Offered by Rev. Susan A. Moran.

Norbert Capek and his wife, Maja, discovered Unitarianism in this country, and together, they decided to bring Unitarianism back to their homeland, newly independent after World War I.  The couple returned to Prague in 1921.

The new Unitarian congregation they formed in Prague grew rapidly and had a congregation of over 2000.  (UUA website:uudb.org)

Norbert Capek created this Flower Communion service in 1923 because people were complaining the services in Prague weren’t spiritual enough.  This gives you some sense of how much has changed in the world of congregational life.  (Not really).

This Flower celebration or communion service reminds us of our uniqueness, our beauty, our strength, and our fragility.

Like us, all flowers begin with the promise of life.  Whether they start out as seed or bulb, flowers, like people, blossom in ways that no one can predict.  But new life is always something to celebrate.  Our Faith calls us to revere life and enhance it for ourselves and others by doing good works, by being open to revelation, by searching for truth in a responsible way.  Our Faith insists that no one is past redemption—not even those persons who have done terrible wrong.

Recently, Dzhokhar (Joe-car) Tsarnaev, the young man who was the co-conspirator behind the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings, was sentenced to death.  Although Massachusetts long ago banned the Death penalty, Mr. Tsarnaev was tried under Federal law.  The jury had been picked based on their willingness to sentence this young man to death, and all members seemed unmoved by his age, his mitigating circumstances, or by the fact that killing people for killing people is not only morally wrong, but ineffective as a deterrent, ridiculously expensive and did I say morally repugnant?

What does our willingness to put someone to death say about our humanity?  What does it say about our reverence for life?  Were his actions evil?  Absolutely.  Should he be punished?  Absolutely.  But just as the flower communion is about celebrating life, people who kill people should be taught to revere life, to enhance it, to nurture it.  That seems a more fitting response than the death penalty.  Even the parents of the young boy who was killed in the bombing came out against the death penalty for Tsarnaev.

Enhancing and nurturing life could take many forms.  A UU colleague, Nate Walker, led a worship service in which he read a series of letters he had written to his hypothetical murderer, so as to explore several facets of capital punishment.  Here’s some of what Nate wrote in the third and last letter:

“I wish for you to be immediately removed from society.  I wish that you may have time alone to sit with your thoughts, aware of the power of your mind…I wish for you to have time with others to help process your thoughts, aware that your actions have shaped your destiny and mine.  I wish for adequate resources to be given to you in aid of your eventual rehabilitation.  In that time, it is my hope that you will be given the responsibility to preserve life.

I want you to be sentenced to tend a garden.  I want you to name the plants after those in history who have sought to preserve life—give each plant a name and teach others about the significance of that name.  My hope is that you will do everything in your power to keep these plants alive.  In time, those aiding your rehabilitation may deem you ready to care for another being.  When you are truly ready, my wish is that you be entrusted with caring for a cat…

You may have taken my life…but the cycle of violence will not aid in releasing anyone’s pain, nor will it bring me back to life…You might use your power to preserve my dignity, to preserve your dignity, to preserve life.” (p 126, Exorcising Preaching, by Nate Walker)

Norbert Capek would have approved of this way of thinking, right?

I would add to Nate’s wish list.  After serving time in prison, after carefully tending a garden, those prisoners who have proven themselves capable, could work in hospital emergency rooms, where people are struggling to stay alive.  They could work in animal shelters and farms, soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

There is so much work to be done and we need all the helpers we can find.  We as a society need to do some serious grappling with what we think the justice system is for.  Once a felon leaves prison, is it proper that so few jobs can be found?

The flowers are lovely but their lives, like ours, are short.  Let us do all we can do to live our short lives with dignity and respect, with compassion and courage.  Let us work toward abolishing the death penalty no matter what the crime.  It doesn’t work because it doesn’t make sense.  You cannot prevent violence by being violent.

Civilizations should be judged by any number of factors: how do we treat our children?  How do we treat our elders?  How do we sustain our natural resources?  How do we treat those of us who have done wrong?  Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did wrong.  And he should have to suffer the consequences.  But killing him does nothing to restore justice, revere life or bring more beauty into this world.  How can we do that?

When news of Capek’s death reached the United States, the American Unitarian Association president, Fredrick May Eliot, wrote, “Another name is added to the list of heroic Unitarian martyrs, by whose death our freedom has been bought.  Ours is now the responsibility to see to it that we stand fast in the liberty so gloriously won.”

How do we stand fast in the liberty won for us by so many?  How do we not take for granted all of the freedoms and choices we have?  When we have so much, how can we show our gratitude so that others may share in the bounty?

Pray without ceasing.

Remember joy!

And live your faith every day.

Amen and blessed be.