 Good morning. It is good to be with you. I wish I could be with you in person I'm thinking a lot a lot in these times in these moments about harm and violence and In particular as our congregations gather our conscious decision not to regather at this moment So we don't do no more harm or spread more illness to people And also to not do harm to the people who would not feel safe Showing up even if we could regather Because we don't want people to be left out or to feel like they don't belong But I've been thinking about harm and violence Long before the pandemic started. I thought about it a lot over a year ago When the man went into the synagogue in Pittsburgh and began shooting congregants killing many and Just before that also in Pittsburgh the news of another Catholic sex scandal So much harm and violence done and it made me wonder Why do we trust religion at all? But this makes me think of one of our unitarian unit first list ministers who's become quite famous the Reverend Robert Philgium pholgium who says this about religion He said to be human is to be religious to be religious is to be mindful to be mindful is to pay attention and to pay attention is to sanctify existence and Maybe that's what our religion can really be about about sanctify Existence to all those who might show up here All of this has made me think about two ministers meetings. I was out in the last couple of years where I asked ministers to talk about What is it a congregation needs from you? part of my job as the director of the transitions office is to get ministers to think about what it means to serve our congregations and So I asked them to create a chart of what a congregation needs from a minister Much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and to list what they need the most at the base at the bottom. I Was very intrigued that not a single minister in either group Said what a congregation needs most from its minister is to do no harm And what a congregation also needs from a minister is someone that it can trust This made me think however that in all of the different congregational records that I have seen I've never seen a Congregation said what we need most from a minister is a minister who will not harm or build trust Maybe we need to take a closer look at the basics of what we need from church And how will we rebuild trust in religion? How do we as Unitarian Universalists show up? Not only for ourselves and to each other, but in the wider world I'm reminded of representing our religions on 22 years ago when I was in my Previous position as the director of the office of bisexual gay lesbian and transgender concerns for our Unitarian Universalist Association I was asked to represent us Following the death of Matthew Shepard If you don't remember Matthew Shepard Matthew Shepard was a young University of Wyoming student who had been taken by two men who did not like him and Tied him to a fence and left him to die. I still remember that standing by that fence Where he had been left and I remember a couple of things about that I remember the minister of the congregation in Laramie asked me to show up and to say a few words and To lay some flowers later after the service was over by the fence So I had thought about a few minutes of things that I could say in the church service and the minister gets up and Says After he says a few words and now Reverend Cron will lead the service this morning and give his sermon I don't remember what I said that morning. I Do remember that what I could do was show up and be there and just talk about it Later when we went to the fence we'd stopped we each gotten some flowers which we were going to lay by the fence and The minister puts down the flowers turns to me and now says Reverend Cron will now deliver the memorial service for Matthew Shepard. I Had prepared nothing, but I said a few words, which again I don't remember and later when I asked this minister this minister was brand new to ministry Why he had done it had done this and he said I Didn't know what to say. I figured you as a more experienced minister would either And I said to him I didn't know exactly what to say But I didn't know as important that we're both there And we both be there for the people to be an example that we could be a different kind of faith some months later in May of 1999 I was visiting a congregation in Colorado Columbine in Littleton Colorado the UU congregation that is the closest church of any kind to Columbine in high school and I was there just some three weeks after the school shooting and I saw there the witness the faith of what we could do because I walked into the church building that morning and Was amazed at what I saw Up on the wall of walls of the sanctuary in that congregation Nearly every spot covered Was a picture or a letter That had been sent from children in our religious education classes across the United States in Canada Wishing the people of that congregation hope and Sending them love and I can't remember being that close to something so violent feeling so cared for And it just made me think this is what our faith can do and sometimes just that simple offering of showing up of Being there in some way matters so much Researcher Brené Brown talks about how trust is not built in the big moments but in the little moments of How we show up and that made me think if it is built in little moments Then it can also be broken in little moments And it reminded me of a class that I was in in seminary a class on death and dying and after that after that class I was talking with the professor and the dean of our School and we were talking about a particular moment that happened The professor who worked with people who tried to commit suicide had been a hospital chaplain with many people who had died Had asked us one day to role play to sit next to the bedside of a patient who was not only dying but had an inability to move or Be in control in any way And so one of the students was offering to be the patient and another student was the chaplain And the student who was a chaplain went next by to the the student's bed and took his hand And it was that moment that Anna who was a Holocaust survivor stood up and said never ever do that again And the entire class was stunned and she looked at all of us and she said I want you to think about what just happened Hear this person lays this patient lays having no control over anything going on in your lives and The first thing you did was to take their hand without asking further reinforcing how out of control they were What would have happened if you had just Simply asked if you could take their hand would that have given that patient some control And a moment in their lives where they felt like they had none of it It was a month very powerful learning moment for me and how each of us needs to feel Like we can show up regardless of what place we're in with each other and just be who we are It also reminded me a story of a friend of mine from work who was talking about visiting his son outside of Cleveland and My friend and his son were taking two of their friends to a Cleveland Indians baseball game and As they drove by toward the stadium by a UU church our congregation in Rocky River, Ohio They all saw on the side of the building a huge welcoming congregation banner a huge Black Lives Matter banner and immediately My friends sons friends began talking and they said you know if I were going to go to any church That is the church I would want to go to That is a church that is truly trying to make a difference in the world And it made me wonder what would happen if When we can regather they could actually show up Would they find a place that was trying to be make a difference or would they be asked as 25 year olds to be really a part of their community or Would they say you Are welcome here as long as you give like the rest of this as long as you volunteer for 14 committees Like the rest of us as long as you act like we do now Would we ask them To be someone who they are not to be a part of us Or could we let them simply be who they are? We often do the same things for people of color in our congregations as long as you act like us as long as you think like us And it has to look like us It's one of the ways that we really do harm and it often happens in moments where we're not thinking a friend of mine African-American man Unitarian Universalist minister showed up at a congregation morning He'd been asked to guess preach showed up in a suit tie carrying His sermon in a folder and The person who greeted him asked him Are you here to clean the building this morning? I can tell you as someone who has showed up in a suit and tied over 450 of our congregations across the United States and Canada No one has ever asked me if I was there to clean No one has ever thought that I did not belong And I think about our congregations and what this means for our future Are we going to continually ask people to say you have to be exactly like us? Which is in most cases people's in their 60s and 70s and 80s across the US and Canada are Will we make room For all who we can be as diverse Unitarian Universalists But in those moments we can be as rigid and violent as and fundamentalist as the religious right We've even had congregations try and say you can come here as long as you are humanist And not just any kind of humanist my kind of humanist. I believe we can be better than that I believe we can be congregations where we do not eat our classmates Or we can learn side by side be side by side and learn from each other Because my hope is that we can be a better religion Than that This could be a golden age for Unitarian Universalism. Will we reach out to those who need us? Or will we be simply a congregation that says no no just people like me will we circle the wagons? There have been many congregations in search, which I have now asked Do you really want a minister who will look to a new future? Or is what you really want to a hospice chaplain? So the small group of folks who think alike will eventually age and die These are the questions we need to be thinking about Nigerian author Chimamanda Adici has this quote Which I often think about the single story creates stereotypes And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete That they make one story the only story Will we allow Unitarian Universalism to be more than a single story? Will we allow anyone who comes in? To be more than the single story that we think we have to be Or will we commit little acts of violence? And make sure that that one story is our only story I think we as a faith can be better than that In these times, how do we unclench? How do we do no harm? How do we choose to pay attention? And sanctify existence How will we be religious? I think about my the friend that I talked about the dean of students at my seminary who told me this story one time About sitting on a board with the other deans of the other theological schools And he and his friend from the american baptist school were having a great disagreement about what direction the school should go to And he said what fascinated him the most Was that the other seven deans of the graduate theological school Spent more time trying to get them to be on the same page And pretend there was no conflict Then simply saying you know what you all just disagree and bob finally asked them. I would rather hear what you believe Because my friend here and I will still be friends after this meeting is over We just simply disagree. How do we not run from diversity That I think will really strengthen us How do we let people of different thinking and wonderings be here together A final story about another way that I learned this happened to me when I first started at the uua Some 25 years ago. I was at a conference Uh a multi-faith conference In national talking about all things around religion gender and sexuality There were some 40 different denominations Who were there? On one side of me was a man from the church of god named john And then on the other side was a man named mark from the church of christ And john from the church of god gets the microphone and he introduces himself by saying Hi, man. My name is john. I'm from the church of god, and I am from the right of the right And everyone laughs When he's done he hands his turn hit the microphone to me And I go, hi, my name is the reverend keith kron. I'm from the unitarian universalist association Currently i'm the director of the office of bisexual gay lesbian and transgender concerns And it's at that moment I have to stop talking Because john and mark are scooting their chairs away from me But when they stop I say and we are to the left of the left And I have to toss The microphone to john so he can speak And we spend the next three days talking about all things about religion gender sexuality They are stunned to learn that we have more women than men in our congregations that we are openly welcoming A bisexual gay lesbian and transgender people that we think comprehensive sexuality education is a must For us to raise responsible adults And finally on the last day of the conference Mark and john and two of his friends who I assumed are named matthew and luke Come up to me and say We would like to have lunch with you And I thought well this will be fun But I agreed And so we sat down to lunch And mark looked at me and he said We just wanted you to know We have disagreed with every single thing that you have said These are not your beliefs But we want you also to know That we respect you Because at least you are clear About what you believe and in that moment they were my teachers A reminder that we can get along with each other even when we have completely opposite opinions What was fun about the subsequent conversation is they tentatively asked me If I knew anything about football and they were stunned to learn That I knew more about football than all four of them combined that I had worked my way through college Officiating football And at that moment I got to be their teacher too I hope as we go about the work of doing no harm Of being with each other That we will not eat our classmates That we'll see each other as as potential learners and teachers for each other That we will unclench And honor the full humanity of the people who are next to us That will treat people Not forgetting their identity And what it has taught them But celebrating who they are and letting them just show up and be the people who are unitarian universalists Because we can be that faith my wish for you Is that you can live into this faith that you can show up as different people with different ideas And find ways to be stronger because of it My hope is you move forward in this ministerial search That the next phase of your life is not One of contraction, but one of opening To a world that really needs our faith Go be human Go be religious Go forth and sanctify existence