A sermon by the Rev. Daniel Schatz, delivered at BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, November 3, 2002 - New Member Sunday

This is a free, creedless religious congregation.  In the discipline of truth and in the spirit of universal kinship we join together in a cooperative quest for religious and ethical values, seeking to apply those values to the development of character, the enrichment of the spirit and service to all.

You are welcome here, whatever your age, gender, or physical or mental capabilities, social graces, beauty of body or spirit, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, or position in life.  Join us as we journey toward peace and justice for all persons.

            You are welcome here, whatever your age, gender, or physical or mental capabilities, social graces, beauty of body or spirit, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, or position in life.

At BuxMont we say these words each week at the beginning of our service.  We say them so often that we risk missing the import and beauty of sentiment behind the poetry of the words.

            I talked last week with Shirley Josephson, who wrote that welcome several years ago.  There was a sense, she said, that we needed to say something about BuxMont in our services, but it needed to be more than a simple description of who we are.  It needed to be inviting.  She drafted a statement of welcome, which was edited by others, so that it was broad and inclusive, but didn’t extend too far into the realm of redundancy.  It was an important kind of democratic process, because in defining our statement of welcome, we defined much about who we are as a fellowship, and even more about who we wish to be.

            Our ideal is true community – a place where all are welcome, where the gifts of every individual are sought out, nurtured, and shared, each in our own measure.  Our welcome is an invitation to those of every age, of every economic class, every sexual orientation, every ethnicity – ours is an invitation to all who would choose us; we welcome you.

            It is a Unitarian Universalist message, and while we recognize that not everyone who comes through our doors will find a home in Unitarian Universalism, it is central to our liberal theology that our spiritual home is open to all.

            Out of curiosity, the other day I typed “You are welcome here” into an internet search engine.  (Yes, I “Googled” this sermon.)  Not surprisingly, about half of the sites I found were from churches – I’m proud to say more Unitarian Universalists than any other single kind.  A number of sites were from various lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual organizations – perhaps because there is a community which, as much as any other, needs to be welcomed explicitly.  There have been too many years of too many people being made unwelcome.  For what it’s worth, I also found one site from the BBC, of all places, and the summary read: “Welcome... I am Ambassador Kosh of the Vorlon Empire. You are welcome here in my quarters, unless you are one of the Shadows, in which case I will destroy you.”  I wonder if they know something we don’t know.

            What I do know is what was confirmed in my search – that welcoming is sacred, and that it is central to Unitarian Universalism.

On Being Welcome

            Listening to myself and others say these words of welcome has led my thoughts over the past few months to what it means to be welcomed and what it means to be welcoming.  I am slowly coming to the conclusion that the feeling of being welcome is one of the most profound human spiritual experiences.  “Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast” wrote Shakespeare, and I hope that all who come to our fellowship may find both cheer – at least usually – and welcome, always.  We are a community of cheer and warmth.

            It is the warmth that makes us feel welcome.  There’s something profound about walking into a place and being treated as an honored guest, perhaps invited to stay.  Stories from antiquity abound in all cultures of the gods coming to earth in the guise of poor travelers.  They rewarded those who made them feel welcome.

            When have you felt welcome?  What was it like?

            I remember when I was a teenager, 14 years old.  I had always been one of those kids who never quite fit in.  I didn’t play sports, and I didn’t listen to the music that the other kids listened to, I probably talked too much, and I was more interested in politics than fashion.  I was a lonely kid, and I had never in my life felt fully included in a community of my peers.

            Then, for the first time, I went to the UU General Assembly as a youth observer, and I became a part of the youth caucus.  It was less than a week – five days, but those were possibly the most life-changing five days I ever had.  And it wasn’t the plenary sessions, though these were fun.  (I told you – at that age, I had a somewhat different idea of fun from most of my peers.)  It wasn’t even the workshops, or the wonderful exhibit hall, with its opportunities for picking up chalices, crafts from poverty-stricken nations, literature, tee-shirts and bumper stickers for just about every social cause you could think of.  It was the welcome.  I even knew at the time how important it was, how opening, and powerful and beautiful and heaven-sent, whatever that meant, it was to come into a community and be accepted and honored and respected and even loved for who I was.

            When I think back on it, I’m astounded.  It moved me from the social purgatory of early adolescence to the realization, perhaps for the first time, of my own worth and my own humanity.  Five days!  Five days of community.  Even after the first day, my life was never the same.

            That is the power of being made welcome.  Whether it comes all at once, as it did to me, or it comes more gently, an open welcome is the truest grace.

The Need to be Known

            An open welcome is a basic human need, one too often unmet.  We need to know others and be known; we need experience outside our individuality.  Lewis Thomas, the biologist and author, once wrote,

We have all the habits of a social species, more compulsively social than any other, even bees and ants.  Our nest, or hive, is language; we are held together by speech.....  Our great advantage over all other social animals is that we possess the kind of brain that permits us to change our minds.  We are not obliged, as the ants are, to follow genetic blueprints for every last detail of our behavior.  Our genes are more cryptic and ambiguous in their instructions: get along, says our DNA, talk to each other, figure out the world, be useful, and above all keep an eye out for affection.

Reading this passage, the Unitarian Universalist author Jack Mendelsohn commented that “if ever there was an exhilarating description of liberalism, this is it.”  And he went on to say, “The essential meaning of our lives, even in the midst of all that is so calamitous, is not in becoming part of a mechanical interplay of mechanical forces, but to seek more enthusiastically than ever in our shared thoughts and activities the evolving goals of our emerging spiritual selves.”

            We need connection with others.  We need to open ourselves to other people’s lives, thoughts, feelings, journeys, so that we can find true meaning in life.  We are far too social to live in isolation.  We need to be welcomed into the lives of others to gain true human perspective.  When the times are frightening and uncertain, that welcome becomes all the more important.  And we need to welcome others into our lives.

On Making Others Welcome

            The welcome is a mutual process.

            When we welcome someone, we invite them into our lives.  That means we open ourselves some and ask that they welcome us into their lives.  We do more than ask them questions; we begin to share our experience, our truth, our reality.  Without being overwhelming or self-centered we show them some of who we are.

            It is the warmth of being welcome that makes all the difference.  The words we speak on Sunday mornings are meaningful only in as much as they are lived in warmth by the members of BuxMont.  A true and honest welcome means not merely reaching outward to another person, but reaching inward, opening ourselves to be welcomed into another’s life.  The best kind of welcome is not merely a passive acceptance of another’s presence, but an invitation to come in.

            Walk in through these doors and into this community.  We won’t be perfect, and we won’t even be perfectly welcoming.  There will be times when we will not live up to our ideals; this is inevitable in human community.  There will be times when we forget ourselves, and are less egalitarian, less inclusive, less diverse, less true to ourselves and the value we place on inherent human worth and dignity than we wish we would be.  There will be times when we miss or forget the needs of people we love.

            These things happen, and we can’t always fix it or make it better when they do.  What we can do is look again to our ideals and ask ourselves how we might be more welcoming, more open, more loving.

            We can ask difficult questions.

            Do we welcome passively or actively?  We welcome newcomers to our doors.  How do we invite those newcomers?  Do we wait for them to find us, or do we reach out to the community?

            Does the diversity of our programming reflect the diversity of our community?

            Do we welcome only those who would join our fellowship, as our new members join today, or do we welcome the larger community of Central Bucks and Montgomery counties, not because it would benefit us, but because it is a way to live out our faith in the importance of community and the interdependent web of life and humanity?

            Is our welcome mutual?  Do we open ourselves as we ask others to open to us?

            Do we continue to welcome people even after they have been here for a long time?

            And what does it mean for each of us to be welcoming in a congregation so large that we do not even recognize all of the regulars? 

            Social hour is an important time – it’s a time when we connect with our friends, and hopefully do not conduct too much fellowship business.  It is also the time when we welcome newcomers.  Even if you don’t know by their faces, you’ll recognize them – they’re the ones with the brown coffee mugs and blue stick-on nametags, often found walking around the periphery of the room, reading bulletin boards.

            Today – after the service, in the coffee hour, try to meet at least three people you didn’t know before.  Try to make one of these people a newcomer.

            You don’t have to do that every week – it would get overwhelming too quickly, I suspect.  But if you were able to welcome at least one person you didn’t know every week, think about what a difference that could make to the community and to you!

            And from time to time, ask yourself the tough questions of how we can be more welcoming.  They are questions that need to be visited and revisited even in the most welcoming of communities.  At BuxMont we are an open and welcoming community.  But it is simply too easy for even the most open community to become closed for us to allow ourselves the luxury of complacency.  I think we know this; I think this is why our words of welcome are so important to so many people.

            We realize that in welcoming all people we make ourselves a more vital community.  We realize that with each new member, our community is enriched with a new set of experiences, feelings, and ideas.

            In Unitarian Universalism, we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of everyone – after we have come into the fellowship, we don’t close the door behind us.  We stand, with the door open, at least metaphorically.  We stand ready to welcome the next person in.

            This is such a simple message and such a simple practice that it is easy to forget that it lies at the very heart of Unitarian Universalism.  We are welcoming not because we want Unitarian Universalism to grow, although we do.  We are welcoming not even because we want BuxMont to grow, although I think most of us do.  We are welcoming because we are a religion based on freedom of life and spirit and belief, a religion in which we draw no distinctions between the worth of one person or another.

            If we are true to our ideals we will honor no privilege – neither race nor wealth nor sexual orientation nor age nor anything else.  Martin Luther King famously said that he dreamed of a world in which his four children would be judged by the content of their character; Unitarian Universalism aims to be an embodiment of that dream.

            It is the spirit of the words of Jesus of Nazareth, who, holding a small child, told his followers, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  Treat other people, no matter who they are, as if they were your most valued teacher and leader.  Honor the divinity within the humanity.  If you would prepare a feast for a wealthy ruler, than also prepare a feast for the pauper or for the child.  Meet the fullness of their humanity with the fullness of your own.  And open yourself to the welcome.

            You are welcome here.

Whatever your age,
            you are welcome here.

Whatever your gender,
            you are welcome here.

Whatever your physical or mental capabilities,
            you are welcome here.

Whatever your social graces,
            you are welcome here.

Whatever your beauty of body or spirit,
            you are welcome here.

Whatever your sexual orientation,
            you are welcome here.

Whatever your ethnic origin,
            you are welcome here.

Whatever your position in life,
            you are welcome here.

You are welcome here.

        Join us as we journey toward peace and justice for all persons.