“REACHING IN, HELPING OUT”
A Sermon for West Seattle UU Fellowship
Rev. Peg Boyle Morgan
February 5, 2006

A story (adapted) told by Denny Davidoff, former Moderator of the UUA: (at the ordination of Daniel O'Connell in West Redding, CT.)

Let me tell you of a dream I once had.  I arrived early one morning in a city new to me.  It was cold, there were flurries of snow on the ground.  As I stepped from the train to the platform I noticed that the bagger man and red cap were warmly attired in heavy coats and gloves, but oddly enough, they wore no shoes.

My initial impulse was to ask the reason for this odd practice, but repressing it I passed into the station and inquired the way to the hotel.  My curiosity, however, was immediately enhanced by the discovery that no one in the station wore any shoes.  Boarding the streetcar, I saw that my fellow travelers were likewise barefoot, and upon arriving at the hotel I found the bellhop, the clerk and the habitués of the place were all devoid of shoes.  Unable to restrain myself longer, I asked the ingratiating manager what the practice meant.

“What practice?” said he.
“Why,” I said, pointing to his bare feet, “Why don't you wear any shoes in this town?”
“Ah” said he, “That is just it.  Why don't we?”
“But what is the matter?  Don't you believe in shoes?”
“Believe in shoes, my friend!  I should say we do.  That is the first article of our creed - shoes.  They are indispensable to the well-being of humanity.  Such chilblains, cuts, sores, suffering, as shoes prevent!  It is wonderful!”
“Well then, why don't you wear them?” I asked, bewildered.
“Ah,” said he, “That is just it.  Why don't we?”
Though considerably nonplussed, I checked in, secured my room and went directly to the coffee shop and deliberately sat down by an amiable-looking gentleman who likewise conformed to the conventions of his fellow citizens.  He wore no shoes.  Friendly enough, he suggested after we had eaten that we look about the city.  The first thing we noticed upon emerging from the hotel was a huge brick structure of impressive proportions.  To this he pointed with pride.
“You see that?” said he.  “That's one of our outstanding shoe manufacturing establishments.”
“A what?” I asked in amazement.  “You mean you make shoes there?”
“Well, not exactly,” said he a bit abashed, “we talk about making shoes there, and believe me, we have got one of the most brilliant young fellows you ever heard.  He talks most thrillingly and convincingly every week on this great subject of shoes.  He has a most persuasive and appealing way.  Just yesterday he moved the people profoundly with his exposition of the necessity of shoe-wearing.  Many broke down and wept.  It was wonderful.”
“But why don't they wear them?” said I, insistently.
“Ah,” said he, putting his hand upon my arm and looking wistfully into my eyes, “that is just it.  Why don't we?”
Just then, as we turned down a side street, I saw through a cellar window a cobbler actually making a pair of shoes.  Excusing myself from my friend, I burst into the little shop and asked the shoemaker how it happened that his shop was not overrun with customers.  Said he, “Nobody wants my shoes.  They just talk about them.”
“Give me what pairs you have already,” said I eagerly, and paid him thrice the amount he modestly asked.  Hurriedly, I returned to my friend and offered them to him, saying, “Here my friend, one of these pairs will surely fit you.  Take them, put them on.  They will save you untold suffering.”
But he looked embarrassed; in fact, he was well-nigh overcome with chagrin.
“Ah, thank you,” he said politely, “but you don't understand.  It just isn't being done.”
“But why don't you wear them?” said I dumbfounded.
“Ah,” said he, smiling, with his accustomed ingratiating touch of practical wisdom, “that is just it.  Why don't we?”

That’s when she woke up

Now in my study of dreams and being in a dream group for six years, I have to say that “if this were my dream” it would be about my knowing that I know what is good for me, but I don’t follow the prescriptions.  Do any of you have things like that in your life?  For me it’s about knowing I should eat low fat and low sugar, but…well you know how that is!

But what if this were the dream of the Fellowship?  What would it mean?  Here’s one scenario.  Our unison affirmation says “Love is the Doctrine of this Fellowship”  and our mission includes the words “caring community”—love and caring.  These words are good words, I think we all agree.  Good words, but are we acting on them?  Do we walk the talk?  Are there shoes on our feet?  Or do we think about the great truth in the words, but never incorporate them in our actions.  Are they like knowing that vegetables are better for me, but I really would like a hot fudge sundae, thank you very much!?  Do we slip on the shoes of love, do we walk the path of a caring community?

I actually would say yes.  I have always been impressed with the many caring acts of members helping members of this Fellowship.  Like the cabbie in the story earlier, I see you spontaneously being generous with each other.  For many here, it comes naturally to call someone who is hurting, to bring over a plate of food, to offer to take someone to the doctor.  We might even think, why do we need to organize caring?   For several reasons I think.   When the Fellowship was made up of 50 people, and less households, everyone knew how everyone was doing.  As we get bigger, now at 116, no one of us can always know when another of us needs help.

At any given time and for many reasons, you may be more or less known to the whole Fellowship.  There are plenty of people who are not on your grapevine, and what if they are having a tough time because they are sick and are not on anyone’s grapevine?  They might be overlooked as we all live our busy lives.  We don’t want our members to be overlooked.  We want to know that there is a smaller group within the Fellowship that is watching out for us.  Thus the creation and launching today of our Neighborhood Clusters.   I can well envision two cluster members meeting at social hour and saying, “We haven’t seen Sarah for a month, I wonder how she is?  It’s not like her to miss so many Sundays.  Let’s call her to make sure she is ok.”

Another reason to organize caring is that we each have different abilities and interests in the practical acts of caring.  It is enormously helpful to know who is willing to do what kind of care:  who could do emergency childcare when a mom has to go have day surgery, or who is happy to drive an elder to the doctor, or who has the talent to make an extra casserole while doing their own cooking.   If someone is in need, our neighborhood cluster leaders can call upon those who have volunteered, first in the immediate cluster, but also circling wider into other clusters to line up and schedule help.  We are still a whole Fellowship, and we will reach out across clusters to help, and those who are close friends in various clusters will still naturally help each other without anyone needing to orchestrate.

Now there is another reason to be organized.  When we hear that someone is sick, many of us want to know how we can help.  Maybe we aren’t close friends with that person, but we care and so we wonder what we can do.  We long for a clear opportunity as we ponder:  “I know he’s going through a hard time, but I just don’t know how to help.  Should I help?  Would I be intruding?  When should I help?  Will I be tripping over other people?”  The seed of wanting to help began to germinate on the first day we came here.

When any one of us first came to the Fellowship, we were looking for something.  Maybe we were looking for connection with other human beings who safely shared our values.  Maybe we were looking for meaning in life, and we heard that UUs offered a freedom to search and the support and interesting services to help in that search.  Maybe we didn’t know what we wanted, but our heart got us up one morning when our life was changing.  Or perhaps we had young children, and we knew that we wanted to give them a spiritual base with religious values, but we didn’t want anyone telling them to believe some fantastical story that would offend our power of reason.

For whatever reason, we had the nerve to approach this new community…. we came.  And as is usually the case here, people genuinely talked with us and were welcoming of us.  People here seemed to be pleased to meet us, but they didn’t pressure us into anything.  We stayed for a while and then, you know what happens?  We start getting to know the human beings here, we hear them talk and share their hearts in joys and sorrows, and their responses during the sermon sharing time, real human people reveal themselves, and we start realizing that it is safe here, and we begin opening our hearts and caring for these new friends, and we realize that if they are being so real, we can be real here too.  What a relief to come to a religious community where we are not asked to check our brains at the door, and we don’t have to wear masks.  And then regardless of our original reasons for coming to this Fellowship, caring about these wonderful authentic people we now know, begins to be a major reason to stay.

Being asked to help, meets our needs to be loving.  Then, --and here is the transformative part--when we help another, their lives …and our lives are changed.  Every card, and casserole and ride means to the receiver that they are not alone and means to the giver that life has a bit more meaning.

The bigger picture of this vision of our caring community is about the prophethood and the priesthood of all believers, a phrase used by James Luther Adams, the most significant UU Theologian of the 20th century.  By prophethood of all believers he means that truth is found in all of different people, in the diversity of our thought and in the multiplicity of our life experiences, and so we all are called to speak our truth—particularly in justice issues like the prophets of old; and by priesthood of all believers he meant that the power to heal and transform, the power to minister to each other is a natural power that we all share, like the story of the cabbie showed us.

In Unitarian Universalism, we are all anointed to bring about the nurture and healing of others.  Your one minister can not do it all, nor would that be as effective as the offering of the rich tapestry of all of your gifts of care to each other.  In our Fellowship I want us to talk about shared ministry, not just the services of the professional minister.  And not just talk, I want us to all slip on the shoes of shared ministry.  The launching of our neighborhood clusters today is about shared ministry.  Member to member care can be a powerful experience.  Some believe, I being one of them, that in our shared ministry, in the creative loving interchanges between us, deep spiritual experiences are found.  I look there for a sense of the holy, for an experience of a reality greater than our separate selves, a sense of a spiritual connecting energy which some call God.

How do our actions of reaching out to each other become holy?  Our acts of caring become holy by the intention and the consciousness of our outreach.  I believe it is in the consciousness of our interconnectedness.  Martin Buber, a great Jewish religious writer, gives us much to think about in his theology of relationship.  He was born in Vienna in the late 1800’s, and when his family broke up when he was just three years old he was sent to live with his grandfather.  He ended up living his whole childhood there.  His life experience taught him something about alienation.  He didn’t think he was the only one who experienced alienation.  He rather pondered that maybe we all feel it to one extent or another, and so he thought a lot about how we can deal with feeling separate, how we can meet our needs for a deeper connection with others, with life, with the mystery he called God.

He came to believe that we feel alienation when we relate to other people, to the earth and to God as if they are ITS to be manipulated, used and discarded.  This I-It relating makes our connection with life shallow.   We see this It relationship when our cities and counties honor profits over protecting wildlife and healthy streams.  We see this It relationship when we send people off to fight a war for false pretenses.   And we see this It relationship when we only approach a person when we want something from them.

Buber would have approved of our efforts to launch our Neighborhood clusters, for our goal is to help us connect with those who live close by, and to connect in ways that allow us to meet at the level of our mutual humanity, in ways that will allow each other to safely ask for help, to give help, and to receive help; in ways that feel safe and free from judgment and embarrassment.    Buber would call such a mutually respectful relationship an I-Thou relationship.  We know that life offers us each our turn for needing help. Rather than the narcissistic approach of the I-it relationship, we focus on the needs of another for food, for a ride, or for a visit.    This is where Buber sees alienation drop away.  If someone is hurting, we engage in an I-Thou relationship when we lend a hand, when we listen to them, when we try to understand their experience and the meaning of their experience.  We listen not to fix their problem, not to give advice, but to provide the power of just being with.
We enter into an I-Thou relationship when we suspend our opinions and judgments, and allow ourselves to be so open that we are changed by what our friend tells us they are experiencing; and the deeper and more authentic our sharing, the more likely we are to plumb to the level of our common human experience.

We are engaged in an I-Thou holy helping when we recognize the strengths of the person we are helping, and we see what we are doing as a gesture of love that adds to their strength. 
So it is my hope for our congregation, that we deepen our spiritual relationships with each other by such a perspective;  t hat our new neighborhood cluster ministry will help us to quadruple our acts of caring and our sense of being known and cared about.

The first step to bring this ministry to life is to gather in circles of each cluster, to meet with those who live closest to us.  At the request of our Caring Committee, we will do that today, in lieu of our normal feedback sharing time.  In a few moments, Susan Castelazo, who has worked long and hard to bring this program about, will tell us how we will quickly move into our neighborhood cluster groups. 

But for now, I invite us to commit to deepen our beloved community by reaching into our community and helping out when one of us needs support.  In so doing the receiver is changed.  The helper is changed, and our community grows not just in size but in depth.  So may it be.

Amen