Love- You Keep Using That Word…
First Unitarian Church of Alton
February, 2016
**In fall of 2015, First Unitarian Church of Alton experimented with having intergenerational worship services weekly. During this time, I began preaching the sermon in two parts as a way to make the service more accessible to younger folks. While we discontinued the intergenerational services, the congregation liked the practice of split sermons. This is one such sermon. You can see the script for this sermon HERE.**
Part 1:
Love. What a loaded word! Used to describe everything for a love of the infinite to the love of a child to the love of a grilled cheese sandwich. Too often used to sell things, I have cringed frequently at the commercial that says, “Love- it’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.” As if a car can be made up of love. Just that love for family and live was co-opted to sell a car. After watching it the other day, I couldn’t help but think of the movie The Princess Bride where the great Vicini keeps shouting “inconceivable.” At some point Mandy Petinkins’ character says, “you keep using that word- I do not think it means what you think it means!”
I think we have lost the connection to the word love and what it can mean for our lives- particularly as a society. What message are we giving to each other and to our children when love becomes a commercial. Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker shares the distance with which we hold the sacred- that worthy of our love- in our society today:
“Our society is currently guiede by a worldview that is insufficiently grounded in reverence. Religiously, it is a worldview that regards the earth itself as trash—a planet that God is soon going to discard in a plan to wipe this world away and create a new one. Economically, the dominant worldview regards human beings as self-interested individuals , motivated only by their personal desire to consume. And scientifically, it sees existence as devoid of value, atomistic, disconnected, and mechanistic. Such inadequate views are tearing our world to tatters by lack of regard for the communal character of live.
Holy regard for knowledge is the heart of our religious faith.”
That holy regard is a form of love that invites us to use reason alongside heartfulness. The six sources of our faith are that holy regard lived into our daily lives. We recognize that wisdom comes from many sources- not just one book or one god. As Rev. Forest Church put it, we are one church with many windows- each window showing a bit of the light of the world and each with a wisdom of the universe that we can share.
Three of those sources invite us into relationship with the various world religions and spiritual paths. One common thread in each of them is that love is a practice. It is something that we must work at. It is not quantifiable. There is no checklist for compassion or reverence or passion or grace or any of the many words that describe love. It is a practice. Something that we call ourselves into – particularly when it is hard to do.
Unitarian Universalism is founded in a Christian tradition that in the 1600s to 1800s was in a deep debate over the nature of humanity. The growing tradition that would become the Great Awakening said that humanity was naturally depraved and that there was nothing we could do about it except give our lives to God. We hear that message regularly in our society even today.
Both Unitarians and Universalists stood against this by daring to suggest that God had given us holiness for us to tend. We have a choice to make- we can bury that light under a bushel or we can tend it and care for it. Universalists understood this as the divine love with in each and everyone of us. That has lived on in our tradition even as we welcomed atheists, humanists, pagans, muslims, jews, and many other faith traditions into our own. It has lived on in the form of- we all can choose love or choose depravity.
In his book, The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness: Preparing to Practice Rabbi Rami Shapiro holds that at the heart of any practice of lovingkindess is this question: “Will you engage this moment with kindness or with cruelty, with love or with fear, with generosity or scarcity, with a joyous heart or an embittered one?”
I ask you, what will you choose?
Part 2:
Love is risky. We don’t always choose. Sometimes it is safer to be angry or distant or to not care or to place our love into things or…or…or… We humans have a thousand ways to become disconnected and much of it is sold to us a philosophy, economy, or social norms. Some of us even engage in a love tit for tat- where there is some scale of loving that can be measured and all love is judged by it.
Yet, as our intergenerational story reminds us- live is not something we can count or add up. There is no loving one person more than another- there is only loving different people in different ways for different things. What we often confuse as some quantitative aspect of love is simply what Meg Barnhouse points out- “When you pay attention to an object, you invest it with energy and love, and you increase its ability to affect you.” In other words, you get back what you give- and the more you give the riskier it becomes.
Love is a complicated word with numerous synonyms and forms of expression. Our Universalist ancestors remind us that God- or the ultimate in our lives- has at its core- love. We see this love when we cry at the beauty of a sunset or a sleeping pet or amazing child. We feel this love when we walk carefully on sacred ground or hold softly the hand of a dying friend or companion or notice our own beauty and wonder. Love is within us and all around us, but we have to be open to see it. That requires practice.
As we close today, I invite you to participate in a practice of lovingkindness described in Rabbi Shapiro’s book. I invite you to get comfortable in your seat. If it helps you to focus, close your eyes. Take some deep breaths.
((Sermon concludes with a spiritual practice that is copyrighted. Please contact Rev. Wolfe for details, if needed.))
Part 1:
Love. What a loaded word! Used to describe everything for a love of the infinite to the love of a child to the love of a grilled cheese sandwich. Too often used to sell things, I have cringed frequently at the commercial that says, “Love- it’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.” As if a car can be made up of love. Just that love for family and live was co-opted to sell a car. After watching it the other day, I couldn’t help but think of the movie The Princess Bride where the great Vicini keeps shouting “inconceivable.” At some point Mandy Petinkins’ character says, “you keep using that word- I do not think it means what you think it means!”
I think we have lost the connection to the word love and what it can mean for our lives- particularly as a society. What message are we giving to each other and to our children when love becomes a commercial. Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker shares the distance with which we hold the sacred- that worthy of our love- in our society today:
“Our society is currently guiede by a worldview that is insufficiently grounded in reverence. Religiously, it is a worldview that regards the earth itself as trash—a planet that God is soon going to discard in a plan to wipe this world away and create a new one. Economically, the dominant worldview regards human beings as self-interested individuals , motivated only by their personal desire to consume. And scientifically, it sees existence as devoid of value, atomistic, disconnected, and mechanistic. Such inadequate views are tearing our world to tatters by lack of regard for the communal character of live.
Holy regard for knowledge is the heart of our religious faith.”
That holy regard is a form of love that invites us to use reason alongside heartfulness. The six sources of our faith are that holy regard lived into our daily lives. We recognize that wisdom comes from many sources- not just one book or one god. As Rev. Forest Church put it, we are one church with many windows- each window showing a bit of the light of the world and each with a wisdom of the universe that we can share.
Three of those sources invite us into relationship with the various world religions and spiritual paths. One common thread in each of them is that love is a practice. It is something that we must work at. It is not quantifiable. There is no checklist for compassion or reverence or passion or grace or any of the many words that describe love. It is a practice. Something that we call ourselves into – particularly when it is hard to do.
Unitarian Universalism is founded in a Christian tradition that in the 1600s to 1800s was in a deep debate over the nature of humanity. The growing tradition that would become the Great Awakening said that humanity was naturally depraved and that there was nothing we could do about it except give our lives to God. We hear that message regularly in our society even today.
Both Unitarians and Universalists stood against this by daring to suggest that God had given us holiness for us to tend. We have a choice to make- we can bury that light under a bushel or we can tend it and care for it. Universalists understood this as the divine love with in each and everyone of us. That has lived on in our tradition even as we welcomed atheists, humanists, pagans, muslims, jews, and many other faith traditions into our own. It has lived on in the form of- we all can choose love or choose depravity.
In his book, The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness: Preparing to Practice Rabbi Rami Shapiro holds that at the heart of any practice of lovingkindess is this question: “Will you engage this moment with kindness or with cruelty, with love or with fear, with generosity or scarcity, with a joyous heart or an embittered one?”
I ask you, what will you choose?
Part 2:
Love is risky. We don’t always choose. Sometimes it is safer to be angry or distant or to not care or to place our love into things or…or…or… We humans have a thousand ways to become disconnected and much of it is sold to us a philosophy, economy, or social norms. Some of us even engage in a love tit for tat- where there is some scale of loving that can be measured and all love is judged by it.
Yet, as our intergenerational story reminds us- live is not something we can count or add up. There is no loving one person more than another- there is only loving different people in different ways for different things. What we often confuse as some quantitative aspect of love is simply what Meg Barnhouse points out- “When you pay attention to an object, you invest it with energy and love, and you increase its ability to affect you.” In other words, you get back what you give- and the more you give the riskier it becomes.
Love is a complicated word with numerous synonyms and forms of expression. Our Universalist ancestors remind us that God- or the ultimate in our lives- has at its core- love. We see this love when we cry at the beauty of a sunset or a sleeping pet or amazing child. We feel this love when we walk carefully on sacred ground or hold softly the hand of a dying friend or companion or notice our own beauty and wonder. Love is within us and all around us, but we have to be open to see it. That requires practice.
As we close today, I invite you to participate in a practice of lovingkindness described in Rabbi Shapiro’s book. I invite you to get comfortable in your seat. If it helps you to focus, close your eyes. Take some deep breaths.
((Sermon concludes with a spiritual practice that is copyrighted. Please contact Rev. Wolfe for details, if needed.))