First Parish Sermon

The late Erma Bombeck relates an incident about being in church one Sunday. She was intent on watching "a small child who was turning around smiling at everyone." She reports that...

...he wasn't gurgling, spitting, humming, kicking, tearing the hymnal, or rummaging through his mother's handbag. He was just smiling. Finally, his mother jerked him about and in a stage whisper that could be heard in a little theater off Broadway, said, "Stop that grinning! You're in church!" With that she gave him a belt on his hindside, and as the tears rolled down his cheeks she added, "That's better," and returned to her prayers.

Erma Bombeck continues:

Suddenly I was angry. I wanted to grab this child with the tear stained face close to me and tell him about God. The happy God. The smiling God. The God who had to have a sense of humor to have created the likes of us....I wanted to tell the child I've taken a few lumps in my time for daring to smile at religion....What a fool, I thought. Here was a woman sitting next to the only light left in our civilization, the only hope, our only miracle, our only promise of infinity. If a child couldn't smile in church, where was there left to go?

The answer to her question ought to be, a Unitarian Universalist church, that's where! We need to create the kind of religious and spiritual climate in our churches where we have the freedom to smile and laugh at ourselves, as well as to be serious about real issues and ethical dilemmas, and to be able to do both in the same service, and not just once a year. A young mother and her 7 year old son spent many Sundays visiting different churches. They were not very pleased with any of them. But when they visited the First Unitarian Church of Detroit, all the boy could say for a week afterwards was, "Can we go back to the church where people laugh?" That's what I'd like you to do with me this morning, to take a few minutes to laugh at ourselves and to do it in church. The late Norman Cousins, who once cured himself from a terminal illness with Vitamin C and laughter said that laughter was "a form of internal jogging." He proved to himself that "he who laughs, lasts." Or as it says in the Book of Proverbs, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." And so this morning I invite you to "jest for the health of it," to engage in some holy laughter to make one whole.

I begin with a story about a man who died and went to heaven and St. Peter was showing him around. They passed by a big room and inside were a bunch of people at a banquet feasting on delicious meats and other food. "Who are those people?" asked the man. St. Peter said, "Oh, those are the Catholics. They always had to fast on Friday and during Lent so they get to make up for it here." They came to another room in which people were drinking wine and beer and hard liquor. They were reeling from it and also were dancing wildly the more intoxicated they got. "Who are those people?" asked the man again. "Those are the Baptists", said St. Peter. "They couldn't drink or dance on earth, so they get to make up for it here." Finally, they came to a third room and looked in, and there was the saddest-looking group of people you ever saw. They were all moping around with long faces and looking terribly depressed. "And who are they?" the man asked. St. Peter said, "Oh, those are the Unitarian Universalists. They've already done it all."

I don't know if it's true that we've done it all, but recent studies seem to indicate that UUs as a whole are happier than those in other denominations. I hope it's because we do more internal jogging in church. The question of all questions, when it comes to Unitarian Universalists, is, “What do we believe?” It has been said that only God knows what UU’s believe, and then only on one of Her good days. About all we can say is that UU’s are very strongly anti-Trinity. They will not allow their children to read “The Three Little Pigs.” All religions have their rites and rituals. Catholics cross themselves; Jews wear a yarmulke on their heads; Muslims bow to Mecca; UUs scratch their heads.

UUs like to take pride in the fact that their ministers are educated and preach intellectually stimulating sermons. Not everyone looks at it that way as one layman learned who was much impressed with the new minister they had just called and could hardly wait to tell his skeptical Maine farmer neighbor about him. "He's got a B.S., an M.S., and a Ph.D.," he told him proudly. "Well,” the farmer said, “I'm not much on these educated preachers" We all know what B.S. stands for. M.S. means 'More of the same' and Ph.D. means 'Piled higher and deeper.'"

We like to think that we’re more spiritually advanced because we can draw on both eastern and western religious traditions for inspiration and reflection. Not everyone thinks the way we do. A Hindu yogi, a Jewish rabbi, and a UU minister were traveling together in India. They came to an inn to spend the night, but were informed that there was only room for two in the one remaining room. One of them would have to sleep in the barn.The Hindu graciously volunteers to sleep in the barn. As the rabbi and the UU minister prepared to bed down for the night in their room they heard a knock on the door. It was the Hindu yogi. “I’m sorry, I can’t sleep in the barn. There’s a cow out there and it’s against my religion to sleep with a holy cow.” The rabbi then steps forward and volunteers to take his place. A few minutes later there’s a second knock on the door. It was the rabbi. “I’m sorry, I can’t sleep in the barn. There’s a pig out there. It’s against my religion to sleep with an unclean animal.” So, finally, the UU minister volunteers to sleep in the barn. “I have no holy strictures one way or the other,” he declared. You guessed it, a few minutes later there was a third knock on the door. The yogi and the rabbi open the door. This time it was the cow and the pig.

Sometimes you get strange requests as a UU minister. A woman once called on the Unitarian minister in town and asked if he would perform a funeral for her dog who had just died. It being a busy week and all, and his not wanting to take on another task, the minister begged off by saying, "I don't usually do funerals for non-church members. Why don't you try the Congregational minister down the street." She answered, "All right, but could you give me some advice. How much should I pay him--three hundred or five hundred dollars?" The minister suddenly perked up and said, "Hold on, I didn't know your dog was a Unitarian."

A woman from the UU church was driving along one Sunday on her way to Sunday services when she spoted a young girl standing out in front of the Catholic church. The girl had a large cardboard box containing a number of kittens. There was a sign that read, "Catholic kittens free to a good home." The woman smiled at the clever marketing ploy and drove on to her own church. The following week, she noticed the same little girl with the kittens out in front of the Methodist church. This time the sign read, "Methodist kittens free to a good home." The woman again grinned and drove on. The next Sunday, as she pulled up in front of her own UU church, she spotted the same little girl with the box of kittens. The sign now read, "Unitarian Universalist kittens free to a good home."

This time the woman decided to have a chat with the little girl. She asked, "excuse me, young lady, but didn't I see you a couple of weeks ago at a church selling 'Catholic' kittens?" The girl answered, "Yes, you did." The woman continued, "And last week, weren't these 'Methodist' kittens?" The girl said, "Yes they were." "Well, then...the woman queried, what makes them 'Unitarian Universalist' kittens now?" The girl replied, "Because this week their eyes are open." 

Speaking of the Methodists, a Unitarian Universalist died in a town that had no UU church and her family asked the Methodist pastor if he would perform the graveside service. Being unsure about the request he decided to contact the Bishop to get permission. The Bishop's answer came back: "Permission granted. Bury all the Unitarian Universalists you can!"

We are approaching our Every Member and Friends Canvass a month from now. We ministers hope that our congregants will pledge generously and will do their utmost to fulfill their pledges. An agent of the Internal Revenue Service called the minister of a church and said, "One of your church members has put down on his tax return that he had made a contribution of $3,000 to your church. Is that true?" The minister thought a minute and then replied, "Well,if he didn't, he will."

It's no secret that many UUs have a hard time with prayer and traditional theological language. One man hedged his bets with the following prayer: "Dear God, if there is a God, if you can, save my soul, if I have a soul." And a lot of UUs have difficulty reciting the Lord's Prayer, some because they don't know it, others because they're not sure they believe it. One day two UUs were having a discussion about whether they could or should say the prayer. One challenged the other, "I'll bet you five dollars you can't even recite it." Each of them slammed down a fiver on the table. The other then said, "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." And the challenger said, "Oh, all right, you win." What is sad, is that there are some UUs who don't get that joke.

The clergy in other denominations have a hard time figuring us out. One time at an ecumenical service the Episcopal rector said, "Let us pray. And for you Unitarians, do whatever it is you do." 

Well, we try to teach our young people to be tolerant and accepting of other faiths. And so sometimes we encourage them to visit other churches with their church school class. After attending a Lutheran service one of the young people was asked by her parents how she liked the service. "It was pretty neat," she said, "except the Lutherans took all our hymns and changed the words!" How often have I heard it the other way around from those who come to us from other traditions.

Unitarian Universalists used to believe in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhood of Boston. Now we believe in the motherhood of the Goddess, the sisterhood of woman, and Mr. Roger's neighborhood. We've come a long way.

I am very much taken with Robert Frost’s little ditty which we said together earlier:

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.

I would like to think that God does indeed have a sense of humor and that human beings and the deity can play jokes on one another. There is certainly an awful lot to cry about in life, and much of our tears are brought upon us by ourselves because of our all too human nature. To get through it all we’d better learn to laugh at ourselves and others, not in derision, but in holy healing humor that restores hope and sanity to an insane world. Human beings are the only animals that can laugh. Perhaps laughter, even more than reason and intelligence, is what sets us off from the rest of the animal kingdom and makes us akin to the gods. Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee/ And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.

If all this seems silly then be aware that the word silly derives from the word seleg meaning blessing. And so I close this silly sermon with this silly blessing:

Jest for the health of it. A ho-ho-holistic view of holy laughter to make one whole. He or she who laughs, lasts and lasts. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. May this medicine of mirth heal your soul so that, in the words of the Psalmist, "our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy." And may this church ever be a place where you can share unashamedly both your laughter and your tears and never question whether one is any less important than the other. 

Prayer:

Teach us to laugh, O God. Laugh at us and with us. Let the medicine of thy mirth heal while it stings. Dispel the humidity of our self-concern. When our thoughts grow tiresome, teach us to laugh with thee, until we shatter the tinkling goblets of our ego and pride. Amen.(Author Unknown)