We Bid You Welcome

Rev. David Takahashi Morris

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church--Unitarian Universalist

January 14, 2007

            When I first visited the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina, I had that feeling so many visitors to Unitarian Universalist churches describe--the feeling of coming home   I had been away from religion of any kind for more than fifteen years; it had never occurred to me that exploring ideas, caring for each other, celebrating and sorrowing together, and encouraging each other to make justice was religion. 

            The impact of that first visit took a while to sink in, and I wasn’t ready to take the community at face value—not by a long shot.  In the first place, the church was between ministers, and I thought I’d better wait to join until the new one got there.  And in the second place, it was a church.

            You see, I came into that door with some baggage.  For years I had characterized myself as a militant atheist.  I had a finely honed, brightly polished, deeply cherished suspicion of religion that I often needed to bring out and wave around.  I was wary. 

            Wariness is something visitors often bring to church with them.  When we visit a UU congregation for the first time, our whole history of experience with religion walks in with us like a big shadowy companion all too willing to share its hopes, fears, predictions, interpretations and critical commentary about what we’re experiencing right now.  Some of us have had rocky experiences with churches before.  Some of us have prejudgments about religious institutions.   

            What got me past my initial wariness on that first visit was the sense that I’d found a circle of kindred spirits, people who seemed to share some of my values, people I could imagine getting to know and wanting to be in community with.  These were people like me.  And they bid me welcome.  I came with a weary spirit, troubles too much with me, and they gave me music and imagination and hope.  I came to learn and probe and explore, and they gave me new ideas and a rich history. I came seeking a new faith, and they offered me one I hadn’t even imagined could be possible.  They bid me welcome.

            I think we do this well:  We welcome spiritual searchers, intellectual inquirers, people who’ve never entered a church before, people who’ve been wounded or put off by their experience of churches that didn’t appreciate their questioning attitudes or adventurous minds.   It’s not just people who were raised UU or who’ve been adult members of other congregations who “enter this hall as a homecoming,” as Richard Gilbert says.  We’re a home for restless souls.

            Many visitors who feel at home among us start feeling at home before they even talk to anyone.  When they arrive they find countless clues that they’ve found a community of the like-minded—from the sign on the front of the church to the information tables in the Social Hall, from the causes represented on our bulletin boards to the contents of the hymnal and songbook, from the Sunday service topics to the art and symbols on our walls. 

            Of course, we do try to help our visitors talk to someone, too.  One of the things I appreciated about this congregation when I arrived was the intentionality of our practice of greeting and welcoming visitors.  We have Religious Education representatives at the door and Greeters in the foyer, ushers who hand out an order of service personally and people who try to make others feel welcome in the pews.  There’s a Visitors Table in the Social Hall and some of us really do pay attention to who stands up as a newcomer so that we can say hello later.   

            I’ve said that my feeling that I’d come home is typical of many UU’s on our first visit.  But it would have been more accurate to say that it’s typical of the people who stay.  That’s natural enough; people stay because they feel at home.  But I also have to acknowledge that it’s even more accurate to say that my experience was typical of people like me:  College-educated, middle-class-raised, white, straight, able-bodied, not shy, and more or less conventional in dress and appearance by local standards.       

            It doesn’t feel that way to everybody.

            Last Thursday a member of our Active Minds group said that feeling at home in a religious community was like feeling visible—being noticed, being seen as real and worthy of attention by the people we encounter there.  That’s a wonderful description of how I felt on my first visit; I felt visible among people I understood, people who understood and were interested in me. 

            When we walk into a religious community our identity walks in with us too, or rather our multiple identities as they have been developed and shaped by our own efforts, by our families of origin, by our race and class and ethnicities, by our life histories up to that point.  We feel at home, in part, if our identities are visible to us in the place we’ve come to visit and the people we encounter there.  We feel out of place and even unwelcome when our identities seem invisible.

            We who feel at home and comfortable in this community may have grown so accustomed to seeing our values, our aesthetics, our history, our customs—our identities—mirrored in our surroundings that we don’t even think of them as reflecting an identity at all.  But look closely.  Whose identity is visible here?  Whose is invisible?

            If I roll into this sanctuary in a wheelchair, there’s a cutout where I can sit right in the midst of the congregation.  That’s great—but what if I want to sit in the balcony?  Or be a Worship Associate?  Who is visible; who is invisible?

            If I am a liberal Christian, deeply troubled because I can’t believe in doctrines like the Trinity and eternal damnation any longer, asking questions but still committed to my Christian identity, I can learn about the rich Christian heritage of Unitarian Universalism.  That’s great—but what if someone I meet in the Social Hall assures me that I’ll love it here because TJMC-UU is an “island of rationality, not like all those awful Christian churches”?  Who is visible; who is invisible?

            If I am African American who’s lived in Charlottesville my whole life, and I can’t accept the theology or the social conservatism of the church I grew up in any more, I might come here.  I know it’s a mostly white congregation but I’ve heard for years that Unitarian Universalists have always been involved in civil rights struggles.  That’s great--but when I get here, the first place I walk is into the Jefferson Foyer.  From one perspective, you might say that room tells America’s story, the story of the free mind and conscience.  But from another perspective there is a great untold story in that room, and it’s not a story of freedom.  If that’s my story, where is it?  Where on our walls, where in our sanctuary or in our community life does that story appear? 

            Who is visible; who is invisible?

            We say that all are welcome here.  Right there on the back of your order of service it says that persons of any color, age, ability, economic status or sexual orientation are welcome here.  That’s what we say, and it is true for many of us.  I’ve felt it.  Perhaps you have too.  But I am sure there is someone here today who is wondering.  I am sure that someone here today has encountered something that makes you wonder:  Is this the place for me?  Do they bid me welcome?

            We know what we say we are, what we mean to be.  That’s our expressed identity.  But our unspoken assumptions, our physical space, our style of worship, our use of language, our choices of symbols and ceremonies—all that and more make up our visible identity.  What do they say about who is welcome here?  Does our visible identity match our intention?  We have done much to make this a welcoming place, but there is, always, more that we can do. 

            The first step is to think carefully about our visible identity.  Who does it say we are?  Is it what we truly want to express?

            We’ll have a unique chance to ask those questions this week, along with others about our congregation’s work on dismantling oppression in our own structures and systems and in the world around us.  At our Board’s invitation, this coming Friday and Saturday two consultants from the Unitarian Universalist Association’s “JUUST Change” anti-oppression program will join us for conversations about what we’re doing to uproot racism, homophobia, ableism, classism, and other interrelated oppressive forces among us and around us.  The face we show to the world and to visitors among us will be an important part of the conversation as we begin to assess how we’re living out our principles in this area.  I hope you’ll join us for one of the sessions, especially the open session on Saturday at 10:30 in Summit House. 

            Why should we do all this?  Isn’t it enough to be who we are, welcoming those who come to this hall as a homecoming, who find in this people a family?  The door’s already open; why should we take the risk of transforming ourselves to open it wider? 

            Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday our nation will celebrate tomorrow, taught that the goal of humankind is the creation of Beloved Community.  The Beloved Community is a human society where all are truly equal, all are truly welcome. The Beloved Community is a way of being which celebrates an undivided human family, which proclaims that every child of humankind is worthy of the community’s embrace. 

            We need to take the risk of questioning our visible identity because every person who enters our door is precious, a priceless opportunity to expand our sense of who “we” are.  We need to take the risk of transforming ourselves because our human destiny is to create the Beloved Community, and we cannot do it without taking the risk.  We need to ask how open our doors truly are because we are made richer and more whole by every single human being who walks through them and decides that this is their spiritual home.

            So let us say Come, you whom we have forgotten to make room for—Let us learn together to create a space which is hospitable to us all.

            Let us say come, you whose story we have forgotten to tell—Let us learn together to tell a new story that includes us all.

            Come, you whose spiritual path has been pushed to the margins of our mainstream—     Let us learn together to explore the wisdom of every tradition, even those we thought we had left behind.

            Come, you who have felt you must be silent about your income, or the work you do, or your political opinions, or the struggles or addictions of your daily life—Let us learn together to be true companions in the realities of life.

            Come, let us learn a way of being that welcomes us all, embraces us all, affirms us all, challenges us all to find our best and to nurture its growth and to make the Beloved Community a reality in our world.

            Come. . . Come, whoever you are.

Benediction

May we be a community of faith together, a community that lives its aspiration.  Together may we find a way of life that acknowledges our realities, challenges our oppressions, names and heals our wounds, and invites our passionate commitment.  May we learn together the art of hospitality, and may we give each other the courage to teach it in the wider world.