What a Wonderful Year!

A Homily by Reverend Lynn Thomas Strauss

Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, June 11, 2006

Reading

Mark Chapter 8

In those days when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way and some of them have come a long way.

And so we come to the end of our first amazing, wonderful year as congregation and minister. What a blessing it has been!
Haven’t we had a good time?
Haven’t we done good work, good ministry, together?
Haven’t we embraced change and celebrated tradition?
Haven’t we cared well for one another?
Haven’t we watched our children grow?
Haven’t we raised our voices for peace and justice?
Haven’t we welcomed new friends among us?

What are the values that we have lived and uplifted in this wonderful year? What exactly has made it so wonderful?

I would offer one word, one value, that has been the foundation of so much of our work and ministry this year…and that is TRUST!

We have trusted one another. You have trusted me. I have felt it from the beginning…your willingness to trust. Perhaps you didn’t throw all caution to the wind…but you most certainly extended a trusting hand.

And your trust has freed my spirit. Remember the Welcome Dance we had last fall…when Dick Gilbert played lovely piano music and I danced the soft shoe…I’d never done that before. And last Sunday I joined in the drumming circle of our postlude…I’d never done that before either! As hard as we’ve worked, we allowed ourselves some fun as well.

And at all the committee meetings, and board meetings, and policy crafting and new building decisions…your trust has allowed me to lead to the best of my ability. A trusting atmosphere has permeated all we have done together.

Our canvass, “At the Threshold”, our Funding the Furnishings capital campaign, our Seder, our Auction, our Bazaar, our Rainbow Youth Alliance, our fundraising policy- We have trusted our lay leaders all along the way.

And we do have wonderful leaders in this congregation. People with new ideas, and huge commitment, people who understand church and people who want to grow in their understanding. You are an amazing bunch of leaders…whenever my clergy colleagues ask me how things are going at Rockville, I brag about our new building, and then I tell them how deep and broad our lay leadership is.

We have all earned trust and respect this year. We go forward with a great deal of congregational strength.

Remember all the times that we learned about building delays, and unexpected costs, and problems with roofs and leaks and floods, and Gas lines, and verizon lines, and etc. etc….did we ever lose our trust in Sue and Dan…did we ever lose our trust in the rightness of the project…or the vision for our future.

No, we went right on trusting…we didn’t lose our faith.

In spite of past experience of conflict within the congregation and seriously hurt feelings and a profound break-down in trust, we have had a healing year. Without talking about it much, we have felt ourselves growing healthy as a congregation.

What is trust?
Ask the children and they’ll tell us it has a lot to do with feeling safe.
Knowing that you will be taken care of.
Knowing that dinner will be provided, and a bedtime story…and help with homework.

Ask the adults and they’ll tell us it has a lot to do with feeling safe. Knowing that help will be there if you need it.
Knowing that others will bring their share of the potluck, and that the sermon will be worthwhile, and someone will help you stay on key in the choir, or reserve a room and unlock the door for a meeting, or respond to your email, or check up on you if you’re sick. Or weed the peonies.

There’s been an abundance of trust around here this year. Isn’t it wonderful…doesn’t trust make for a wonderful year!

I wanted to tell a story about trust and abundance …about faith in community…for that’s what we have been trusting all along this year…we’ve been trusting, not just individuals, this wonderful religious community.

The story I want to tell, is a story from the Bible…from the Christian part of the Bible, from the chapter named after a writer called Mark.

It is a story familiar to many of us…the story of the loaves and fishes.

We too gather as a great crowd…we come to church for the teaching, for the lessons in how to live well, how to be our full selves, how to care for one another…just the same lessons that Jesus was teaching.

The people had come from a great distance and they had stayed a long time listening to Jesus….just like when church runs late, or we have meetings after church…and we get tired and hungry. That’s what it was like that day on the desert hillside…

The disciples were overwhelmed by thousands of hungry people…they didn’t know what to do…there were no McDonalds near by…no Whole Foods salad bars, no Starbucks, they hadn’t planned a picnic…and so everyone was hungry and irritable and the disciples just wanted to send the people home.

But Jesus felt compassion for the people, concern for their needs.
They will faint on the way home, he said.
We must feed them.

But the disciples only had seven loaves of bread between them
And a few small fish. How could they possibly feed all those hungry people with so little?

They shook their heads and Jesus and thought he was a bit overly optimistic, maybe even a little fazed by the hot sun…how could they possible feed so many people. They counted the bread again…seven loaves, and they looked at the small salted fish…

Jesus stepped forward with and commanded the crowd to sit down on the ground…he was confident, in charge, full of faith.

He may not have known exactly how he would solve this problem…but he was willing to try. He lifted the seven loaves of bread, and he gave thanks, he said a prayer of thanks for those seven loaves…and he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people.

And then he lifted up the fish, and he blessed the fish, giving thanks in prayer…and he commanded that the disciples set the fish before the people.

And the people hushed and quiet from the heat, sitting close together as Jesus had commanded, having prayed in thanksgiving along with Jesus, the people began to eat.

And they shared the loaves and fishes around the circle…and perhaps some people has a few dates in their pockets, or a little water in a wineskin, and no doubt they shared what they had….

And everyone ate…and were satisfied, four thousand people were fed…and afterward, the disciples collected what was left of the bread and there were seven baskets full left over.

Wow! It looked like so little, but given with blessings of thanksgiving, shared with a glad heart….there was enough for all.

That’s what this year has been like for us here at the UU Church of Rockville.
What looked like a little of this or of that…always turned out to be enough.

We’ve set a new table.
A table of hospitality and abundant blessing.

We feel so grateful.
We feel so blessed.
We are learning to trust again.

And we are saying Thank you.
Prayers of gratitude rise on our lips as we see how much everyone has given this year…how much everyone has trusted the process, trusted our future.

We’ve have shared all that we have.
We have eaten
We have been satisfied.

And there are baskets of bread and blessings left for all who come through our door.

Next year we will have a year of continued hospitality…a year of welcoming visitors and getting to know new members.

I hope you will invite your friends and neighbors and co-workers to our table….to our community of love and justice, to our community

Let us give thanks together for a wonderful year.

Amen/Blessed Be