what has kept you here. I asked only for a story about the church or someone in it. And with that one exception, the stories you told were love stories. Outright love stories and love stories disguised as stories about crawlspaces and pew puzzles.
Last week we sang the words, “disappointment pierced me through, still I kept on loving you.” I know this church has pierced you through with disappointment or will one day, if you’re too new to have had that happen yet, and still you’ve kept on loving it. That’s the kind of church this is. The kind where the bonds of love are stronger even than piercing disappointment. The kind where surviving and healing from the experiences of bullying, estrangement, and falling short of our high ideals is possible because of the experience of love. The kind of church I’m proud to serve. Amen.
