When we have New Member Sunday it reminds me of what we as UCG are doing here and the whys, whens, and hows, the depths and heights of how we best celebrate and survive and serve–how we must get through the times of twilight and dawning, together.

I’m thankful for young people in community, because it seems, so often that they ask prophetic questions of their elders, and as you know, right now, they are shining the light of truth on the shadows of greed and violence buried deep inside our culture’s death-dealing idolatry of guns. Teenagers often call us all to truth. Years ago in another church, as I was gathering with a group to prepare for the upcoming new member Sunday, a young man asked me an important question. He’d been sort of looking down as his parents and others were engaging in the q and a, but when it was his turn, and with eyes steadily gazing into mine, he said, “If I join this church, what’s in it for me? What will make it worth it?”

I could tell by the look on his face that he was not being snarky. It is an important question when you are joining the church or making any other sort of commitment. It’s only smart to ask it–says Jesus in Luke’s Gospel–it is a wise business decision, if you’re going to build—be sure it will be worth what you’re going to spend. To use religious language, count the cost of discipleship—ethically and practically speaking. Whatever it costs of your, of my one wild precious life, what does it cost and what will we receive in return?

And so here is what it is. New members, we are asking you to bring everything to the table—your inner soul, your willing hands, your prayers, your presence, your gifts, and your service. And through the Compact, we promise to do that, too. We all did, when we joined up and we have renewed that promise today– to join, worship, welcome, learn, grow, follow, and act.

When we join this spiritual community, we bring all that has been light and shadow to us, all that has been broken, all that is bright or too much or shattered or shadowed. We bring it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly—that’s the raw material we work with together. When we join up, what we get in return is that we get to work together at fearless inventory of ourselves and our culture. We work side-by-side so that life for Earth, for others, and for ourselves can be lived abundantly. We stand on holy ground with each other, and have the chance to help each other to clearness, to restoration, to relearn how to do the activities of daily living, to grieve and celebrate and adapt or figure it out. We help each other get born and we help each other die and we help each other latch on and we help each other let go and we help each other do the next right thing.

Important disclaimer, we cannot promise that we will always do it right because we can be tired and frail and may need to say sorry or forgive someone else. Our uniqueness invites new opportunities and we celebrate that diversity—but what it costs?—well, life is complex and deep thinking often requires an active, compassionate response.

And what we get back for what it costs us? –well, it’s like Amanda sang, even when life is at its most challenging, you’re not alone. In times of trouble, in spiritual centering, and in thoughtful action, we will be side by side and hand in hand working for better laws and access to healthy and abundant food and peace and safety and justice and common sense guns laws and racial equity and education and civil rights and protection for our beautiful natural world—that’s what you’ll get out of this. We will do it together.
When you are part of this church, membership means you got people. You got people who will help you find the resilience within to do the hard work you gotta do after you get tired of doing the hard work you’ve already done. Here’s what I know–when you are here, and you’re getting the stuffing beaten out of you by life, and it seems like, who isn’t, these days, you will get picked up again and set again on the path. And me, too. And Change will come. It’s on its way. You can be, but you don’t have to be, alone– when you invest yourself here. Having friends to lean on matters and someone to go with you matters. To be released from shame and to be reconnected to ourselves and to let go of all that occupies and preoccupies us to access the highest self within and the holy beloved power of life that creates and recreates even out of death–that is what membership means. That’s what’s in it for all of us.

And the why–why is it is so important to keep the faith and pull together? The why is within that poem of Hafiz:

Out of a great need
we are all holding hands
and climbing.
Not loving is letting go.
Listen.
The terrain around here is far too dangerous for that.

My belief is that it is the shadow of the smile of God—that is what we experience when we gather in this room and when we act in the world as the beloved community, together and scattered. And while we most certainly do experience the divine at the beach or in the park or even on the golf course, and while it is so tempting in these disheartening days, to pull away and to stay in bed with covers over our heads, still we are made for community. We are made to love one another. To be able to come away from it all out there, and to sit and be still, and to give or receive a hug and to share our pain or our joy, to pray, to have communion, and to remind each other to take a breath, to laugh and to dance and to remember that we are in it all together, to let the weary world fall away for just a moment—worth it. We offer silence and sanctuary and music and prayers for each other and hugs. And not a small thing, we have coffee and cards to send and advocacy to do and chocolate and T-shirts and time and talent and small groups and houses to help build and voting rights restoration to be done and housing to work on, and seminars and new things to learn and to experience what it means to be in beloved community.

Here’s what it costs and here’s what you receive–we’ll sing and pray for each other and we will hold on to each other and remind each other that we move through this life, stronger together, stumbling or walking or rolling, sitting and smiling and crying the tears pent up all week—and then what happens in our spirit is that we touch one another—and in a way quite mysterious and extraordinary, we help make each other whole. And thus, restored, we can get back out there to learn to live our own souls’ journey with whatever brands of challenge and have strength to ask the prophetic questions and then to act for change.

What do you get when you join UCG, well, another way to describe it is to say it is what John O’Donohue called Presence. The heart knowledge that the value of each life is bigger than the pain, the fear, the sides to take, the short term, the majority culture, the lock-step, the binaries, the pat answer. What I hear in his words is another version of The Compact, however known–another way to describe how we promise to be a spiritual community for each other.

Awaken to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to
follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
around the heart of wonder.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from and may you have the courage to speak out for the excluded ones.
May the sore of your grief turn into a well of seamless presence. May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May you be embraced by God in whose smile the dawn and the twilight are one.

So, new members and old members, and visitors, too–you know, it really is like this every Sunday: no matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey. You are welcome here. Amen.

Let us pray, In your going out and in your coming home, may you be embraced by the God in whose smile dawn and twilight are one. Amen