Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church--Unitarian Universalist

The Family Chalice

Rev. David Takahashi Morris

November 26, 2006

I was raised in a Roman Catholic home. No matter where we lived, I went to Mass with my family every single Sunday at the local Catholic Church, which we automatically belonged to as soon as we moved into its neighborhood. But there was more to knowing we were Catholic than that.

The Advent wreath was part of a Catholic home. Every day for four weeks we lit candles like these at dinner, and my parents said prayers.

There were other customs, too. You could tell we were Catholic by the prayers we said at bedtime, and the “grace” we said before meals; by the small statues and pictures of Jesus and his mother Mary, and by the way we said the prayer that Jesus taught his followers, the one called the “Lord’s Prayer” – we called it the “Our Father.”

You could also tell we were Catholic because a lot of our life was lived at the church. We were baptized there as babies, and most of us married there. My siblings and I all went to elementary school there. My father belonged to the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s organization, and my mother to the Sodality for women. We went to pancake breakfasts, Mardi Gras nights and Bingo there. My father and I sold Christmas trees there a couple of years. I was an altar boy, helping the priests at Mass.

But still there was something more that let us know we lived in a Catholic home. There was a whole climate, an atmosphere in our life. We knew stories about saints, and people who had died for our religion. We knew priests and nuns. We were aware of the Catholic world of pope and bishops, convents and monasteries, cathedrals and rituals, robes and chants and scents. We knew what it meant for us to belong individually and as a family to that world, to claim that story as our own, to be part of that huge, ancient, worldwide community. That’s what it meant to live in a Catholic home. It was a powerful sense of identity for a young person to have.

What does it mean for a Unitarian Universalist? Do we live in Unitarian Universalist homes?

A few years ago a group of people from a church in Minneapolis, Minnesota asked that question as part of a project they called “The Family Chalice.” They spent a lot of time thinking together about what makes something we do at home Unitarian Universalist. It’s a challenging question, and there’s no U.U. authority somewhere who gets to make up the rules. So how do you decide? These are some of the Family Chalice group’s suggestions.

If we do something regularly in church and it connects with our history in a known way, that’s certainly a U.U. practice. Lighting a flaming chalice is one example. Our family lights a chalice at the beginning of our supper together every night. The chalice is part of worship here, at most of our congregations, and at regional and national events. It was created by a group of Unitarian and Universalist people who were doing saving people in danger, in Nazi Germany during World War II; today we understand it as a symbol of freedom, truth, and love. So it’s a Unitarian Universalist practice.

If we do something at church occasionally or even rarely, but it reflects something deep in our tradition, that may be a U.U. practice too. The Communion we’re sharing today is like that. Communion comes from our Christian heritage, and traditionally the original Communion meal among Jesus and his followers is thought to have been a Seder dinner, the Jewish meal for Passover. Today our ritual of setting the table echoes the Seder ritual. Our sharing of bread and cider is like the traditional Communion, but it’s also different to reflect how our understanding of the significance of breaking bread together has changed over time. So Communion becomes a U.U. practice.

A practice we’ve never seen at church, but that reflects something significant in our understanding of what it means to be U.U., also might be a Unitarian Universalist custom. On New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day each year, Leslie and I try to set aside time for a simple ritual of recalling the year, month by month, reminding ourselves and each other of significant events. It’s not something we’ve ever seen done in a U.U. congregation, but for me it reflects that Unitarian Universalists see every moment as sacred and important. So for me that New Year’s ritual is a U. U. practice.

Those are some customs that might identify a home as Unitarian Universalist. But beyond that I’m thinking about that deeper identity, the sense of myself and my family as part of a larger Unitarian Universalist movement and community. There are many ways to describe the identity of that larger movement and community. Who are these people we are part of? I like a description the Family Chalice group proposed. They said that as a people our identity has three dimensions:

We encourage personal exploration, in the context of a community that supports and challenges us in our search.

We share a communal tradition, a religious history with constantly evolving beliefs, practices, and institutions.

We have a special gift and intention to make our religion real in the world—to express our faith with action.

If this description is right, a Unitarian Universalist home would nurture and express those three dimensions. So for example, we’d encourage our children—or our parents, our partners, our friends, and ourselves—to try on new ideas. We would support them even when their new thoughts lead them away from what we think, but we would genuinely engage with them if we disagreed, not just ignore them, demand that they agree with us, or take on a dismissive “whatever you think” kind of attitude. A Unitarian Universalist home would take its connection with the congregation and the larger movement seriously. In this community we have the chance to be part of a remarkable history, a deeply committed present, and a hopeful future. And a Unitarian Universalist home would reflect the recognition that there is no wall of separation between faith and action. Religion is not a Sunday morning thing; what we say here and how we live every day must be one and the same if our words have any worth or meaning.

What would it be like to live in a home like that? Some of you already know. I certainly see that identity in action, as I get to know some of you and as I’m privileged to learn more about your lives.

Another way of looking at our identity is to consider the legacy we’ve received from our spiritual ancestors. The Family Chalice group pointed out two key messages that connect to our Universalist and Unitarian ancestors and are still true today. They can be expressed at many levels of complexity. At the simplest level, they said, the key message from our Universalist history is: You are loved in the world. And the key message they take from our Unitarian history is: You are good. On a more complex level, the messages are: We are all loved in the world—and we are all capable of good. And at the highest level, the messages are: We are part of the love that embraces the world; we have the power to be part of the goodness that works in the world.

If this is true, if this is the heart of our faith, then a Unitarian Universalist home would be one where we were deeply intentional about using our actions and choices to convey those messages to ourselves, to each other, and to others outside our home; we would offer that love and acceptance first to ourselves and each other, and then to others; we would see and try to nurture that capacity for love and goodness in every person we encounter, in every situation and every setting. You are loved in the world—you are good.

What would it be like to live in a home like that? Some of you already know this, too. For some of us it’s only a dream or a long-d for possibility, but it can still be our aspiration. Let me tell you about one example of it you can see every day for the next two weeks: If you want to know what it means to live in a Unitarian Universalist home, come join the individuals and families—of all descriptions, of all ages—who are coming out to help with our PACEM effort, providing food and shelter for men who need it, here in our home. Those individuals and families are practicing and learning what it means to be Unitarian Universalist—what it means to say, “You are loved. You are good.” They are practicing and learning what it means to say there is no difference between faith and action, and what it means to say that we are part of the love and goodness in the world.

I hope you are planning to join this effort; if you haven’t already signed up you can make contact with Elizabeth Breeden and she’ll find a place for you! But whether you do this or not, I wish for you a home filled with love and with a deep belief in the goodness that is living within you and every person, waiting to be welcomed. May this communion we share remind us that the table of life and love is open to all—and that we are the hands of generosity with the power to begin to make it so.