We embark on a new worship arc titled: The Futures We Incubate. The first sermon will be Growth Conditions.

 

The Futures We Incubate

A person will worship something, have no doubt about that,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.” When I read the opening paragraphs of former President Barack Obama’s reflection on his leadership, A Promised Land, I was struck by how his framing of justice, pluralism and world community mirrors the way Unitarian Universalists have articulated our theological vision over the past several decades. I thought about the Sunday School at the little UU congregation in Hawaii that Obama’s grandparents brought him to when he was growing up, and how our tradition has always had its greatest impact as an incubator for compelling ideas and courageous leaders.

In its Germanic roots, Worship comes from the idea of giving shape to worth. At our best, our worshipping helps to shape what our society is becoming. Time and again, movements have been incubated in our sanctuaries and meeting rooms. Transcendentalism transformed understandings of nature, inspired the first U.S. conservation efforts, and ignited Americans’ interest in world religions. Unitarian educators pioneered approaches to child-center learning and led movements to expand public education and develop the first kindergartens. Humanism made space for a moral center beyond both irrational superstition and superficial secularism. The loving God of Universalism by and large won out, pushing fire and brimstone visions of hell to the margins as mainline Christians and even many evangelicals embraced our bedrock heresy. What ideas and leaders are we incubating today? As the world turns through the most widespread transformation of society and consciousness since the reformation, how do we use our attention to nurture and grow both our personal and our common dreams? As a politics fueled by fear and anger, with worship of an authoritarian strongman at its center, takes hold of our government this month, what is it we will worship instead? What future will we set our souls’ hearths to incubate?

 

 

In Person Coffee Hour
Be our guest for Coffee in the Atrium before and after the service. Light lunch in the Social Hall after the service.