 Can you go over to the sound board? Check, check, check, one, two, check. Oh, I don't have the main up. Check, check. Check, check, check, one, two, how's it going? Welcome to another wonderful Sunday here at First Unitarian Society, where independent thinkers that would be us gather in a safe, nurturing environment that would be right here to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. I'm Steve Goldberg, a very proud member of this congregation. And some of you might have heard that I was recently named by Vanity Fair Magazine as the most fascinating person on the planet. But I'm fascinated by the visitors and newcomers and guests that we might have here this morning. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find that it's a very special place. And if you'd like to learn more about our special buildings, we'll be conducting a guided tour right after the service today. Just gather over here by the windows, and we'll take good care of you. Speaking of taking care of each other, this is the time when we can silence our pesky electronic devices, which we just won't need during the service because we will be enjoying the service. So I invite you to sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I think it will touch your heart, stir your spirit, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're really glad that you're here. And let's join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. You are beloved, and you are welcome here. In an act of radical hospitality, take that in and say it to me. You are welcome, and you are beloved, and you are welcome here. You are beloved, and you are welcome here. That is your line when I do like so. You are beloved, and you are welcome here. Whether tears have fallen from your eyes this past week or gleeful laughter has spilled out of your smiling mouth, you are beloved, and you are welcome here. Whether you are feeling brave or brokenhearted, defiant or defeated, fearsome or fearful, you are beloved, and you are welcome here. Whether you have untold stories buried deep inside or stories that have been forced beyond the edges of comfort, you are beloved, and you are welcome here. Whether you have made promises, broken promises, or are renewing your promises, you are welcome here. In this space of welcome and acceptance, commitment and recommitment, of covenant and connection, you are welcome here. Let us worship together. We'll begin by singing our in-gathering hymn, number 360, here we have gathered. You may rise in all the ways that we do, and you'll notice in your order of service that there are some alternative words. In verse two of this hymn, where it says, we have all ages, women, children, men, I'm going to invite you to sing non-binary language that reads, we of all ages, siblings, partners, friends. We lied our chalice this morning to the words as printed in your order of service. As we together we say, we affirm that love is our greatest purpose, accepting one another is the truest form of faithful living. The search for truth is our constant star. We pledge our hearts, minds, and hands to challenge injustice with courage, to find hope in times of fear, and to live out our unitarian, universalist values every day as a beloved community. Thus we do covenant with each other and with all that is sacred in life. I invite you to turn and share a friendly greeting with your neighbors. It is time for our message for all ages. Pinky and I have some stories to tell. Our chalice, what happened to our chalice? Steve will look into that. This is Pinky. Yes, some of you have met Pinky before. Pinky will always have the same name as far as I know. Yeah, many of you have made friends. How many of you have a friend? Yeah, yeah. Everybody should have friends, that's right. Pinky and I have been talking about friendship lately because it's kind of the beginning of a new year. And so sometimes at the beginning of new years, we make friends. So Pinky was telling me about Pinky's friend Eunice who believes that having a unicorn is the very best pet ever. And so Pinky thought about that and he said, well, yeah, unicorns are pretty awesome pets, you know. What are they, I don't know what unicorns like to eat, but it's probably marshmallows and candy. Candy for sure, yeah. And that's fun to be friends with someone who eats marshmallows and candy. But for after a while, Pinky thought that belief is not something I really agree with anymore. I really like having a dog as a pet. And that belief was like a heavy rock that Pinky had to carry around and could not carry anymore. And then Pinky and I were starting to think about the other kinds of friendships. And in this Wonder Box, there is, wonder what's in here? Some sticks. So some friendships are like a stick where someone's, well, Pinky's friend, Frankie the Frog, was at a lemonade stand saying, you know what, I'll be your friend if you buy lemonade from me. What'd you think of that? Kind of what? Weird, kind of weird. And it felt kind of like, well, I'll hold on this end of the stick. If you hold on that end of the stick. So Pinky bought a cup of lemonade on Monday and then Tuesday, Frankie the Frog said, you know what, I'll be your friend on Tuesday if you buy a cup of lemonade. So Pinky bought another cup. But then Wednesday came along. Pinky was all out of money and really wasn't thirsty for lemonade anyway. And so when Frankie the Frog said, I'll be your friend if you buy a cup of lemonade, Pinky said, no thanks. But then after that, it was really hard to be friends with Frankie. Cause can we fix this? Not really. It's pretty hard to fix this. It would take quite a bit of duct tape, wouldn't it? Duct tape or hot glue. And then Pinky and I were thinking about what if friendships were like this? What is this? A rubber band, yes. Yes, well first of all, the great thing about rubber bands is that I can put a rubber band around Pinky and a rubber band around Rhee and then we can still be friends. And then if you wanna join us, we could all three be friends so it gets bigger and smaller as we need to. But sometimes in friendships, as you said, we might hurt each other's feelings. And then what happens? It breaks and it's hard to you to be friends like that. So then we have to say, oh, Pinky, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm sorry. But it's still a circle when I put a knot in it. So can you see the knot that I made? Yep. So you can see where the friendship got repaired, but it still works. Cause I can still be friends with Pinky. And you can still join us. Yeah. Nice, thank you. If you break it enough times, it would be very, very small. And we might need to bring in some reinforcement with another rubber band. But the great thing about rubber bands is that they can be useful and flexible. And so as you go throughout your week, I want you to think about your friendships and your friends as rubber band friends that if you hurt each other, you can still say, I'm sorry, and try to make it better. And maybe that friendship will still be strong enough to have fun together. Okay? So we are going to sing you off to your classes with him number 1008, when our heart is in a holy place. Please be seated. And I would like to call Karen up here to the front. Today, we as the First Unitarian Society of Madison are joining in covenant with Karen Bringelson as our intern minister for the coming year. Now, those of you who've been here before may say, wait a minute, Karen has already been here a year. Why are we doing this now? Well, for Karen, last year she was here as a student minister, meaning that her primary purpose was to observe our life here together and to learn how our life here together works. This year, as an intern minister, she'll be taking on more leadership responsibilities within the congregation. Karen is here to learn the practice of parish ministry and to stretch and grow with us. As we continue... Like a rubber band. Like a rubber band. As we continue in the role of a teaching congregation, it is up to each of us to offer Karen support and compassion as she grows into the visionary minister she has been called to be. It is up to us to create the safe container where she can succeed, where she can fail, where she is free to create a ministry here with us. So I ask all of you, as the first Unitarian society, will you give generously of your time, wisdom and compassion? Will you trust yourselves and Karen and dare to engage fully in this internship? Will you keep your hearts and your minds open to the gifts that she brings to us? If so, please answer with an enthusiastic, we will. And now to Karen. Will you commit to engaging fully in this role of intern minister? Will you work to create a ministry here with us to stretch and to grow, to succeed and to fail, learning from the experiences and the relationships that will grow throughout the coming year? Will you keep your heart and mind open to seeing the gifts present here in this congregation and to help them call forth their gifts in a spirit of generosity, abundance and love? If so, please answer with an enthusiastic, I will. I will. And now will the members of the intern ministry team please rise? It's all you, Katie. So be enthusiastic up there, okay? Hey, Katie. Thank you for your commitment to Karen. And to the process of growing a minister in our midst. Will you give generously of your time, wisdom and compassion? Will you mentor Karen as she grows into the visionary minister she has been called to be? Will you help us to create a safe container here where she can succeed and fail? Where she is free to create a ministry with us? If so, please answer with an enthusiastic, I will. I will. Thanks, Katie. And if anyone has questions about the intern ministry team or your participation possibly on it, Katie up there is your person. May we enter into this covenantal relationship with humility and compassion, openness and curiosity, may it be so amen. And if you will join me in a round of applause for our amazing intern minister. Saying I will in public with enthusiasm changes things. We just did that today. Today marks a shift in our relationship. Entering into covenant can be powerful and meaningful. Covenant is a concept that holds deep significance for Unitarian Universalists. My colleague, the Reverend Gretchen Haley who serves our congregation in Fort Collins, Colorado, beautifully introduces a topic when she writes the following. Covenant is one of those words that can initially sound kind of stuffy, academic and out of date, excuse me. But when you unpack its meaning and its practices, covenant holds a whole vision for how to live in this complicated, beautiful and broken world. It's a vision that says we are our most human when we bind ourselves in relationship, but not just any relationship, relationships of trust, mutual accountability and continual return. This is not what our culture teaches us she continues. Our culture teaches us that what it means to be human is to have a frog in your throat. What it means to be human is to be an individual, self-defined, self-determined and separate even. But our Unitarian Universalist Covenantal Theology affirms that being human comes down to the commitments we make to and with each other, the relationships we keep. And even more than that, she says, Covenantal Theology doesn't just say that we become human through our promising, but also when we break those promises. And yet, somehow find ways to reconnect and begin again when we repair the relationship because we know we need each other. And even when we think the other isn't doing enough or even when the other is annoying or isn't listening well or isn't doing the things we, the way we want them done, even then. When we realize right then that we are still connected and we can't give up, and so we return and begin again. This beginning again says our faith is when the holy and the human meet. Now this perspective on Covenant being at the heart of our Unitarian Universalist faith has been an integral part of my ministry lately. As some of you know, I have recently begun working with the young adults in the Madison area to revitalize this congregation's Unitarian Universalist Campus Ministry. This revitalization program, excuse me, this revitalization began to take shape over the summer when a group of 18 to 24 year olds decided to gather monthly, cook a meal together, break bread together, get to know each other, have conversation. These gatherings, about a dozen or so people, included some folks who are interested in or active with the 20s and 30s group too. So perhaps you can imagine the joy-filled buzzing energy in that common's kitchen over there. Or maybe those slightly awkward and funny stories we told around the campfire outside the Gavler living room or outside the courtyard classrooms. We were making s'mores and wanted them just right. And there were times we needed to tell stories. Now members of this young adult group have something in common, but they also have some differences. And the most striking difference that I found was that some of them have been raised you you or have been you you most of their lives. And others of them are just now exploring it. So there is one meal time in particular where someone who is curious about unitary universalism was coming to grasp the idea that unitary universalists do not all believe the same thing. Many of us gave examples. You know, there are Buddhists you use and Pagan you use. There are Jewish you use and Muslim you use. There are humanists you use and even maybe Christian you use. So the person who is new to unitary universalism said, so what do unitary universalists believe about God? Well, that kind of depends on which unitary universalist you're talking with. So we went around the table and each one of us tried to articulate to the best of our ability our answer to that God question. Or maybe we just explored what that word even meant or didn't mean to us. What a gift it was to be in that space, to be in that community where we could explore some of life's most enduring questions. During that evening, I also tried to explain that while unitary universalism does articulate seven principles, those principles are not actually a statement of belief. They are not a creed in the technical sense of the term as you have to believe in them in order to be an official unitary universalist. For Christians who recite the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed in unison during worship services, such creeds serve as a shared profession of faith. This rock that I talked with the student, the kids about, it represents to me a creed. It's solid, it's steadfast, it's hard to see it changing if and when it changes at all. For some people, having such certainty of footing in a creed is useful and reassuring. For me, however, having grown up Protestant, it was a heavy weight to bear once I entered my young adult years. It was too much to carry around when I could not agree with all that it was asking me to believe. Now in contrast, unitary universalists don't live by or profess a shared statement of faith. The liberal religious forebearers of our movement did debate creeds though. Specifically, they discussed the nature of Jesus. Was he divine or was he simply human? If Jesus was divine, was he one third of the religious trinity as put forth in the Niacin creed since the year 325? Or was God a single entity, a unified concept? That night around the table with the young adults, we didn't actually go into the dogma or the debates of the historic church. We were clearly following in the footsteps taken centuries earlier when people of faith shared different perspectives and offered up a variety of definitions about what constitutes the holy and the sacred. But what about those seven principles? They've been around for 35 years and they are foundational to our identities as contemporary unitary universalists. How could they not be a creed, you ask? Well, I invite you to explore that with me by turning to the front of your hymnal, your gray hymnal. If you turn to hymn number one and then go back a page, you will see the seven principles listed there. They start with the inherent worth and dignity of every person. But the reason I want you to turn to your hymnals isn't to read through the principles, it's to look at the words that come before the principles where it says, we, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote. That first phrase, we, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, that simply means that first Unitarian society is part of a larger body. We are part of an association of congregations that I sometimes call a denomination. When John Dunn, a 17th century English metaphysical poet, wrote his No Man is an Island poem, he was underscoring the vital role that communities play in helping human beings thrive. The same goes for congregations. They thrive by helping one another, by being in relationship. FUS is in relationship with over 1,000 entities that combined have a membership of over 154,000 people. Together these fellowships, societies, churches and congregations make up the Unitarian Universalist Association. We are one of many. And it turns out we can thank covenant for that. Now usually I explain covenant as a sacred promise. But going back to that hymnal, you'll notice you will also see the words covenant to affirm and promote. Now in this phrase, covenant is a verb. In this context, covenant is not static, but it is active. It's something that congregations do. I love this perspective of covenant as dynamic and moving, fluid and changing. We promise to one another and we vow to affirm and promote these seven principles. That's a high bar if you indeed take the seven principles seriously. Now go down to the bottom of the page. There it says, grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations, we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support. Now here in this context, the word covenant is a noun. Similar to creed, it is often something written down and or mutually agreed upon. The difference between the two is that while creed is a statement of what we are all to believe, a covenant is a statement of how we agree to treat each other within a relationship. It's less about the what of belief and more about the aspirational vision that focuses on the how of a relationship. The sacred promises are about the values we hold dear in how we interact with one another. And in this case, our congregations are promising trust and support. Now if a creed is symbolized by this big heavy rock, then covenant is symbolized by those rubber bands. Rubber bands being nouns do bind us into one. You'll see on the front of your order of service, the quote from my colleague, the Reverend Diane Delgert who serves our congregation in the Iowa City area. She writes in part, one rainbow, many colors. One tapestry, many threads. One people, many beliefs. The fiber that binds the many into one is the fiber of covenant. Rubber bands are fibers that bind the many into one. They symbolize the fiber of covenant. So in addition to being nouns though, rubber bands also have a verb-ness to them. Appliability and agility, a flexibility. Rubber bands have the ability to stretch and grow and change, shape and move. This to me symbolizes the action of covenanting, the verb of to covenant. It can be expansive. It can help change the shape of our hearts and even the shape of a congregation. Once you start looking for them, you can find many examples of covenants. Obviously as I referenced earlier, just today we entered into a covenant, you and I, with you all continuing in the role as a teaching congregation and me taking on the role of your intern minister. We enthusiastically agreed to offer support and compassion, to generously give time and wisdom, to keep our hearts and minds open to each other's gifts, to stretch and grow, to succeed and fail. Do I have to? And to ultimately nurture a visionary minister, hopefully me. That's a lot to ask of each other. That is why we do it together and we do it with public witnesses so that when we do fall short of our promises, we can invite one another to try again. My colleague, the Reverend Tom Beloit, who serves our congregation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, speaks to this potential to fall short when he explains that a covenant is a set of enduring but evolving deeply held promises. And while the covenant is taken super seriously, the promises are often so intense that it is impossible to live up to them. So we will always need to admit a falling short. And when we inevitably do fall short, our proper response is to recovenant, to recommit to those promises. Yeah, human beings, we all fall short, even in our covenant. What if my compassion fatigue gets in the way of my being able to fully support you? Or what if your heart closes off to the unique quirky gifts I bring? Then we get to begin again. I hope we'll enthusiastically invite one another back into the process of promising again. One way we keep our sacred promises at the forefront of our thoughts is to use symbols. For example, in the Hebrew scriptures, a rainbow is used as a symbol of a covenant. After the flood that required Noah to build and survive in an ark, in the book of Genesis chapter nine, God promises not only to never destroy everything again, but God also uses the symbol of the rainbow as a reminder of that promise. So I guess not just rubber bands are symbols. Another example of a covenant with a symbol is seen in many marriage ceremonies. In such cases, rings are exchanged as a reminder of the vows that beloved partners make to one another. Given the prenuptial agreements and litigation-centered legal systems in which we live, it's worth clarifying the difference between a covenant and a contract. The Unitarian Universalist minister, Reverend Preston Moore, speaks to these distinctions when he shares his story. He writes, the word covenant gets used a lot in weddings. Just using that word, of course, is no guarantee of special breadth and depth. A few years back, a couple in Albuquerque, New Mexico formalized their marriage with a detailed agreement notarized and filed at City Hall. It covered weekly allowances, how much to spend on birthday gifts, lights out time in the evening and wake up time in the morning, and sex, how often to have it, when birth control would be practiced and when children can be scheduled. And then, a subject of even greater moment than all of these combined, cars and gasoline. The happy couple undertook to stay one car length behind other cars in traffic and never to let the fuel gauge get lower than half a tank. And finally, just to give the masterpiece a nice sepia-toned finish, they declare, we will provide unconditional love and fulfill each other's basic needs. Never has the sublime been so pitifully reduced to the ordinary. Reverend Moore goes on to compare these two concepts when he writes, a covenant is much more than an ordinary contract. It is a commitment to a relationship. It is a promise to fulfill the broad purpose of the relationship. A covenant causes things to expand. A contract speaks this way. If you do this, and only if you do this, then I will do that. It is hedged, cautious, risk averse. Its most basic principle is no surprises. A contract is a matter of law. A covenant is a matter of love. It is based on an opening of the heart so that a human connection can be made that is so much deeper and broader than an arm's length transaction. This opening declares a willingness to take risks for the sake of the profound value of deep relating. If creeds are big rocks and covenants are rubber bands, contracts are the sticks. They may be sturdy and definable and even useful in certain situations, but if they're broken, they're not easily fixable. When someone breaks a contract with me, I'm inclined to let them go their way, to stop doing business with them, to stop trusting them and start protecting myself. Such sticks can be dangerous, weapons that inflict pain when broken. In my religious community, I much prefer the ideals that rubber band covenants provide. Even if they break, they can be renoted and used again. So as we continue to explore and contemplate the covenants in our lives, and specifically those covenants that we embody within this congregation and within our broader association, I invite you to reflect on our collective aspirations. Are we behaving in trustworthy and supportive ways? Are we affirming and promoting our shared principles? Are we living up to our intense promises? And when we are not, can we find ways to recommit to our aspirational visions of being in relationship? I cannot say for certain what will the future of the UU campus ministry program will be or even what my coming year at FUS holds, but I do know that together, we will base our time on promises that when broken, leave room for people to recommit to our sacred promises, and in doing so, come back into the beloved community that we create together. Amen and blessed be. Each week, our offering is a shared ritual that reminds us of that form of love we call generosity. We give to remind ourselves how many gifts we have to offer. We give to remember that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, part of this covenantal community, and part of the larger life we share with those outside these walls. We give because we believe in music and learning, the power of community and the gift of sacred space. We give with the faith that together we have enough. This week's outreach offering will be shared with Madison 350. You can find out more about their dedication to reducing the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, in your red floors or by talking with them at the table right outside the auditorium doors after service. The offering will now be given and gratefully received. Thank you for your generous support of Madison 350 in our office, Tori. As you know, that's a group that supports improvement in the environment, and that ties nicely with something that FUS is sponsoring and participating in, the climate strike gathering, which will be Friday morning, September 20th, 10 30 a.m. at First United Methodist Church downtown. You can read more about it in your red floors bulletin this morning. And speaking of our service and our generosity, we also want to acknowledge the generosity of time that is provided by people who volunteer to make sure that our services run smoothly. And as I read their names, I just want you to imagine your name being read sometime. And meanwhile, make sure you have a chance to thank these people, add them to your estate plan so that they benefit from your generosity in the future. Serving as our lay minister, Anne Smiley, thank you, Anne. Thank you to Justin Woodward, who for his maiden voyage today handled the sound system very well. Thank you, Justin. Our greeters and our ushers today because we were a little short on volunteers did double duty. So thank you for the double duty provided by greeters and ushers, Marty Hollis, Bissnitschke, Ros Woodward, and doing triple duty, Anne Smiley. Our hospitality and coffee are prepared and hosted by the Musaradvarga family, namely Eleni, Franz, and Eleanor as a family adopting the entire hospitality function. What great fun for them and much appreciated by us. Our tour guide, as is the case almost every weekend, is John Powell. Again, for those of you interested in the tour, we will gather over here at the windows after the service and John will take care of you very well. Speaking of taking care of things very well, we had a real treat on Friday evening here, about a hundred or so of us gathered for our welcome back opportunity fair, which included several food carts and some live music and a lot of fellowship as well as people having a chance to sign up for different ways to volunteer their time in support of First Unitarian Society. One of the things that I thought was really interesting is we now offer families and groups a chance to adopt a service where you and your family and friends would actually handle things like the sound system and ushering and greeting and serving the coffee and other things that are not just essential, but they're a lot of fun. So think about that. We had so much fun on Friday that we decided to repeat it today. So after the service is over and after the standing ovation, you get an opportunity to learn more about ways that you can participate in running some of the things that are important activities for First Unitarian Society. So enjoy that. Get your guide to the UU universe, which explains all the great opportunities we offer as well as a calendar of events and activities for the coming year. So end of the announcements. We pause in the stillness to rest for a moment. To quiet ourselves so we can feel what stirs within us. Each breath we take draws us closer to the pulse of life and with each out breath we make room for something new. May we find in this gathering the comfort of those who care and may we bring into our hearts all those in our own circles who need our love and support. This week we remember Lenore Lusson, who passed away last Saturday evening. We send our love to her husband, Frank and their children, Joe and Jenny. A memorial service is being planned for November 30th. The sunflowers here this morning are in honor of Anika Devisher Smiley, who was born on September 2nd. And we celebrate with the Yancey family as they share their joy of a clean MRI scan for Phoebe Rose Yancey last Monday. Phoebe has been cancer free for 15 and a half months. May our gestures of compassion and generosity seed possibility. May we travel humbly with one another, choosing reconciliation as we try to live in this world. When life presses in and shifts us off balance, when pain assails us, may the rhythm of our breath steady us and bring us back to a place of gratitude. And may we be ever grateful for the miracle of life that we share and the hope that gives us the power to care, to remember and to love. Amen. And I invite you now to rise in all the ways we do. Our closing hymn is number 318. We are called again and again back into covenant. And here we live for each other, practicing new ways of being a community. And now we move out into the world, pledging ourselves to greater service, embracing love and justice, striving to make us free. We extinguish our chalice, but not the fire of commitment, not the warmth of community, not the light of love. Those remain with us until we gather again. I invite you to be seated for our last gift of music for the day.