When Nothing/Everything Changes

So I set out to write a sermon about change this week, in keeping with this month’s theme of The Gift of Transformation—and then I changed my mind. I’m going to talk with you about the moment before us today–a moment that comes into all relationships, at least once and usually many times–the moment of commitment to a shared future.

In August of 2022, in a sermon titled What Are We Getting Into and Do We Have a Plan?, I cautioned us against allowing the time-limited, contract nature of our congregation/minister relationship to hold ourselves back from one another–more than is natural at the beginning of any relationship, that is. I said that to do so would risk ours becoming a congregation going through the motions without going deep. I declared my intention and my hope that we would work and play together, celebrate and grieve together, learn and grow together – in communal and individual faith–in ways that emerge most readily in atmospheres of trust and belonging.

In the months since that day, we certainly have not been going through the motions without going deep. We have worked and played together, celebrated and grieved together, learned and grown together. We have felt "the green fuse that ignites us/the wild thrum that unites us/an inner hum that reminds us/[you and me and all of us]/of our shared humanity."

We have known the communion of being some more than one hundred thirty souls who alone together are one faith community, one church home. Of being "the dust that hopes/…the dust that dances in the light/with all other dust, the dust/that makes [the Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah]".

Now, as we near two years since I spoke those words of caution and intention and hope, the spirit is alive in this congregation, joyful, steadfast, poised for a future of quickening faith, expansive learning, transformational becoming, and generous service to and in the world. Ready to make a decision about that future.

We have been saying that the question before us today is, "shall we call Rev. Lisa to be our settled minister?" And in a way, that is the question. It is a vote, after all. But we’re engaging a deeper question, too. A question about entering the unknown. What we’re really asking ourselves and one another—you and I—is whether we are willing to move together into the future.

Now, after 19 months, more or less, of shared congregational life, it may seem that a future with me is decidedly more known than a future without me as your minister, but the thing about the future is that it is always unknown. Always a mystery. Never guaranteed to unfold in the ways we imagine or plan. We are not without power to shape, influence, even change the course of the future. We can talk about what we will build, as in this morning’s story, and make preparations for that building. But we are neither guaranteed the future we’re dreaming of and working toward, nor even guaranteed a future at all.

Thus we come to church, many of us, perhaps all of us, seeking to reckon with uncertainty and mystery. Beyond the desire to being among like minded people, beneath the need to ask big questions and to encounter what the varied faith traditions of the world say about living moral lives of purpose and joy, and to provide our children the same, along with a community that will hold them in love, in addition to our impulse to heal the planet and serve people at the margins of society and grow equity and justice–in and around and through all these prompts that bring us to religious community, to this church, and keep us coming back, is our keen awareness of the uncertainty of life and our yearning to discover how to live most fully in the uncertainty of now and into the uncertainty of the future, and to make what difference we can even amid uncertainty.

I said a few minutes ago that we have not held back from one another in these first 19 months as minister and congregation. That is not insignificant. Yet, the ongoing spiritual task of encountering the existential future, the unknown future, the future we can’t pretend to decisively plan, manage or produce–that task ultimately requires a relationship of an entirely different dimension. The connection and trust that have grown between and among us through time and shared endeavors of work and worship, grief and celebration, is real, and a gift. But in order to go deep into the mystery of life that is precarious and unpredictable, a congregation and a minister–you and I–must commit to one another, yes, and also commit to the going deep. We must say, essentially," it will be so. We will continue forth into the future together."

It’s paradoxical. Casting the vote that says “we commit to the risk and the possibility of living into the future with Reverend Lisa as our minister” isn’t enough alone to manifest a living, dynamic commitment, yet commitment isn’t possible at all without the “may it be so” the vote stands for.

"There’s a thread you follow. It goes among/things that change. But it doesn’t change/…You don’t ever let go of the thread."

The poet’s words are as true of congregations as they are of people. For a time now, more than a year and a half our threads–this congregation’s and mine–have run so closely in parallel one to the other as to seem to be one. But they are not one. The thread that this congregation follows started long before I arrived here in August 2022. That thread is distinctly yours. And the thread I follow started long before I arrived here, too. That thread is distinctively mine.

And let’s not imagine that here in this room, and in the rooms where you are worshiping on YouTube, and in all the spaces and times that hold the members and friends of this congregation, there are just two threads–the congregation’s and my own. There are many.

Each of you followed your thread to this faith community so that the thread I called the congregation’s thread a moment ago isn’t a single strand. And it isn’t a rope or yarn braided from all of your individual threads. It is scores of threads, running in tight parallel most of the time, though now and then one or more individual threads wander a bit of field and then back again or separate themselves and continue on in their own direction. Some of those threads started here in the Savannah of your birth, others originated in other cities, states, even countries. Your threads meandered through Baptist churches and Catholic parishes and secular Jewish homes. Some brought you through other Unitarian Universalist congregations before bringing you here. Education, military service, careers, relationships, families–you have held onto your threads through so many places and experiences, and even as all your threads are running alongside one another here, seeming to be the one single thread of this congregation, each continues simultaneously to carry you on your own distinct path.

My thread originated in Minnesota and has led me through a half dozen states, three universities, two Clinical Pastoral Education sites, five previous Unitarian Universalist congregations including my childhood church and my internship church, into and out of friendships and relationships. And here to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah not to be braided into a single, sturdy congregation thread, for as I’ve said, that doesn’t exist–but to run very close to and in parallel with all your threads, for a time; to run where the threads of other ministers have run for a while and then diverged, where the threads of still other ministers will one day run when my thread leads me on from here. And my thread, too, will simultaneously carry me on my own distinct path, even during whatever time we continue on together.

If I become your called and settled minister, our threads would continue on together toward the future’s horizon–a point beyond our current sight, where and when they would eventually diverge. And should I become your settled minister, the distance between our threads would narrow even more, the alchemical bond that keeps them running parallel and on the same trajectory would strengthen.

The no harm/no foul, either-party-can-pick-up-and-leave-after-two-years nature of our relationship would be replaced by our agreement to walk together into the future. The relationship that would grow out of that agreement would be more resilient than what we have had. Able to bear conflict or disappointment and return faithfully to health and trust. Ready to forgive when mistakes are made–yours and mine–as they surely will be made. Imbued with love and equanimity to cradle sorrow and nurture becoming. Open to the joy, surprises and gifts a life of community offers so abundantly.

For several months the Special Task Force has worked with great care and deliberation and love to put into place the process by which all of you had the opportunity to think and speak about your experiences of and dreams for the ministry of your church. They ran the meetings, and they wrote the report, and they worked with congregation president Jane Rago to plan this afternoon’s congregational meeting. The board worked hard at supporting the Special Task Force and staying out of its way. Our office administration, Nancy Arteberry provided gracious and knowledgeable practical support for emails, blasts, scheduling, Zoom links and more. For your part, about half of you attended a cottage meeting or filled out a survey–and all of you have read or heard so many announcements from the Special Task Force that you could probably recite them verbatim. I’m grateful to all of these groups and individuals, to all of you, for this work that is love, the love that is this work. This cherished congregation is already blessed by all that has brought us to this day of decision.

I did my discernment, as you were doing yours over these past four plus months. Now, the hour has nearly come. Again, the question before you is, can we move into the unknown together, knowing what we know, not only of each other but of us together, knowing all that has brought us to this time and this place.

Let us commend whatever comes to the mystery and the wisdom that have brought us this far. Know that tomorrow I will be your minister. You will be my congregation. For a short time or a long time. And I will be blessed and grateful that it is so–all over again and for the very first time. Amen.

Story: What We'll Build by Oliver Jeffers

Readings: Belonging by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

The Way It Is by William Stafford