Sermons by Reverend Don Beaudreault
TO WALK OUR TALK
Rev. Don Beaudreault
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
March 20, 2005
OPENING READING: "Lead me from death to life."
Lead me from death to life,
from falsehood to truth.
Lead me from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Lead me from hate to love,
from war to peace.
Let peace fill our hearts,
our world, our universe.Project Ploughshares
MEDITATION READING: "Ralph Waldo Emerson."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay on "Society and Solitude," spoke of the need both to cultivate one's own spirit and to help build a better world.We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other.These wonderful horses need to be driven by fine hands in order to keep them an effective team."
Some years ago, then President of Brandeis University, Abram L. Sachar, spoke out against the "good people" of every community who are indifferent, slothful, oversensitive, cynical and tired liberals, "refugees from responsibility" - who abdicated their social responsibility. He categorized them as follows:
GENUS CYNICUM: Cynics who despaired of changing the world.
GENUS TRANQUILLO-RECTUM: those with an overwhelming desire to seek "peace of mind."
GENUS DEJECTUM: idealists who soon are frustrated as they get "dirty hands" from trying to reform society.
GENUS VITUPEROSUM: they speak much about social injustice yet are really belittlers who sit in the seats of scorners doing nothing.
He paid high tribute to those with real moral stamina in every community who hold the line, knowing the most honorable objective of any society is not ease by adequacy, not serenity but fulfillment.
How responsible are we for the world when our personal and family lives consume so much of our time and energy? How do we determine the limits of our responsibility?
from The Prophetic Imperative by Richard Gilbert
PRESENTATION: "To Walk Our Talk"
As we celebrate Social Concerns Sunday today, we will hear three other speakers who have been activists in the name of Unitarian Universalism. Each has walked her talk, inspired by our historic movement to express her individual commitment, along with other people both in our congregation, throughout the UU family, and in the larger community.
Truly, the implication behind that phrase "To Walk Our Talk" (articulated from the African American struggle in our country) is that those who do so are attempting to put words into action, creeds (although we UUs really don't have those) into deeds, or said another way: principles into projects.
Many of us would not have accepted membership or kinship into this church if there merely had been the enunciation of abstract theories concerning theological ideas; or a sweet sense of social connection; or emotional solace; or cerebral enlightenment.
We might very well get all these from our church experience. And we might very well relish the dialogue with those here who see things theologically, philosophically, politically - even ethically - through a different prism than the one we are using.
But many of us in the UU movement also need a frequent dose of reality concerning the world we live in: that although it is a beautiful world, it can also be a very ugly one that needs our help - in whatever good and useful way we can provide that assistance - in helping to ease the sorrow, the pain, the poverty, the abuse, the injustice that exists.
Years ago when I was first a Unitarian Universalist minister, there was a memorable fellow in the congregation I was serving who was one of those "flora and fauna" types. You know, someone who loves foraging through forests, bayous, swamps (our church was in New Orleans and as close to swamps as you would want to be). And every Sunday, he would donate some flower or leaf or twig or feather as part of his contribution in making the front of the sanctuary more in tune with God's green acre. And every Sunday he would announce during "Joys and Concerns" some enthralling, satori experience he had had with said green acre during the past week - an experience that usually had been accompanied by one of his many female admirers.
This segment of the Order of Service became known as "A Spot of Beauty." And no matter what had happened of horrific note during the week that had just ended, all of us could be assured that "A Spot of Beauty" would brighten up our lives at least for a brief moment.
That's how I feel about those people who are the social activists of this congregation, and indeed, of the world. They are those who bring a little bit of beauty to an oft-times ugly word.
And although what they do might seem ever so insignificant in the larger scheme of things, it really isn't. Each small act that speaks of charity and respect for others, is a mammoth act, and is, indeed, symbolic of other similar acts. And if you add all the small acts together - what a significant attempt to bring love back into the world!
Unitarian Universalism has historically championed this process, believing in the possibility of goodness and justice in the world; believing that to ignore reality and do nothing to make the world a better place; or to accept a negative reality and be overwhelmed with cynicism and do nothing, is not the road we must travel.
So despite the frustration that comes with attempts to be do-gooders in the world, to walk our talk, let us forever hold up the belief so well articulated by one of the parents of Universalism in the United States, the Rev. John Murray who, speaking in the theistic language of his day 200 years ago said:
Go out into the highways and by-ways. Give the people something of your new vision. You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not hell, but hope and courage; preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.
CLOSING WORDS: "Take courage friends."
Take courage friends.
The way is often hard, the path is never clear,
And the stakes are very high.
Take courage.
For deep down, there is another truth:
you are not alone.Wayne B. Arnason