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#+title: Sermon - Our Communities

- tags :: [[id:3d161391-6de9-474d-a8fd-134f4d8a9937][Sermon]] [[id:40d39a2f-dfda-47c7-82dd-59e3db46dc11][Church]]

* Welcome and announcements
* Prelude - Colleen Fitzgerald
* Land acknowledgment
We gather together as a community of seekers, to honor the interdependence of
life, to respect the dignity of all, and to honor the land here in Castine.

We acknowledge the land and its indigenous people as an act of reconciliation
that honors the authentic history of Turtle Island and the original people of
this territory.

Friends, we gather upon the traditional land of the Wabanaki People, who
continue to live here and near-by, still crying out for justice and
self-determination. Let us move toward greater understanding and solidarity with
them.
* Opening words
The Tiny Little Community by Yazzy Nixon

The river flows courses its way through time,
Leaving behind little dry spots and small puddles.
Have you ever noticed?
The continuing trials of life flowing through the rock bound substance.
Fish constructing more fish,
Tiny tadpoles swiggling behind the weeds.
Dragonflies hopping across the waters,
Making ripples forever bound.
And oh, how those ripples just keep on going.
Getting bigger and bigger.
Water bugs skittering from one end to the other.
The shores silently clashing with the waves.

The modest community I watch from the bridge everyday,
Wondering,
How alike we are in our ways.
* First Hymn - Simple Gifts
* Lighting the Chalice
By Atticus Palmer

We call this light before us in hope that we may always remain a strong community,
working together to make the world a better place.
When we are grieving or sad,
When we are challenged,
When we need help,
This flame guides us out of the darkness.
When we are cheerful,
When we celebrate,
When we accomplish a great task,
When we return to a place that makes us happy,
The chalice reminds us to share our happiness with others.

* Mission
To establish and promote an open and welcoming congregation that supports and
sustains the spiritual, ethical, intellectual and overall well-being of our
members while serving our broader communities.
* Reading
Stanford Social Innovation Review
By David M. Chavis & Kien Lee May 12, 2015

Community is not a place, a building, or an organization; nor is it an exchange
of information over the Internet. Community is both a feeling and a set of
relationships among people. People form and maintain communities to meet common
needs.

Members of a community have a sense of trust, belonging, safety, and caring for
each other. They have an individual and collective sense that they can, as part
of that community, influence their environments and each other.

That treasured feeling of community comes from shared experiences and a sense
of—not necessarily the actual experience of—shared history. As a result, people
know who is and isn’t part of their community. This feeling is fundamental to
human existence.

source: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/what_is_community_anyway
* Joys and concerns
* Prayer/meditation
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
'Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto - "In God is our trust,"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
* Sermon
Our Communities

We belong to other people. I know, I know. We're about to celebrate a big
national holiday commemorating our country's independence from tyranny. And much
of our national cultural identity tells us that we are, first and foremost
individuals, with individual freedom and individual rights.

But what if belonging was more important than freedom?

Our lives are shared with others. We live in towns with next door neighbors, we
buy our food at grocery stores staffed by acquaintances, some we know better
than others. One of my favorite parts of going on a long vacation is the day the
owner of the local bakery offers my usual with a smile and asks how things are
going.

Whether that's how we see ourselves or not, our lives are shared; whether we
want to or not. We are our communities and our communities are us.

I would love for us all to take a minute now and think about a community we
belong to. If you have trouble, I can give you a hint that you're sitting in one
right now. But there's also hobbies or sports, families and marriages, work and
volunteer groups, your town or state, and of course, for most of us, being
American. Now go ahead and take a minute and think about a community YOU belong
to.

...

Hold that community in your mind. Think about who else belongs to it. Consider
why you joined it -- if it was a choice -- or how you came to belong -- if it
wasn't a choice.

...

Think about the values that you've drawn from that community. Do the members hold
you accountable to show up for others? Do the members listen to you when you've
had a bad day? Do the members sing you happy birthday? Do they show up when your
sick, or teach you a new knitting technique?

One question I have for you now is: How large is the community you're thinking
about? Is it a community of thousands of people, millions of people, spread
across the world? I have a suspicion, and I welcome correction (later when I'm
not in the pulpit :D ) if I'm wrong, but I suspect that the majority of us are
thinking of intimate communities. Local communities. Communities of friends,
loved ones, dear ones or our beloved.

How does thinking about your community make you feel? For me, when I meditate on
the people I belong to, who share my affinities and passions, I feel energized.
And I suspect it's not just me. As David Chavis and Kien Lee point out in our
reading, "that treasured feeling of community comes from shared experiences and
a SENSE of shared history. As a result, people know who is and isn’t part of
their community. This feeling is fundamental to human existence."

Given that we are on the eve of this, our 246th anniversary of our Independence
Day, I can't help but wonder what the author of our national anthem, Francis
Scott Key, was thinking about, as he watched Fort McHenry near Baltimore
battered by British ships during the war of 1812.

Curiously, Key had found himself helplessly watching the bombardment, stuck on a
British vessel in the harbor while negotiating the release of a friend, Dr.
William Beanes.

Earlier in the conflict, Beanes had gotten into hot water with the British when
he was found arresting British soliders who were pillaging and looting in the
community around his farm. On trumped up charges of being a spy, Beanes was
hauled off to the H.M.S. Tonnant, a British ship off the Maryland coast for
questioning.

Beanes friends, his community, appealed for the support of Key, a Georgetown
lawyer, to negotiate his release. Key under great risk to himself, successfully
negotiated the release of Beanes while aboard the Tonnant but, due to the
outbreak of the Battle of Baltimore was left to watch the heavy bombardment, and
could only wonder just how bad things were at Fort McHenry.

When the smoke cleared in the morning, Key was able to see Fort McHenry's
standard, the Flag of the United States, still standing, giving him inspiration
for a poem, the first verse of which would take on a life of it's own over the
next 200 some years by becoming our National Anthem.

And yet, while Key was imagining the Fort McHenry soldiers' "perilous fight" through
rocket's red glare, Key's own fight was not holding off a British bombardemnt.

Key was on the Tonnant in defense of a member of his local community. The flag
still waving gave him hope for the future and world beyond the reach of the
British empire, but his daily struggle, and the animating force for WHY he
should have hope in the first place was his belonging to the people of
Baltimore, and freeing Dr. Beanes himself.

Friends, I ask you, what use is a nation of laws or our personal freedom,
without our communities to defend? It may at times seem like silly things, but
your Scrabble community, your ham radio club, your library staff, the people who
mow your lawn, or your closest family members; THESE give us a reason to look
for the flag flying on morning after a merciless bombardment by someone who
would take our communities from us.

When I was growing up, I often found myself struggling with the fact that the
4th of July feels like a celebration of combat, and fighting. I was not raised
in a community that came together on the common for hot dogs and fire truck
rides before a night of fireworks. And yet, in this town, in this State at this
point in my life, I will say that I look forward to celebrating the 4th of July
every year. And that's almost entirely due to the people I get to celebrate the
day with.

What a special day, the Fourth of July is on the coast of Maine!

...

We are our communities, and our communities are us. Our sense of belonging gives
us something to fight for in this world. The challenge for us, on a peaceful
anniversary of a day of national struggle, is to find the joy in our local
communities, the people who make our lives worth living, without resorting to
jingoistic or nationalistic rhetoric that would make our lives better than
others.

If we are our communities, than the same is true for everyone, everywhere. And
everyone deserves their own opportunity to build communities that fill their
needs and give them purpose. As a nation, as a faith community and as caring
loving people, let us celebrate the diversity of communities that make this
world such a vibrant place. Amen.

* Closing hymn - Blue Boat Home
* Extinguishing the chalice
* Closing words
By Sweethome Teacup

May we recognize and abandon the familiar attitudes and practices that do not
serve the whole. We are who we are and we have the opportunity to be who we want
to be, to create a new inheritance for the future.

May our thoughts, words, and actions in our daily lives assist in dismantling
paradigms of oppression and suffering. May we give thanks for our individual
place in time and space, to our families and our relationships that touch and
change us. May we give thanks to the wise teachers who help us remember how to
be and the chance to make it so.

Underneath and within these stories and histories is our humanity. Being human
means we are of this earth, we are these waters, we are fire, and atmosphere, we
are the Sun and the moon and the stars. We are all that we see and the wisdom is
revealed by looking in between.