Sermon Offered for New Member Sunday, March 20, 2016
How do houses become homes? I have been thinking about this question a lot since December, when I moved from a house I had been living in since 1997, to a rental cottage overlooking the sea in Pigeon Cove. The new place is quite a bit smaller than the house I moved from. It also holds no memories of my late husband, or my children’s early childhood years.
When I first moved in, the new place was just a house. And it was terrible. I couldn’t find anything, and I hated looking at my life all packed up in boxes of various sizes.
The first few months I was there, the boxes seemed to multiply and there was a steady stream of maintenance issues to resolve. It wasn’t until sometime in March when I felt, “I love this place; this place is my home.” What changed? The boxes were mostly gone, furniture was either stored or used or given away, but that had been true for a while. The first time I really felt, I’m home, was after my brother and I spent about 5 hours hanging pictures and other objects of art on the walls. I don’t know why this changed things for me but it did. Once I was looking at my precious art collection, (precious to me, not to anyone else!), I felt I was home.
There are the two mosaics I bought in Northeast Harbor, Maine and carried home on the boat. Then there are a few paintings from my beloved grandparents’ apartment in Queens. Some of the paintings on the walls were done by my mother and there is the water color my older daughter painted in high school. My younger daughter’s bowls are on a shelf with other beautiful bowls that I acquired over the years, either through friends or buying them myself. A lot of them were made by a wonderful man named Dennis Vibert; he is gone now and so is his brother and sister in law, all of whom I knew and loved growing up.
I don’t see that well these days and I wonder whether what I hear will become more important if my eyesight doesn’t improve, or gets worse. Will it be the music I hear that makes me feel at home?
These thoughts about home extend to this sanctuary as well. What made our new members feel at home here? Was it the friendliness of this congregation? Was it the simple yet elegant look of the sanctuary? For me, the conch shells in the vestry as well as the one sitting on the shelf in the back of this sanctuary made me so happy. The first time I preached here as a guest, I noticed them and instantly knew that this place was my kind of place. And then Jennifer played something buoyant on the piano! It probably also helped that the simplicity of the sanctuary and the clear windows reminded me of the Unitarian Church of All Souls, a church in Manhattan that was my religious home for almost a decade. My family had the memorial services for two grandmothers as well as my mother there. It was that congregation and its ministers who supported me going to seminary; it was that congregation who ordained me in 1996.
What makes this place your home? Is it the maroon banners? The sculpted chalice tree that Coley Bryan made? Is it the gorgeous piano playing of Laura Evans and other members and friends who have graced us with their musical chops, as Sue Gee and Sue Bonior are doing today?
Perhaps it is our special events that drew you to us—the Martin Luther King March and service, or the Peace Service on New Year’s Eve? Maybe it’s the religious education offered to your children, or the adult education and social action events. Could it possibly be Sunday morning worship?
While I consider Sunday Morning worship the heart of a congregation, there are many reasons for why a house becomes a home, whether it is an individual’s house or a House of Worship. For a religious community to thrive, I believe that the house must be used, and not just on a Sunday morning. I love that this place is utilized every day of the week, whether it is for the Solar Energy Presentation that happened here yesterday, or the Wednesday night Conversations on Race. A religious home should be welcoming and inviting every day of the week. There needs to be many ways in which we show people that regardless of our theological diversity, we care for and about each other.
To become a religious home, people need to know that we offer safe passage and a safe harbor—isn’t that what makes any place a home? It is when we feel safe to bring our whole selves—the shiny bright parts of ourselves, along with the rusty, rotted, raving mad parts.
The house I am renting has become my home because it is where my daughters come whenever they can, even when they arrive and tell me we are living in Siberia. It is where my brothers have visited, my friends have come to help me unpack, and enjoy the view. My house becomes my home by the presence of people that I love and who love me. When I was so sick last month, many of you came to walk the dog or leave ginger ale or my new favorite food, the saltine. All of your notes and many kindnesses told me that this is my home.
And so it must be with your religious home. This must be the place where you come to take care of people you love, and to allow people who love you to take care of you. Rev Kathleen McTigue writes:
Into this home we bring our hunger for awakening.
We bring compassionate hearts, and a will towards justice.
Into this home we bring the courage to walk on
After hard losses.
Into this home we bring our joy and gratitude for ordinary blessings.
By our gathering we bless this place.
In its shelter we know ourselves blessed.
I hope and pray that each of you feels loved, whether you have been here for decades or just walked in the door for the first time this morning. This may sound like a strange thing to pray for—especially for those of you who are so new, I may not even know your name. But I don’t have to know you to wish that you feel loved and accepted, no matter who you are. As Rumi says, even if you have broken your vows 1000 times, come, come whoever you are. We welcome you and want you to feel blessed.
There are so few places in this world that offer us this kind of sanctuary, this kind of acceptance. I want that for all of us. How do we make this place your place? How do we make this place a home for all of us? I submit that we do this through deep listening, through respect of each other’s differences, and through service to the greater good. I submit that we do this through sharing our vulnerability, through sharing honestly what is going on with us.
When I ask you how you are doing today and you are not feeling great, I want you to be able to tell me. I want you to be able to tell each other what is really happening. I want you to be feel safe enough to cry when you are here, and I want all of us to be respectful of your right to cry, and not try to stop it.
While I don’t relish people being angry with me, I want to know if you are.
A house becomes a home when it is safe enough to be honest. A house becomes a home when it is as safe to come with a broken heart as it to come with a broken leg.
Because this religious house is shared by dozens of people, many of whom you may not even know yet, making it a home requires patience, tolerance, and a willingness to do the difficult spiritual work of forgiveness and acceptance. I mean forgiving and accepting ourselves as much as I mean forgiving and accepting others.
A house becomes a home when it is filled with love. That love may be expressed by the paintings you see or the music you hear, the words that are spoken and the actions that are taken.
Let us be mindful of demonstrating to eachother a popular slogan of Unitarian Universalists across the country: Regardless of our race, class, gender, sexual preferences, or theology, we stand or sit- on the side of love.
Welcome to our new members and welcome to our old ones. Welcome to our oldest friends and the ones who just walked in the door in the morning. No matter who you are, no matter from where you have come, we are so glad you are here.
Amen and blessed be.