This morning, as we welcome our newest members, Tricia, Rick, Oli, Seamus and Ann, we taste the sweetness of community. We celebrate the spice each one brings, distinctive and flavorful. As we know from the world around us, the world that holds us, there is so much that is unsavory, and thus, it is such a blessing to come together, to form beloved community, to make a space within the busyness and complexity of our lives, to enjoy simple gifts. A place where we ought to be, a valley of love and delight, where we can come down right. As Rumi so eloquently puts it:
I don’t need
a companion who is
nasty sad and sour
the one who is
like a grave
dark depressing and bitter
a sweetheart is a mirror
a friend a delicious cake
it isn’t worth spending
an hour with anyone else
a companion who is
in love only with the self
has five distinct characters
stone hearted
unsure of every step
lazy and disinterested
keeping a poisonous face
the more this companion waits around
the more bitter everything will get
just like a vinegar
getting more sour with time
enough is said about
sour and bitter faces
a heart filled with desire for
sweetness and tender souls
must not waste itself with unsavory matters (translated by Nader Khalili )
It’s not that we turn our backs on the unsavory, on the suffering of so many, on the challenges of our time; it’s that we enjoy the sweetness, take in the spice. We, for whom joy beckons, owe it to ourselves and each other, not only to taste the sweetness but to savor it. Religious community is one of the ways we do that. Here, we have the perfect blend of spice and sweet. Each of us offers our own distinctive flavor. Variety is the spice of life. Especially in a Unitarian Universalist context. Here, we mix it up: cinnamon and clove, ginger and allspice. Coriander and cumin, star anise and fennel. Each with our own theology or perspective, freshly ground, or well-aged. If we were to ingest any one spice undiluted, it would overpower our taste buds and send our sensibilities reeling. So we blend. We take a pinch of God as all being and mix it with a dash of the earth as divinity itself. We stir in a bit of Jesus as spiritual exemplar and Buddha as guide. We sprinkle in some Christmas carols and Yom Kippur, the Passover story and Unitarian Easter themes; we stir in Universalist themes of hope and redemption with reason and transcendentalist mysticism to balance the simple gifts of care and good cheer. We rattle our bones on Halloween and occasionally indulge in communions of gingersnaps because ritual allows us to embody what we espouse.
If we borrow the idea that something we eat can serve as a metaphor for what comprises us and our ministries, gingersnaps seem an appropriate choice. The spiciness is complemented by the sweetness of molasses and brown sugar, by the creaminess of butter and the binding quality of eggs. The flour gives the gingersnap its gravity; it keeps it from being spicy sweet goo and turns it into wafery goodness.
We bring our individual spice to mix it with the sweetness of religious community, “the delicious cake” of togetherness that combines our unique flavor with the common “desire for sweetness.” Something happens here in our interactions akin to the heat an oven provides that turns batter into cake.
In the writings classes I teach, I use this metaphor to illustrate the difference between raw ingredients heaped in a bowl and a perfectly baked cake. If all we do is place our thoughts, memories, opinions, and beliefs on the counter, we have a bunch of ingredients. If we add passion and take the time to carefully blend the ingredients of our experience and perspective with others, considering proportion, then heat it in the oven of reason, wonder, compassion and critical thought, the ingredients transform from batter to a sumptuous source of nourishment much easier to digest and enjoy.
While chemists can explain the physical chain of events happening in the oven, I prefer the poetic approach: a creative synergy of materials and heat: an alchemy of delight. It is easier to identify than to explain. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, a student asked me about Unitarian Universalism. I had mentioned in passing that I write sermons, so after class he asked what for. I told him and he inquired about our denomination. “It’s a philosophy not a religion, right?”
“No,” I countered. It’s a religion.” And then the poor lad had to suffer through my abbreviated though probably way too long for his taste version of Unitarian Universalism and how the two merged. When I finished the historical summary of two liberal Protestant strands combined into one pluralistic, non-creedal, God-optional faith, he said, “Why would I as an agnostic want to go to church? Why would I be interested in religion? Isn’t it just a philosophy?”
I launched into Part B of what became a lesson in what not to ask a writing teacher cum UU minister. I told the young man I could not speak to why he might want to go to church, but I shared why I do. I recounted the loneliness I felt in a university English department inhabiting the big questions: the meaning of life, the consciousness of mortality, the ubiquity of suffering and undeniable evidence of joy, and in my life, grace. I explained that I found much needed spiritual community within a congregation that I couldn’t find anywhere else. In church, we have the opportunity to worship, to lift up what is worthy, to apprehend awe long enough to savor it not just taste it; to stretch into new postures of compassion and generosity that require a safe loving space in which to do so. In church our voices mingle literally and figuratively. When we sing together and meet together, envision ministries and sort out practicalities, we learn to harmonize. Church invites us to blend our spiciness so that we find the right balance—not pungent, not bitter, not cloying. Forming religious community allows each flavor to maintain its distinctiveness yet form something greater.
This morning I invite you to partake in the communion of gingersnaps not just by taking one and savoring its spicy sweetness, but by offering one to someone seated nearby, and as you pass the gingersnaps, take a moment to share a bit of your spice: your theology or worldview, in a snippet (save the unabridged version for coffee hour so we have time left to have one). Take a moment to identify the sweetness you find here. What is it about First Parish that bakes your cake? That turns the ingredients of your presence, spice, and time into something wonderfully nourishing?
I’ll come around with plates and as you pass them, share the sweet and the spice.
(after the gingersnaps have gone around and people have shared)
a friend a delicious cake
it isn’t worth spending
an hour with anyone else…
As we welcome our newest members and celebrate each person here, let us savor the sweetness of our communal cake. Life produces vinegar right and left: “enough is said/ about sour and bitter faces.”
Let us offer the world our spicy sweetness, the perfect blend of First Parish.
Be ours a religion which, like
sunshine, goes everywhere;
its temple, all space:
its shrine, the good heart;
its creed, all truth;
its ritual, works of love;
its profession of faith, divine living. (Theodore Parker)
Amen.
