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.

I was spending a few days with my friend Ruth when Ruth’s cousin came by for the afternoon with her kids and one of her daughter’s friends.

In our most recent Starting Point class someone asked me how it was I came to be a Unitarian Universalist minister. I gave my usual answer–that having been raised by a schoolteacher mom and a social worker dad, the chances I would end up a helping professional were great, and that having also been raised in the Unitarian Universalist church by those same parents who brought our family to church more Sundays than not, and who were active volunteers at church in a variety of roles, the chances that that profession would be Unitarian Universalist ministry were also great.

When I read or hear or speak those words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., about the inescapable network of mutuality, I often think about Jesus saying, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’ Or sometimes the less eloquent adage “what goes around comes around.”

The Buy Nothing Facebook group I belong to mandates that all posts begin with either the word “gift”’ or the word “wish”. If you want to give something away you label it gift. If you’re looking for something, you label it wish.

“All kinds of people, round that table.”

And one of them is you. One of them is me. One of them is each of us. So I’m channeling my inner flight attendant this morning, to urge you to Be sure to secure your own [oxygen] mask before assisting others.

When my dad was nominated to join the board at our family Unitarian Universalist church he wrote to following in the church newsletter:

"I believe that my employment…[has] developed the two assets I can bring to the Board of Trustees: perspective and positive outlook on life. Corrections, when approached as a helping profession, teaches much about good and evil inherent in all individuals and institutions, and about their ability to grow."

There is a bit of spiritual advice that is attributed to St. Francis de Sales: everyone should pray for half an hour a day, unless they are reeaallyy busy. In that case they should pray for an hour a day. It is also said that Martin Luther prayed two hours a day unless he was too busy; then he prayed three hours a day.

Why do you come to church? Why do you connect with Zoom and put up with the frustrating glitches that our dedicated A/V team works hard to prevent and troubleshoot but that occasionally disrupt your experience anyway? Why do you get dressed and leave your house and hunt for parking spaces?

Congregational ministers, in my experience, spend a lot of time talking about how to attract and keep members. Way more time than we’d like to spend on that topic–for many reasons, both valid and questionable, all a subject for another sermon. Today I mention it only to say that in recent years one of the bits of wisdom we pass around in those conversations–with anecdotes from personal experience, or hearsay, or data points from organizations that study church growth–is that people come to faith communities looking for ways to be of service to the world.

If only it could be. Picnics and dances forever. Or, in the case of a church, worship and potlucks, maybe a parade or ice cream social now and then, and a monthly game night. And in a month devoted to Delight–flowers, a game night for grown ups, and a game Sunday up in RE.

So, in my head all week I’ve been calling this today’s sermon Beyond Rebellion, but on Friday, when I went to create the Facebook post, I discovered that the title I put in the newsletter was A Preference for Resistance. That semantic stumbling block pretty much characterizes my prep for today!

When the finance committee settled on this year’s stewardship drive theme just over a week ago, I didn’t hide the fact that I didn’t much like that theme. But I’m new here, and we were short of time, so I bowed to the decision of the group. I may have grumbled a bit on my way home from church that evening, but by morning I knew the committee had given me a gift: I’ve never had an opportunity to preach about enriched uranium before. More on that later.

As an intern minister thirty years ago I taught a course of the old adult RE curriculum Building Your Own Theology. During one session or another, I said with all the convocation and naivete of a new minister and a life-long Unitarian Universalist, “ we don’t have to accept narrow, fundamentalist definitions that deprive us of rich religious language.