With Hearts and Heads and Hands

Rev. Jeffrey Symynkywicz, February 14, 2010

Sandburg said

that “nothing happens unless first a dream”.

And dreams don’t happen

unless they’re first ideas in somebody’s head.

The philosophers can worry about

whether consciousness precedes being,

or whether it’s the other way around.

Most of us are too busy

for such detached speculation.

But we do know

that long ago

(about 265 years or so ago)

there was that idea that brought this church to be:

the idea that God was Love,

and nothing else—

and that if God was Love

then God wins, Love wins,

in the end,

and that sooner or later

all were saved

and would find their way—

kicking and screaming perhaps—

 to heaven.

So, even though we don’t talk about

Universal Salvation

very much any more;

and even though

we really don’t talk about Heaven

all that often

(and though some of us,

don’t even talk about God for that matter)—

We do know Love;

Love abides here

(or, as another pen has put it:

“Love is the doctrine of this Church”).

Love is our Big Idea.

Deep at the core of this church’s essence,

deep at the soul of its being

there lie these matters, primarily, of the heart.

So, even though we are

(in the main)

a rather bright group--

intellectually sound, for sure—

who can dissect and discuss and dissent

with the best of them,

and even though there lie at our foundations

some Big Ideas-- Unitary and Universal—

if it wasn’t for what our beating hearts tell us,

I don’t think we’d be here

still.

Still,

the very thought of creating churches,

and supporting them

flies in Reason’s face;

it’s not the way to win life’s race

in this age of buying and spending

and dollars and cents.

In this age of faster, higher, more intense

it makes no sense (in society’s terms)

to pledge our loyalty

(not to mention to write a check)

to something that moves so slowly,

so deliberately,

that looks back as often as it looks forward,

and won’t move an inch

till the spirits of the ancestors are appeased

(as well as the spirits of us,

those children and grandchildren who have come since).

As the world sees it,

churches very often make no sense

(let alone one as Wide as the Universe

which insists on drawing the circle of its Love

wider and wider still)

In the viewpoint of the world,

its eyes on the scale,

weighing and measuring

(those who don’t belong);

its fingers on the calculator,

adding and subtracting

(those who don’t fit in)

Churches are simply absurd

Especially those

(like ours)

that don’t have a particular axe to grind,

or a particular crusade to mobilize about,

or even a well-honed list

of who’s saved and who’s not.  

It makes no sense

from a purely worldly viewpoint

to give our time

and pledge our cash

for goals which… ultimately… won’t be reached,

and kingdoms which will never… in this world… be built,

and aspirations and ideals

which seek nothing less that

to Unite the whole Universe in its cause

(no less than that!)

But, bright as we are,

 it is not a matter of the mind

that keeps us here.

And churches (even this one)

are of the Spirit.

And the closest we come to the Spirit

in these daily lives of ours

is by listening to the deepest calling

of our Hearts.

We have gathered in this church this morning

(as on the 12,200 Sundays before)

[give or take a couple dozen or so]

because our hearts command us to be here:

when we could be at home

watching Meet the Press,

or old  Three Stooges reruns;

or listening to Bach

or Bacharach

or even Bruce;

or cleaning the house,

or balancing the checkbook;

or marching for peace;

or writing a letter;

or cleaning out our email inbox

or even (perish the thought) ssleeping—

We could be doing any of these

Very Important Things,

but our hearts have bid us to come here/p>

and gather again, together,

as a Church:

as this chronically small, sometimes struggling,

seemingly insignificant,

not very powerful,

not even always rational,

Blessed Community of Memory and Hope.

Our hearts have called us

out of our individual

Very Important Cocoons,

because if we stay there too long,

alone,

cocoons have this way of becoming

well-appointed, comfortable, numb

Very Important Tombs

instead.

If we listen to our hearts,

and support our church,

then this church has this way

of supporting us in return.

It has this way of working

miracles of community,

and reminding us

that we are, in essence,

spiritual beings learning what it means to be human;

that we are butterflies searching for the sun,

and not just moths

being lured toward the flame

of the workaday lives we lead.

When we listen, deep inside,

to what our hearts tell us,

and commit to that,

then our hands have this way of engaging, too:

and we reach into our pockets,

and support our church;

and we reach out to one another

aand with open arms

to hold and help and heal;

and we reach out to the world

and draw the circle wider still,/p>

and carry the Love of God

(why we’re here)

everywhere we go

(and not just on Sundays).

We build anew this fragile community

of dollars and of dreams.

We build anew this holy household

of healing, helping,

and just a touch of heresy.

Then it is that we return to that Big Idea

of which our Founders dreamed

 so many years ago.

And we didn’t just dream their dream,

We Made It So.

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