“Small Enough to Care, Large Enough to Serve”, February 5, 2012

© Rev. Susan Karlson

Unitarian Church of Staten Island

I went to the emergency department here on Staten Island about two months ago. In the emergency room, even on a light day, you can’t help but hear lots of stories. Often, there’s nothing separating you from your neighbor but a flimsy curtain and an equally transparent gown. I heard my roommate’s story and obviously, she heard mine. Boundaries and borders between patients are incredibly fluid in the ER.

So many people in the Emergency Department go through CAT scans, those cylinders that encapsulate your body. Jane Rzepka, the author of our readings this morning, wrote how you have to stay perfectly still during a CAT scan and the only thing you can see to focus on are four or five holes with some writing that reads, “Danger, laser activity, do not look at these holes!” So you have to close your eyes while the machine sees right through you.

When I finally got discharged, the first thing I encountered was a peacock strutting near the sliding exit doors. I learned that peacocks often escape a nearby farm and come to the hospital because people will feed them.

After a day spent in a drab hospital emergency department with kind staff, an aching but compassionate roommate that peacock brought a bit of unexpected beauty. The peacock wanted food; it certainly didn’t know how its iridescent presence lifted my spirits and eased my pain. We often mean so much to one another; more than we can ever know.

We are a small church; you can’t really stay anonymous for long here. If you want to be invisible, you need to find a larger church where you can blend in, where people may not recognize you. Lots of people like a small church for just that reason—it is a caring way station among the crises, exhilarations and bends in the road. Here, when we are at our best, you are known and seen.

The Unitarian Church of Staten Island is, for many, a place where we get away from the hectic, the sorrowful, the angst of life, to find a place of repose, a place where we can be known but where we also can be filled up, each according to the needs we have in a given week.

In our conversations, I hear how people need this church when their lives come unglued—they need to just come and absorb like a sponge resting at the bottom of the ocean floor. Life’s twists and turns leave them drained, wasted, coming apart at the seams. Some people tell me, “I wish I could give something. I want to but I just have nothing to give right now.” And I tell them that is fine; that life will not always be like this. Right now, you need to care for yourself, to soak up the warmth of this community; to pause on the edge of heartbreak and linger here.

For some, this community brings them back to a connection with the Divine that has brought solace, strength and spirit before. To others, this is a place where they regain confidence in their own beliefs, insights and their ability to make a difference. With renewal in a safe caring community like this, people venture out and find their way to grow in spiritual maturity, to enjoy the blessings that just happen spontaneously, those little blessings of synchronicity that suddenly appear like a colorful peacock in a drab, colorless environment. And perhaps, whether we know it or not, we are serving others just by showing up and being present.

One of my core beliefs is that we never know what we might mean to someone else. Through an interaction with you, I might glimpse again the face of God that is reflected through you. It is through coming week after week, that we get to know one another—treasure one another and understand what the Beloved Community, spoken of in each of the world’s religions as compassion, mercy and forgiveness, might look like.

Like my roommate in the hospital, or a peacock at the margins, we bring beauty and sustenance to one another, often with no awareness that we’re doing it. And in that way, we serve one another. At our community meeting two weeks ago, our president, Rona Solomon, said that we are a small congregation but we do more than many congregations twice our size. We sometimes get exhausted putting on a Superbowl Party or a Spaghetti dinner, a play or a concert, a Fair, a brunch, a Sunday service, an auction, a workshop, a conference, a forum, a panel discussion, or teaching a class. Yet all of that effort, all of that service goes toward building this community, cherishing what we have here, and sharing it with others.

I was speaking to someone the other day about how much effort it takes to put on an event, how tiring it can be but how good it feels to hear that people are eager to attend something you’ve put your heart and soul into. In our society, we seldom feel appreciated—we are in the treadmill at work, grinding out widgets, prodded to produce more and more, taking less and less time to breathe, to savor life, to realize the preciousness of this moment and all of us here together.

We can feel worthless, unimportant, inadequate—no one even cares that we are giving our all. Here at this church—we are small enough to care about you and large enough to serve you and encourage you to serve others as you find the strength, friendship and sustenance necessary to grow spiritually and morally. This is part of spiritual practice—sometimes, nothing more than loving kindness and compassion.

I just started a new class on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. As we read Emerson’s Divinity Street Address, we talked about his view of the world as an astonishing blessing centered in nature and natural laws. Emerson had a broad transcendentalist view of the world—he asks a question, “in how many churches is man made sensible that he is an infinite Soul; that the earth and heavens are passing into his mind; that he is drinking forever the soul of God?” Perhaps Emerson’s choice of words does not speak to you but his Address at Harvard Divinity School was radical and heretical for in essence he was saying that all of nature is available to us and that, in fact, God is ever with us and can be known through our experiences, through our thirst for growth and our inclinations to do what is right and just.

This church is not a one-size-fits-all church—we come like characters from a novel, each with our own failings, foibles, gifts and aspirations. Some of us serve all week long, caring for the sick, nurturing the needy, or educating those hungry for knowledge—for those people, the church is a place of refuge. Some come for fellowship or to be challenged, affirmed, to write, sing, pray, laugh, or think daring thoughts and enact radical visions.

Last week, I spoke about the Board looking at the role of the professional minister and how we all work together as one community. There are certain tasks and ministries that a professional minister like me is trained and well-suited for but we all share in the ministry of this congregation. We all minister to one another. And we all are responsible for discerning who we are as a church community, what we do and where we are going.

We all need to do service in re-envisioning the Unitarian Church of Staten Island in the twenty first century because the church of the 19^th and 20^th century simply is not viable any more. Again, I am not making judgments about the high caliber of this church, its Religious Exploration programs, its work on social justice, the Arts or any other facet of church life. We are a small church and we can be proud of our stature, our passion and all that we do with our small numbers. I know I am proud of all of you and how much you love this church and how much you are willing to do to help it thrive, to be a place of spiritual sustenance, welcome and action for generations to come.

Here in this place, perhaps in all aspects of your life, you are like the beautiful peacock that just shows up; you may not have a clue what your presence means to someone else. And you won’t ever know and you don’t need to know what you mean to others. Just show up with your beautiful soul.

Sometimes, when I’ve been to the emergency veterinarian I hear those people who are torn apart and heart sick about their beloved pet. It is then that no matter what I may be going through with my own sick animal, I feel like a chaplain; I am there to get a cup of tea for some tense pet owner or just to listen to their fears which they may not be able to utter to the veterinarian or the assistant. In a way, our lives at church can be seen that way.

Take a look around you when you go into coffee hour—you certainly know what is happening in your own life, whether your cup is filled to the brim with celebration or unfathomable joy, or if mediocrity and boredom enervate you or sorrow wrenches your heart in two. Like Jane Rzepka said in our reading, do you sometimes think that everyone else has it all together—that you are the only one that needs mending or caring?

Let’s call it “Church Attendance Therapy”; our own CAT scan. Here at church, we can keep our “eyes wide open”, acknowledging the pain we see in a bruised soul or the deeds done to alleviate another’s misery. Here at church, we are seen and known for who we are, not how much we do. Here at church, we may sometimes feel like wounded healers with our own wearied souls patched on our sleeves. Yet here at church we show up because we know that this church is small enough to care about each and every person and large enough to serve those here and the people and causes that call our name. So may it be.