Prelude “For What It’s Worth,” By Buffalo Springfield

 

Opening Words adapted from the words of J.D. Stillwater

“Let us remember that all we know is just one small piece of reality, a tiny slice shaped by our limited perceptions and biases. Only when our knowledge is combined with uncountable others does Truth emerge. May we remember this, and invite others’ perspectives, and behave accordingly.”

 

Chalice Lighting Words by Heraclitus

“Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for the truth, be ready for the unexpected. Change alone is unchanging. The same road goes both up and down. The beginning of a circle is also its end. Not I, but the world, says it: all is one. And yet everything comes in season.”

Our Covenant

Love is the Spirit of this Church,

And Service is its Law. This is our Covenant:

To Dwell Together in Peace,

To Seek the Truth in Love,

And to Help One Another.

 

Opening Hymn #145 As Tranquil Streams

 

Time for All  Ages

 

Prayer or Meditation By Kristin Grassel Schmidt [Rev. Jennie] 

 

In such times as these it can be hard to find where our gratitude,

where our joy, where our serenity might have fled.

And yet nurturing these three—gratitude, joy, and serenity—is the most powerful resistance we have against terror.

 

So this morning, we choose to see the goodness in a world fraught also by evil,

we refuse to allow anger and fear to barricade themselves within us,

and we make time and space in our lives and in our hearts to count our blessings and give thanks.

 

We give thanks for the joy of finding and abiding with this faith community,

for kindnesses, big and small, when we least expect them,

for the coming of the winter holidays,

and for the endless opportunities life gives us to share our blessings, our wealth, our skills and passions with the world…

 

Fill our hearts with a thirst for justice,

a hunger for righteousness,

and help us be those in, with, and through whom

our world is transformed

into the one we hope and pray and dream for.

These and all things we pray for love’s sake. Amen.

 

 

Offering and Offertory “Bring Me to Life,” by Evanescence

 

First Reading “For Once, Then, Something,” by Robert Frost (Rev. Jennie)

 

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs

always wrong to the light, so never seeing

deeper down in the well than where the water

gives me back in a shining surface picture

me, myself, in the summer heaven, godlike,

looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.

 

Once, when trying, with chin against a well-curb,

I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,

through the picture, a something white, uncertain,

something more of the depths— and then I lost it.

Water came to rebuke the too clear water.

One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple

shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,

blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?

Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

 

Second Reading “A Time to Talk,” by Robert Frost [Sherry]

 

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

 

Sermon “The Wisdom to Know the Difference” (Inspired by Reinhold Niebuhr’s, “Serenity Prayer”) [Rev. Jennie]

 

This week did not turn out the way I had thought it would. And that’s upsetting. But I do not mind admitting either of those things. Before we knew what the results of the Presidential election would be, I decided that this morning I would preach about the misinformation that, whatever the results, would still be in need of correction or repair, especially since our Soul Matters spiritual theme for this month is, repair. There is much work ahead of us in the struggle to discern what is true, and what is of lasting worth. The method I go to most frequently for help in that struggle is from one of my favorite authors: Canadian novelist, Louise Penny. Her novels are set in Quebec and feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. When Armand was a young recruit, his mentor told him that there are four sentences that lead to wisdom. Armand took this guidance well to heart and he passes it along to all of the younger people he mentors or trains. Those four sentences that lead to wisdom are: “I’m sorry. I was wrong.

I don’t know. [and] I need help.” So I do not mind saying that I am sorry that I was wrong about how the election would turn out, and that our communities feel at a loss for what we should do next, and that all of us, myself included, are going to need help from many others in processing our big emotions, healing some broken relationships, and charting a way forward. The result of the election is upsetting all around because it was, in fact, an upset. An upset is “an unexpected result, especially in a competition.” People who wanted Kamala Harris to win are upset that Donald Trump won. And people who wanted Donald Trump to win are upset about how loud and strong and vocal and visible and popular the Democratic Party’s liberal causes and values currently are. That high conflict is our life in a country that is so sharply divided and polarized. And it will be our life for the foreseeable future. It has also been what life has been like in many other countries in this new millennium. So looking to how other countries have moved through similar political upsets could be helpful to us. But in order to meet our more immediate needs and salve our hurting spirits, my answer has always been and will always be: Come to the church, come to the church, keep coming to church– for our congregation is a calm center in the midst of surrounding chaos. And that is the definition of “Serenity:” the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.

 

This week, as I did last week, I lift up for you, “The Serenity Prayer,” as it was originally written by Reinhold Niebuhr in 1943. He, too, and his loved-ones and country-folk were in a time of political upheaval and societal injustices. For a small Protestant congregation in New England that summer he wrote:

 

God, give us grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

 

Not very long after he wrote it, it spread like soft rain on parched land through the United States, and all around the world, lending comfort and reassurance to millions of people. Reinhold Niebuhr never made any money from the Serenity Prayer; he had no wish to copyright it. “Why would I? [he felt] It was a prayer, written to be helpful to people.” He did give permission to Alcoholics Anonymous, which was small and only just beginning at that time, to use it and adapt it. Their version is in the first person instead. And they took out the word, “grace.” Yet I still find it useful to remind myself of it several times a year. It reads:

 

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.”

 

It is useful to me at times when I feel I am figuratively banging my head against a wall. It nudges us to redirect our attention and energies to things we can do something about. As I mentioned last Sunday, Reinhold Niebuhr’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, wrote a lovely book about her father and his work as an activist, a pastor, a theologian, and a teacher. It’s called, “The Serenity Prayer - Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War.” In it, she saw a real difference between the version used by AA and her father’s values. The AA version says, “The courage to change the things I can.” Her father’s version says, “The courage to change the things which should be changed.” Her father believed that our efforts to eradicate injustice should not be limited to only what we think we are able to do. In our efforts to leave a better world for those who come after us, we should take a broader and longer view than that. There are things we cannot change in the short term all on our own. Yet they still should be changed for future generations. Therefore we should join with others, now, even if we will not see the results of our efforts in our lifetime.

 

…but the wisdom to discern the difference between what we cannot change and what should be changed–  That’s the really challenging part, isn’t it?  –especially in this time when so many people are uninformed, or misinformed, or, worst of all, dis-informed. The word, “disinformation” has actually been in use for decades. It is the worst of the three because it is the intentional spreading of false information, often covertly (as by the planting of rumors), in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth. A large part of why the aftermath of the election is so emotionally painful is because there has been so much misinformation and disinformation. The only solution is that we cannot assume that when we, individually, see a certain source of information, that it is true. We must talk with other people, many other people, in our discerning of what is true and of lasting worth.

The Serenity Prayer, itself, has been the subject of world-wide misattribution. The reason it went around the world is that Reinhold Niebuhr, in addition to giving it to AA, gave it to a neighbor of his who had heard it on that summer Sunday morning. Harold Robbins was compiling prayers for Army chaplains who were in combat, including in Germany. With Niebuhr’s permission, Dean Robbins included the prayer in, “The Book of Prayers and Services for the Armed Services, Prepared by the Commission on Worship of the FCCC.” The prayer began to comfort and reassure people internationally. But misattribution began to spread. In his article in the Yale Alumni magazine, Fred R. Shapiro wrote:

 

“Over the years, many wild guesses have been made about the provenance of the Serenity Prayer. Those to whom the prayer has been credited include—to name only the more common attributions—Aristotle, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine, Boethius, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Baruch Spinoza, Oliver J. Hart, various World War II military leaders, and anonymous sources going back to the ancient Egyptians. [He goes on to say] Another often-cited creation theory ascribes the prayer to an eighteenth-century German theologian, Friedrich Oetinger. This claim has been shown to be a double misunderstanding. In the 1950s, a professor at the University of Kiel, Theodor Wilhelm, used the prayer in a book of his. He published the book under the pseudonym Friedrich Oetinger, causing the confusion with the earlier Oetinger.” [end of quote]

 

Basically, because of what Theodor Wilhelm did, Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer was used, by German individuals and institutions, widely and proudly, as if it were a German prayer. Wilhelm knew better, yet did little to correct the record. This is a grave offense to Reinhold Niebuhr and his life’s work, which was to speak out against all that was wrong with Germany in his lifetime, often at the risk of his life. And it was very upsetting to his daughter, Elisabeth. She wrote:

 

“Wilhelm never answered the question of how or when he finally learned that, yes, indeed, the author was Reinhold Niebuhr, but he seemed to resist the idea. In an essay published in 1976, doing his lame best to account for the prayer’s postwar history in Germany, he got most of the facts wrong and then suggested, sleazily, that Niebuhr, ‘even if he is not the composer of the text, is the one who introduced it to the wider American public.’ [She goes on to say] My distaste for this misappropriation of a beautiful prayer is stronger than my father would have approved of, I imagine. But I can’t help it, perhaps because it makes me so sad: the slippery evasions of this sorry story are in such striking contrast to the Serenity Prayer itself and to the honorable way it found its public everywhere else.”

Discerning what a piece of wisdom’s original source is, and lifting up what is true and of lasting worth, are actually in our religious history as Unitarian Universalists. Any of you who have attended one of the orientations that our Welcome and Membership committee and I have led have heard me start by saying that Unitarian Universalists have our roots in the Protestant Reformation. And then I ask the question: “What great world invention made the Protestant Reformation possible?” At least one person always answers: “The Printing Press.” “Yes! [I always exclaim excitedly] Hurray for the Printing Press!” The Protestant Reformation was all about religious people’s search for truth, in the midst of the ways that what the Catholic Church was telling them was not scripturally accurate.

My favorite martyr from our UU history technically might not have called himself a Unitarian. But our flaming chalice symbol is in honor of him.  His name was Jan Hus, and he was born in 1371, in what is now the Czech Republic.  He became a priest; that was at the very first beginnings of the Protestant Reformation.  He believed that lay people should be able to read the Hebrew and Christian scriptures for themselves, and interpret them for themselves.  And so he translated those scriptures into Czech so his countrymen could read them in their native language.  He also believed that the people had the right, and the ability, to lead worship services themselves, in their homes, without even having a clergyperson present, including to facilitate communion for themselves.  So he believed in “the cup to the people” or “the chalice to the people.”  For these beliefs, he was summoned before the Council of Constance, and found guilty of heresy.  On July 6, 1415, he was burned at the stake.  Martin Luther later argued that Jan Hus had been unjustly condemned, and the question of the authority of Popes and Councils was brought to the forefront of theological debate.  Our flaming chalice burns to remind us that Jan Hus lived and died in advocacy of religious freedom.

 

Well, this morning is not only the Sunday after Election Day. It is also the birthday of Martin Luther. I learned of this from Garrison Keillor’s, “The Writer’s Almanac.” On November 10th of last year, he wrote:

“Today is the birthday of Martin Luther (1483), the German theologian who set in motion the Protestant Reformation in 16th-century Europe and forever changed Christianity. In response to what he saw as the excesses of Pope Leo X and the Church, such as forgiving penance for sins in exchange for monetary donations, he wrote a screed he called ‘Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.’ On October 31, 1517, after Luther nailed what is now called ‘95 Theses’ to the doors of the University of Wittenberg’s chapel, people began to vocally question the actions of the Pope. Aided by the printing press, copies of the ‘95 Theses’ spread throughout Germany within two weeks and throughout Europe within two months. Out of the upheaval, the Lutheran Church was eventually born. The pope demanded that Luther retract his statements, but Luther refused, saying: ‘Unless I am convinced by people from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I cannot and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen!’ He was excommunicated in 1521… [Keillor goes on to say] Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible in German vernacular instead of Latin made it more accessible to the common man, which had a profound impact on the Church and on German culture.”

 

In this era of the absence of factual information, and of the presence of misinformation and of disinformation, it is hard to know where to start the work of correction and repair. Yet as Unitarian Universalists, the search for truth, the publishing of it and debating it openly, and the proclaiming of it publicly, even at grave risk to oneself, is our religious inheritance. Let us keep that precious inheritance in our minds and hearts every time we gather in our church, and in every setting outside of our church walls made sacred by our carrying our liberal values there. Let us enter those setting and create more of those settings listening for others who say, “I’m sorry; I was wrong; I don’t know; and I need help.” And let us each be guided by those humble searches for truth, ourselves. Thereby will we, over time, receive: the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

 

Closing Hymn #331 Life is the Greatest Gift of All

 

Chalice Extinguishing by the Rev. Maureen Killoran

 

“We extinguish this chalice flame,

daring to carry forward the vision of this free faith,

that freedom, reason and justice

will one day prevail in this nation and across the earth.”

 

Postlude “I’ll Be Your Shelter” by Taylor Dayne

 

Benediction [from Rev. Jennie’s Installation] [Rev. Jennie]

 

“Helen Keller wrote, ‘Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of humanity as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.’ [Helen Keller said.] We do not know what the future holds. We never did know. And current events in our nation and our world which are alarming have heightened our awareness that there are turbulent times ahead.

Yet we do know that when we journey together, we are buoyed by satisfying work, and by laughter, and by high ideals, and especially by song. Knowing this, let us go forth attentively assisting those among us who are faltering, and accepting help ourselves when we are in need of strengthening. Knowing this, let us go forth buoyantly and bravely. And let us put our trust in That Greater Love which will never fail us— Let us go forth together on what will surely be a daring adventure indeed.”  [Go in peace.]