Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by Elizabeth O’Connor, from Cry Pain, Cry Hope
From past experience I know that when I begin investing myself in a dream or in a life, the commitment grows. Where I put my energies and my treasure, my reluctant heart sometimes follows. If any of us had to be fully committed when starting out, very little would ever be begun. It would be like having to decide to marry on the first meeting. What we have to do is take one step and, if it seems good, take another.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point. I will be lighting my chalice for worship at 11.00 am on Sunday morning) words by David Usher:
We light this candle as a symbol of our faith.
By its light may our vision be illumined;
By its warmth may our fellowship be encouraged;
And by its flame may our yearnings for peace, justice
and the life of the spirit be enkindled.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
Be with us as we gather for worship,
Each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
Even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
In this world in which Covid has not yet gone away,
And the clouds of war and climate change overshadow us.
May we keep in touch however we can,
And help each other,
However we may.
May we be grateful for the freedoms we have
and respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
Who are grieving, lost, alone,
Suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life’s procession that marches
in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work, you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream,
assigned to you when that dream was born.
And in keeping yourself with labour, you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
… when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust.
Amen
Reading from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
Prayer For the Workers by Cliff Reed, from Sacred Earth (adapted)
Spirit of Life and Love,
Let us give thanks for those who, gladly and willingly,
doggedly and determinedly, do the work that
we would find it hard to do ourselves:
Work that is too dirty and dangerous and unpleasant
for us to contemplate;
work that would test us beyond the limits of our capabilities,
be they physical, mental, or emotional;
work done at times when we would rather be at rest;
in places we would rather not go;
work that would pose too great a challenge
to our tender consciences, though it must be done;
work with people we would rather not
have to meet or think about;
work that might just cost us our lives,
as it may cost the lives of those who do it now.
For all these workers, we give thanks,
O God, for on them we depend.
Be with them in their labours;
help us to appreciate them, as you do.
Amen
Readings
from Think on These Things by Krishnamurti
Can you and I, who are simple, ordinary people, live creatively in this world without the drive of ambition which shows itself in various ways as the desire for power, position? You will find the right answer when you love what you are doing. If you are an engineer merely because you must earn a livelihood, or because your father or society expects it of you, that is another form of compulsion; and compulsion in any form creates a contradiction, conflict. Whereas, if you really love to be an engineer, or a scientist, or if you can plant a tree, or paint a picture, or write a poem, not to gain recognition but just because you love to do it, then you will find that you never compete with another. I think this is the real key: to love what you do.
From Cry Pain, Cry Hope by Elizabeth O’Connor
Each person, no matter how old, has an important work to do… This good work not only accomplishes something needed in the world, but completes something in us. When it is finished a new work emerges that will help us to make green a desert place, as well as to scale another mountain in ourselves. The work we do in the world, when it is true vocation, always corresponds in some mysterious way to the work that goes on within us.
Time of Stillness and Reflection by Jenny Jacobs (adapted)
Spirit of Life and Love,
Here we are amongst our fellows, in a place where we feel safe, a place we know and where we are known, in a loving community.
With all the problems and challenging situations in our lives, nevertheless, we have the safe still point of this community, on this Sunday, in this place.
Let us give thanks for the stability we enjoy in our lives amidst our friends and families.
Let us pray for all of our brothers and sisters whose lives are not so blessed; whose lives and communities are devastated by war, by terrorism, by famine, by drought, by sickness, by climate change.
Let us open our hearts so that we can empathise with our fellows and feel their pain.
Let us remember and hold in our hearts those who have had to leave their communities, hoping to build new relationships and new lives in foreign lands.
Let us recognise all those things we have in common with them and with people everywhere; our shared hopes and aspirations, for a settled home, a safe haven, rewarding work, a bright future for our children.
Let us help build our society into a place which extends the hand of welcome to all those who need it both without and within.
Let us work towards a safer, fairer world for all, wherever they may be.
[silence]
Let us live our lives in such a way that we always behave towards others with the same care and compassion we would hope to receive ourselves.
Amen
Musical Interlude I Due Fiumi by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Learning to Love What We Do
I count myself extremely blessed to be able to do work that I love, that is more of a vocation than a job. So the words of Kahlil Gibran, which formed the first part of our second reading, really spoke to me: “What is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.”
I am not a weaver, nor a builder, nor an agricultural worker, at least not in the traditional meanings of those words. Yet if we interpret the words metaphorically, I am all three. I am a weaver of words, who weaves them into a story or blogpost or address “with threads drawn from my heart.” I am a builder of connections between congregations, and between Unitarians around the country, through the Bits & Pieces newsletter, the MU Now magazine, the District’s website and my work for the Worship Studies Course, the Ministerial Fellowship and the Peace Fellowship. And I build these connections with affection for our Unitarian communities in my heart. I am an agricultural worker, in that I sow seeds of words and training and care for others, and reap a harvest of joy, when these seeds bear wonderful fruit. The fruit I am most proud of in the past few years, is the number of trained lay worship leaders and celebrants who are doing fantastic work around the District and around the country.
I also believe that, even if you are retired from paid employment, there is still meaningful work for you to do. You can be a wise, non-anxious elder, to whom people turn in times of stress. You can care for your family and friends, keeping in touch with them however you may. And, going by the examples of my husband and my father, you can do any amount of meaningful work on a voluntary basis. My father “retired” over twenty years ago, and has only recently stopped. His work for Unitarian communities around the Midlands over 40 years has made a huge beneficial difference. And my husband retired a few years ago, and does a lot of work for his local model car club, is editor of a thriving online model car magazine, and is involved with the local amateur dramatics society and the local Neighbourhood Plan. Both of them do (or did) the work they do because they love it (most of the time) and derive great satisfaction from making a good job of it.
Yet not everyone is so fortunate as to be able to do what we (from our positions of privilege) might call an ideal job. And yet, they do the work they are called to do anyway. Which is why I included Cliff Reed’s prayer For the Workers in this service, to remind us of how very dependent we are on people who do the work we would not wish (or might not even be able) to do. In April 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, I wrote about people, “who are working long hours under difficult conditions. Some will come immediately to mind: doctors, nurses, other hospital staff, care staff, first responders, pharmacy staff, police, fire fighters, paramedics, and supermarket and corner shop workers. But others may not be so obvious. Yet without the work of delivery drivers and truck drivers, our shops and supermarkets would be empty, and our hospitals would not be receiving the supplies they so urgently need. Our binmen continue to empty our bins, week by week. Dedicated teachers are keeping the children of these front line staff busy and occupied. And I would add anyone doing research or work which has a direct connection to the current crisis, and also Post Office staff.”
All these people still work hard, still do the work that is theirs to do. We should be grateful to them.
***
Many of our Unitarian congregations would fall to pieces, were it not for the hard work of the (often too few) volunteers who keep things humming along. Whether they are serving on committees, running other-than-Sunday events, arranging the flowers, keeping the gardens / grounds looking lovely and cared for, providing the music, keeping the website and Facebook page / Twitter account up to date, producing the congregation’s newsletter, being stewards on Sundays or serving refreshments after worship (please forgive me if I have forgotten to mention your voluntary role), all are working with love. And that is what I call lay ministry. Which may be another way of describing how we love what we do.
Ministry in a Unitarian context is not (or should not be) just something that the congregation passively receives; it is something we all do together, helping each other along the way. It is about working together with love, because we believe in the joy and fulfilment that being a member of a Unitarian community can bring, for ourselves and other people.
Spiritual ministry is about feeding the spiritual selves of the congregation. It is about delivering worship that will inspire them and help them to grow, that will stretch their minds and hearts, that will challenge and renew their spiritual selves. It is about deep listening and sharing.
Pastoral ministry is about being there for each other in times of need, whether it is listening to someone’s problems, or sharing their joys, or visiting them in their homes or in hospital, or conducting rites of passage – namings, weddings and funerals. It also happens more informally, as in when members of the congregation look out for each other, and give someone a ring if they haven’t been around for a while. It doesn’t just have to be done by the minister or the committee.
Practical ministry is about serving refreshments after the service, or sitting on a church committee, or keeping the chapel clean and tidy, or providing flowers for Sunday worship, or playing the organ, or giving someone a lift to chapel on Sunday morning, or any number of other practical things that turn our churches or chapels from a social club into a beloved community.
The thing to remember, to bear in mind all the time, is that we are all human beings, all fellow pilgrims on the same spiritual path. As Cliff Reed explains in Unitarian? What’s that?: “Unitarians affirm that all human beings originate in the Divine Unity, all have something of God in them, all are alive with the same divine breath.” So each one of us has the responsibility to minister to the needs of everyone else; to recognise the divine spark within them, and to nurture each person as best we can.
As I see it, our job as Unitarians, as human beings, is to be constantly aware of the “divine influences” around us, in the world, in our fellow human beings, and to recognise that there is that of God in everyone, and that we are all connected to each other, on a very fundamental level. It is when we make these fundamental connections that ministry takes place, whether it is in a Unitarian context or in our everyday lives.
We must commit ourselves to doing our best to live our lives as well as we can, in accordance with the best we know, and to make our lives and the lives of those we touch as good as we can. This is what being part of a Unitarian community is all about. It is what ministry is about. It is about learning to work with love for the things we care about.
We are all human beings, we are all members of many communities – our families, our friends, our colleagues, our church – and we are all members of the human race. What difference can we, as individuals, make to those communities? How can we minister to them? We need to be aware that we are in a living relationship with the rest of the world, and that our words and actions can influence the fate of that world and its inhabitants, our fellow human beings, not to mention all the other living things. Whether our influence is for good or ill is up to us.
On a personal level, I think it is the duty of each of us to nurture our own precious spiritual communities, whether we are worship leaders or not. It means being alert, being aware, being conscious of our part in the world, and our possible influence on it, not just on Sundays, but every day of the week, every minute of the day. Quite a challenge, but we can do it, if we truly want to. We can all minister to one another, when we love what we do.
I love the uplifting advice of George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends: “Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.”
And I would ask you to remember the words of the Prophet: “When you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born. And in keeping yourself with labour, you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret. … when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.”
May whatever work you do, whether paid or voluntary, bring you fulfilment and joy, now and in the days to come.
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we learn to love the work
which is ours to do, whether
it is paid or unpaid.
May we share the love we feel,
trusting each other with our joys and our sorrows,
may we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
being grateful for the many blessings in our lives,
now and in the days to come, Amen
Postlude Stella del Mattino by Ludovico Einaudi