Our UUCOM Toolbox
Sermon | June 30, 2024 | Lisa Jebsen
I’d like to begin my final sermon with some good news and some bad news…
Which would you like first?
GOOD NEWS – my last sermon will probably be my shortest.
BAD NEWS? – if you don’t like figures of speech, you probably won’t enjoy this one very much.
Right now I feel a little bit like a parent who’s sending their kid off to their first day of school. All the prep, all the questions… Do they have all the right school supplies? Did I pack the right lunch? Will they like their classes? Their teacher? Will they be a good student?! Will they make friends?!
From one simile to another – what I like to call our UUCOM toolbox. It’s my hope that as you leave today, you will walk out feeling that your UUCOM Toolbox is full of all the things you need to continue the good work of this congregation and our larger faith.
The first tool I’d like you to always have on hand is Gratitude. I’ve dedicated two Sundays to the importance of cultivating gratitude in our lives… We’ve learned about the scientifically shown benefits of gratitude, like how it contributes to our emotional well-being, strengthens relationships and contributes to better health. We’ve explored the many ways we can cultivate gratitude as a way of life through regular practices like a gratitude journal, exploring gratitude using all of your senses, sharing gratitude with others and celebrating Thankful Thursday. (Much better than Taco Tuesday! IMHO) Gratitude is a spiritual practice – and it’s like a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it – and regular use will keep it strong!. To put it another way, William Faulkner says, “Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”
Is anyone keeping track of the figures of speech? I’ve lost count.
From Faulkner to Obama. Michelle Obama, that is. At her Keynote Address for the 2011 Young African Women Leaders Forum in South Africa, she had this to say about our next tool… “You may not always have a comfortable life. And you will not always be able to solve all the world’s problems all at once. But don’t ever underestimate the impact you can have, because history has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.”
Hope has been a consistent theme of mine so I would be remiss if I didn’t include it in our toolbox. On many Sundays over the last two years, I’ve shared dozens of good news headlines. And as we enter the slog of the election season, it will be more important than ever to balance out the doom scrolling with copious amounts of hope scrolling!
Can I be honest? I don’t own a toolbox. I mean, Tim has tons of tools and a couple of toolboxes, but they’re only mine in that joint ownership of marriage sense. The literal toolbox in my life was the makeup kit I assembled as part of my makeup class in college. I LOVE a good makeup kit – one that has tons of little compartments. No doubt, anyone my age might immediately think about Caboodles – little sparkly, pastel tackle boxes marketed to girls in the late 80s/90s. And I was SHOCKED to discover that they’re still around. They have a tiktok account for cryin’ out loud.
Thanks for indulging me in that little bit of 80s reverie. My point – and I do have one – is that as you organize your UU toolbox and the compartments inside, I would like you to keep Pride right next to Hope.
Pride is a versatile tool. We put it to good use any time we learn about and share our UU history – those famous and not so famous UUs I’ve talked about on many Sundays. We use it in the pride we feel in the beautiful church home we have here. I hope you’ll continue to do so through hosting blood drives and sharing this fabulous space with OTCC and PFLAG – organizations with values that so align with ours. I hope your pride continues to grow and extend to others in need. The tool known as Pride will also come in handy for this next item in the toolbox.
Proselytizing – and this is where my whole toolbox analogy might start to fall apart a little bit but bare with me…. The sermon I’m the most proud of is “Silence = Death” from this past January. One of my main points was that as uncomfortable or counterintuitive as it may feel, as UUs we absolutely, positively must tell others about our church and invite them here. We must be so proud of UUCOM, our UU principles and this living faith that we “preach” about it wherever we go. Because the world needs us. The word needs YOU! The values of the majority align with ours! But we can’t sit around and hope that people will find us, that others will flock to this liberal spiritual oasis. To quote from my sermon…
I don’t want to worship in an oasis any more. All too often an oasis can turn out to be a mirage. Instead, I want the Unitarian Universalist Church of Midland to be a BEACON.
A beacon of hope. A beacon of love. A beacon to all in such dark times. A beacon that calls us and inspires us into action.
The good news is that we are moving in that direction of transforming from an oasis to a beacon. Plans are moving forward with our new electronic sign that can function as a literal beacon. We have other plans to ensure that we have a solid marketing plan to continue to spread the word about UUCOM. Yes, marketing. That’s a word that we could probably have included in our UU taboos conversation last year! However, we have no better, more powerful way to advertise than YOU!
One wish I have for UUCOM is this… Go to the toolbox often – don’t let it get dusty from non use.
The last two years have been such a blessing. It’s been an honor to serve this beloved community and I will miss UUCOM dearly. As I’ve said many times before, this church has saved my life on more than one occasion. I like to think that after serving as your minister I’m leaving UUCOM a little better, a little stronger.
To all of my friends at UUCOM, I wish you love, light, good health and all the best for the days ahead.
May it be so.