Renewal Requires Risk

Renewing relationships of all kinds involves some risk—of being vulnerable, of making mistakes, of suffering when misunderstood. How might we learn to embrace such risk, so that relationships of all kinds are more deeply human and humane?

When I signed a contract with UCM back in the summer of 2023, I already knew that this congregation was looking for renewal. “Renewal.” The word “Renewal” appeared boldly in your congregational record, the document you posted so that ministers in search could learn about you—what you have been, how you saw yourself at that time, where you hoped to go. Your aspiration for renewal was something I was curious about. What did you mean by that? Why did you want renewal? What did renewal mean to you?

Our early journey together took us in many directions, which was only to be expected since introducing a new minister into your system could not help but change it.

All of us needed to re- orient to just what that change looked and felt like. My presence—my way of being, my way of doing things, my identities, my vision of ministry—changed you. And who you became—what you held onto, how you adapted, how you reflected upon yourselves, what you needed of ministry—this all changed me. As that song from the musical “Wicked” implies, we don’t necessarily know yet if we have been changed for the better, but I am confident that we have been changed for good, significantly, even permanently changed. We’ll wait until my departure to judge whether that have been for the good with a capital “G.”

The congregation is not the same, inevitably, when a new minister comes into your system. This is true, but only part of the truth. The congregation is not the same as it was when it searched for an interim minister, because the people in it are not the same. How are you not the same? How are you different? Well, look around. There are people who you used to see who you don’t see here. People have died. People have become too frail to attend. People are too busy taking care of frail loved ones to attend. People got mad about something and stopped attending. People’s spiritual lives or family lives shifted, and UCM is no longer the best place for them.

All of this change is true, . . . and there is yet more to the story. Some of you are in different roles than you were before, picking up new tasks and setting other ones down. Taking up work on one committee or turning over the reins to someone else. Finding a better fit for your interests and your energies and your creativity. Mentoring someone into an important position rather than filling it yourself. Deepening into spiritual practices, perhaps taking up some new ones. And some of you here, you look around and you might feel everything looks normal and usual, because you are a relative newcomer. You see folk who you have been seeing for a month or a year. You are still learning who is who. You are still discerning your involvement, deciding what if anything more than attending worship is how you want to be and become in this congregation.

You are deciding if you will invest your time and energy in deeper relationship with this congregation. And that is simply and truly exactly where you should be.

Wherever you are in these stages is right where you should be. Wherever you are—present and accounted for, present and assessing, present and shifting, present and waiting, present somewhere better suited for you in this moment—it takes some risk to be here and there. Even if UCM feels as comfortable as your favorite, easy pair of shoes, it takes risk to be here. And I thank you for taking that risk, because renewal takes risk. It you want renewal at UCM, you have to be willing to take risks. And risk is always hard, always challenge because to take a risk is to allow yourself to be vulnerable. The writer Madeleine L’Engle reminds us of a falsehood we need to confront. She says, “When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown up, we would no longer be vulnerable.” We would grow to be strong, in charge, invincible, able to bat down or beat down any forces getting in the way of what we want—for ourselves, for doing good in a hurting world, for the protection of those we care about. “But,” L’Engle goes on, “to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable.”

As mature people, we accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable. And it is my sincerest hope, my most hopeful prayer, that you are here . . . willing to be vulnerable. “There is nothing you need to bring with you to be welcome here.” “You do not need to know what brought you here.” “You do not need to be already perfect—or even half-way— to belong in this circle where grace meets us where we are but does not leave us as it found us*.” We all come-as-we-are, however we are, called here to seek a deeper meaning or purpose for our lives. We come hurt and confused, needing solace. We come open-minded, intrigued and curious about a faith tradition rooted in Christianity but not Christian. We come tender-hearted, needing a respite from the violence and cruelties of the world, a different and better way of communicating with each other. We come for inspiration, longing for solutions to the aching problems of the world, yearning for the like-minded and like-hearted to join with us as we search and act.

But I would be shocked if any of you, from any generation, from any length of time in the congregation, came here solely to do a task.

“Gee, I would really like to be on a committee. I think I’ll take myself over to the nice-looking UU church on South Service Road and sign up.” “Whelp, I just need to serve some coffee and cookies to somebody. I bet they have coffee and cookies over there at UCM.” “I just need to fix a light switch today or a clogged drain. I just need to rake some leaves or re-organize a storage area. Let me go see if the Unitarian could use some help.” Am I wrong? Raise your hand. Did you come for that!?

You might answer what you think you’re supposed to say. “I came to help.” And I know how very much helping so many of you do, in so many ways, around here. Yes, committee work and coffee-cookies and light switches-drains and all of that. And also the help that arrives as a shoulder to lean on, a shoulder to cry one, an ear to listen, a story that simply must be told. And so much more that helps in ways measurable and otherwise. But I think you all came for another reasons, too. I think you all came to be seen. To be seen as you are, for who you are. You came with your vulnerability, and I am saying to you that this is the place to allow it to show. May we be the place where this is really true and possible. Because this congregation wants renewal—it wants to be the brave, courageous place of renewal and depth and possibility and action. This place, with all you people here in your various ways, it’s not just about doing tasks but about building relationships. Though we often answer what we think we should say, in the words of Howard Thurman, “what if we could say: I want to feel that I am thoroughly and completely understood so that now and then I can take my guard down and look out around me and not feel that I will be destroyed with my defenses down. I want to feel completely vulnerable, completely naked, completely exposed and absolutely secure.” That is a risky place to be. That is a place of renewal. Vulnerably ourselves, and held in love, “where love resides in each of us yet is somehow more than all, where life still pulses and rages and heals and transforms, creating us and this day anew once again.”

Renewal requires risk and risk requires vulnerability and vulnerability requires something more. It requires bravery. It takes courage.

Not “boundless courage,” though. Brené Brown gives us a very helpful definition of courage. Courage originally meant, she writes, “‘To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart,’” because courage is a word that comes from “cor” or heart. Brown goes on to say that, “Over time, this definition has changed, and, today, courage is more synonymous with being heroic. Heroics [are] important and we certainly need heroes, but I think we’ve lost touch with the idea that speaking honestly and openly about who we are, about what we’re feeling, and about our experiences (good and bad) is the definition of courage. Heroics is often about putting our life on the line. Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line.”

“Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line.” I am not saying it is easy to be brave, to be vulnerable, to take a risk. I am saying that vulnerability and courage are required for a true renewal. When I searched your congregation, you were asking for renewal. You asked for some specific ministerial tasks to be performed—tasks that had to do with clarifying some event processes and with staff morale and with imagining ways to be more financially self-sustaining. All important tasks, to be sure. But I did not come here, and you do not come to do jobs and tasks. We come to build community, perhaps even the Beloved Community, where all our differences are honored and valued by each of us. A community where we strive to understand each other even and especially when we don’t see eye-to-eye. And we have to be vulnerable to do that. A place with no one person having the answers, the perfect answers, to everything, or anything really. Rather, a community of finding answers together, defining problems and challenges together, making decisions together. “Renewal” means something different now than it did when the Interim Search Committee wrote those words that drew me to UCM. How could it not, when we take the courageous risk for vulnerability, when we allow ourselves to change and be changed.

When you choose community over tasks, with love to guide us all, and always.

As individuals and as a community, let us acknowledge that we do not all see the same thing when we appear to be looking at a thing—be it a field of grain, a scarecrow, a congregational challenge, or each other’s faces and hearts. “Be gentle with another Our lives are like fragile eggs. They crack and the substance escapes.” So, “Handle with care! Life is too transient to be cruel with one another.” A renewal of community will guide us to care. Let us be self-aware and honest. Let us each take the risk of vulnerability and hold each other in care as we do. Let us be simply good at being simply, truly courageous. Let us listen for that the still small, voice in ourselves and each other calling out to be known and heard and held and loved. Renewed. May it ever be so.

*From the theology of Anne Lamott

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