11 AM Service.
We waited in lines, we worried about mailed-in ballots being counted. We have been filled with such anxiety and pain in our nation, it is hard to wait and to worry to find out what is in our future. Rev. Linda will preach, and whether or not we know the winners five days after the election, we will be ready to ponder how to begin the healing of so many wounds felt by so many.
Would you like to light the chalice for community worship? Great! Everyone is welcome to serve as the chalice lighter.
Sign up for a Sunday here. You will be contacted with instructions on how to record a video of your self/family/household lighting the chalice for our weekly worship service.
We would love to have you light the chalice!
Order of Service
Healing a Nation: America Waiting in Line
We come together…
Prelude 123 Spirit of Life, by Carolyn McDade performed by Lea Morris
Welcome Laura Horn, Worship Weaver, Elizabeth Breeden, Board Member
Opening Hymn 318 We Would Be One
Chalice Lighting Elizabeth Breeden
Musical Response Give Light
Voting to Help Us Find the Way Rev. Dr. Linda Olson Peebles
We Center…
Sharing Joys and Sorrows
Prayer Rev. Alex McGee
Musical Meditation May I Be Filled with Loving Kindness UUCville Choir
We Give Thanks…
Invitation to Offering Laura Horn
Offertory From You I Receive to You I Give Scott Deveaux, Music Director
Words of Dedication
We Look Forward…
Reading Let America Be America Again a poem by Langston hughes, read by Alfre Woodard
Sermon America Waiting in Line Rev. Dr. Linda Olson Peebles
Benediction/Chalice Extinguishing
Closing Song “Keep on Moving Forward” written and performed by Emma’s Revolution
Selections from the Service
Opening Words Writen by Rev. Joan Javier-Duvall
Here
here is where you can lay it down
Lay down all that you have carried
the weight of the world that has rounded
your back
leaving you aching and exhausted
Here
here is where healing begins
where burdens are set down
and alongside one another’s
their magnitude does not seem as great
Here
here is where the door is thrown open
and the light can lift away the shadows
and what was hidden can now be seen
Here
here is where you can rest
where nothing is expected
but that you bring all of who you are
into the presence of the holy and of this loving community
Let us worship together.
Sermon America Waiting in Line Rev. Dr. Linda Olson Peebles
I swear this oath – America Will Be!!
That poem was written 85 years ago. And still we wait.
This morning, I am sure all of us are filled with a wide variety of emotions, after the past 4 years, after the election and the historic outcome announced yesterday, in the midst of uncertainties, in the midst of the CoVid surge, as we acknowledge that America’s struggles with race and economic injustice continue. We feel many emotions, and still we wait to find out what is coming next.
Seems like we’ve been waiting a long time. Sometimes we think we’re there. And other times we wonder if any progress has been made. We’ve been waiting – they taught us in school how to wait in lines. Wait in line to go outside, to go to the cafeteria. As grown ups – wait in line patiently when you go to the store to try to be one of the first to get the limited supply of whatever is on sale. When you go to the popular club, or a “will call” line for last minute theater tickets – you have to be patient and wait in line. This waiting in line is a social contract to keep us IN line, to behave, to make us wait for our turn? What about when that contract is broken unfairly – when we see people cutting in line? The VIPs or scofflaws who get away with it? Can the line hold then?
I’ve been thinking about all the lines we have to stand in, believing that eventually, we’ll get to the front. I read this essay written recently by a young Latinx journalist – Arelis Hernandez – who was inspired watching the early voting lines, so long and filled with so many committed patient people! She wrote –
“The line is a barrier. It stretches along sidewalks, around corners, and through parking lots, zigging one way and zagging back the other. It is a daunting impediment to those who cannot wait. A reminder of this nation’s long history of voting hurdles. Protection against a deadly virus and a defiant response to those who have sought to deny the most basic right in a democracy.
“The line is an inspiration. The crowd moves with a shared purpose. Strangers hand out water bottles. A woman sways to gospel music. Lawn chairs are pulled out and pizzas ordered. Red, white and blue are the colors of the day.
“The line is a promise. Hours of standing, six feet apart, a few steps at a time, for the chance to make a choice. One person, one vote. A right first granted to White, male landowners in 1776, then claimed through political and violent struggle by women, Native, Black and Latino Americans and naturalized citizens. All now have a place in the line.”
Nowadays we have so many lines to stand in – with our masks on and standing six feet apart: the Covid test lines. Lines to get into stores. Lines to get donated groceries for those out of jobs. Lines to get a number to stand in another line.
Many many people will tell you – they’ve been standing in line their whole life, and they don’t think they’re getting any closer to the promised destination. IS the U.S. moving us closer to justice? To equal treatment under the law? When so many of our neighbors still vote for candidates who promise to protect money, not people; who promise to protect the white patriarchy, not the vulnerable in our midst. It is tiring and heartbreaking to see how deeply entrenched some of our neighbors are in their allegiance to systems of domination.
It feels so uncomfortable, scary even, to wait patiently in line with people – neighbors! – who are voting to treat some human beings as if they have no worth or dignity. It is troubling to be in line with people who vote for people who say it is ok to separate children from parents, ok to incarcerate or shoot black people, ok to let rich people and corporations pay NO taxes, all the while they starve social services trying to help people in need.
I speak these words out of my deep faith in our UU core covenant – that we affirm and promote the inherent dignity of ALL people. That is my religion, and the promise I have always hoped was America’s civic creed. I also speak these words with the sincere faith that beneath it all, the greatest sin is when we demonize other people when we act as if we are better or more worthy or smarter than them, or as if others aren’t quite as fully human.
We are a divided nation – polarized and not able to understand each other, fearful of one another! We are hurting, in need of healing. And this is not a new thing for America. This waiting in line – for hours, for decades, for centuries – this waiting in line for the chance to have ALL voices heard, voices of blacks and Indians, women and immigrants, voices of the poor and forgotten – this waiting in line praying people will be kind to each other even if they disagree – this waiting in line is getting really disturbing.
Since my anti-war and civil rights protest days, I have found I prefer joining lines that aren’t single-file, but are wide and broad, with many people side by side facing in the direction of hope and healing. Like carrying a broad banner in a parade or a march for justice, we walk side by side, a united front.
But after half a century of being on those front lines, I am realizing that even that kind of line meets its barriers – when you are confronted by an opposing wide line – of people with sticks and guns, who dare you to get past them.
So – I’m beginning to think the only lines that will really work in this divided and hurting society is the circle. A line which lets us look at those beside us AND those across from us. A circle, that encourages us to talk with each other and hear each other, to tell each other what is making us angry, what is breaking our heart, and what is tiring us out. A circle that continually opens to let MORE people join in the curving line, that leaves NO one out! A circle of people who can join together to stop a person who would do violence to the group. Maybe if we talk with each other in a circle, see each other as human beings, maybe we can begin to heal.
When we wait in single-file, we don’t really know what is going on far ahead of us, or behind us. And we can only talk to a few folks who are close by. And forming the wide side-by-side ranks, we end up confronting the “other” across battle lines from one side or the other. Maybe if we talk in a circle, maybe THAT line will finally help us move forward. Together. Like a wheel rolling, with the momentum that gives each person a chance to lead, to follow, to move along with the whole group.
Circle round for freedom, circle round for peace, for all of us imprisoned, circle for release.
Circle for the planet, circle for each soul. For the children of our children, keep the circle whole.
In the coming days, as we face our nation’s challenges, it is good to remember a message sent out this week by UUA President Susan Frederick Gray – “We celebrate everyone who has worked so hard to make this election free and fair, expressing our shared commitment to waiting vigilantly for all votes to be counted.” In the midst of all that is happening, showing up safely together in this powerful way can serve to re-ground us in our faith, our commitment to democracy, and our shared ministry.
And what can hold us when we get discouraged about the forces in our nation which try to demonize people, which try to suppress the votes and interests of people without power? I offer this thought from the Rev. Dr. William Barber for inspiration. He founded the Moral Monday demonstrations in North Carolina to put an end to voter suppression there. He leads the Poor People’s Campaign, a National Call for Moral Revival. This week he reminds us to keep our eyes on what we CAN do to heal – “In the face of this, we have never been more clear: we still have work to do.
“Our work has never just been about an election. Our work is to organize the poor, the homeless, the uninsured, the sick, the unorganized; from the hood to the holler, we must mobilize people who have long been forgotten by our political system. This is a movement, not a moment.”
And so my message to you, dear ones, celebrate what makes you hopeful, and cry those tears of what makes you sad. And then – to help heal your own wounds and the wounds of a divided nation – look outward to one another and all those in your community, form lines that create circles. Talk with your friends, listen to those who have been left out, and ALSO honor the worth and dignity of those who disagree with you. Listen deeply, ask searching questions, speak your own truths, and never give up on ALL the people in this line with you. Organize with them! This is what we can do, to help heal a hurting nation. To keep moving forward as a whole community.
Today – I will let the music be our benediction. We extinguish the chalice of this worship service, but let us vow to let the light of the flame of faith keep shining – so that we ALL can give light, give hope, teach peace, and help all people find the way. Keep the faith, keep your light shining, keep on moving forward! We can do this. Si Se Pueda.
