 Testing one, test one, two, test, test, test. Well, with that musical introduction, welcome to the eight o'clock service. So that says on my dashboard clock in the car. Welcome to another wonderful Sunday here at First Unitarian Society, where independent thinkers gather in a safe, nurturing environment to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud, sleep-deprived, ruggedly handsome member of this congregation. And I extend a special and warm welcome to any guests, visitors, or newcomers. 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 after the service. Just meet over here by the windows and we'll take care of you. And speaking of taking care of each other, this is the perfect time to avoid the scorn of your neighbors by silencing your electronic devices that you just won't need for the next hour or so. And while you're taking care of that simple but important task, let me invite you to sit back and enjoy today's service. I know you'll find that it will touch your heart, stir your spirit, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. And now please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. And please remain seated for our in-gathering hymn, which will be led by Drew. Good morning. Hymn number 1058, Be Ours a Religion. We'll sing it twice through together. Be Ours a Religion, which like sunshine goes everywhere. It's temple, all space. It's shrine, the good heart. It's creed, all truth. It's ritual works of love. One more time. Be Ours a Religion, which like sunshine goes everywhere. It's temple, all space. It's shrine, the good heart. It's creed, all truth. It's ritual works of love. In a moment, Karin and I will share the opening words. And then we will invite you to stand for our chalice lighting in the exchange of greetings. To prepare yourself for that, please take out the gray hymnal and turn to number 448. 448, that will be our chalice lighting. You'll need it in just a moment. Our opening words are combining the thoughts of Mark Morrison, Reed and Libby Stoddard. I will be reading the words of Libby Stoddard, and Karin will be reading Mark Morrison, Reed. We have come into this room of hope, where our hearts and minds are open to the future. The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that binds each to all. There is a connection, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives, and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice. We have come into this room of justice, where we set aside our fear to name freely every oppression. It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. We have come into this room of love, where we know no lives are insignificant. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. We have come into this room of song, where we unite our voices in the somber and beautiful melodies of life. Together, our vision widens, and our strength is renewed. I invite you to rise in all the ways that you do. As we spark the flame of our chalice, we will read together number 448 by Christine Robinson. As together we say, we gather this hour as people of faith with joys and sorrows, gifts and needs. We light this beacon of hope, sign of our quest for truth and meaning, in celebration of the life we share together. May we take a moment to share a friendly greeting with each other. Hello, cold hand. Hello. Good to see you. Good to see you. It's me. Thank you. The young and young at heart can come forward for a story. To see you all. Hello. Hello, hello, hello. We have some stuffies with us this morning. I love your stuffie. Hello. I see teddy bear and a moose and a pig. Very special pig. Yes. Well, that kind of fits in with our story today, yes. So today we are looking at a very big idea, the idea of justice. The way that we treat each other fairly and help the world be a kinder place to each other. And the way that happens is sometimes not a very easy pathway. And so this story is one story of how a group came to a place of justice. And it is called click, clack, moo, cows, that type. I don't see a cow here today, but I do see a moose. Oh, excellent. So Farmer Brown has a problem. His cows like to type. All day long, he hears click, clack, moo, click, clack, moo, clickety, clack, moo. At first, he couldn't believe his ears. Cows that type impossible. Click, clack, moo, click, clack, moo, clickety, clack, moo. Then he couldn't believe his eyes. Dear Farmer Brown, the barn is very cold at night. We like some electric blankets. Sincerely, the cows. Electric blankets. It was bad enough the cows had found the old typewriter in the barn. Now they wanted electric blankets. No way, said the Farmer Brown. No electric blankets. So the cows went on strike. They left a note on the barn door. Sorry, we are closed. No milk today. No milk today, cried Farmer Brown in the background. He heard the cows busy at work. Click, clack, moo, click, clack, moo, clickety, clack, moo. Exactly. Oh, I forgot to show you that picture. Got ahead of myself. The next day, he got another note. Dear Farmer Brown, the hens are cold too. They like electric blankets. Sincerely, the cows. There are a lot of electric blankets are going to be needed. The cows were growing impatient with a farmer. They left a new note on the barn door. Closed. No milk. No eggs. No eggs, cried Farmer Brown in the background as he heard them. Click, clack, moo, click, clack, moo, clickety, clack, moo. Cows that type hens on strike, whoever heard of such a thing. How can I run a farm with no milk and no eggs? Farmer Brown was so furious. Farmer Brown got out his own typewriter. Dear cows and hens, there will be no electric blankets. You are cows and hens. I demand milk and eggs. Sincerely, Farmer Brown. I wonder how that's going to go. Duck was a neutral party. So he brought the ultimatum to the cows. The cows held an emergency meeting. All the animals gathered around the barn to snoop. But none of them could understand moo. All night long, Farmer Brown waited for an answer. Duck knocked on the door early the next morning. He handed Farmer Brown a note. The note said, dear Farmer Brown, we will exchange our typewriter for electric blankets. Leave them outside the barn door, and we will send Duck over with the typewriter. Sincerely, the cows. Again. Farmer Brown decided this was a good deal. He left the blankets next to the barn door and waited for Duck to come home with the typewriter. Uh-oh. Well, the next morning he got a note. Dear Farmer Brown, the pond is quite boring. We'd like a diving board. Sincerely, the ducks. Click, clack, quack. Click, clack, quack. Quick, click, clack, quack. Clickety-clack, quack, and what happened? They got a diving board. So let's think about the characters and what was going on for them. So what was going on for the cows and the hens? What was going on in their life? Yeah, what were the cows and the hens? They wanted electric blankets. They were very cold in the barn. So they made their needs known to the farmer. And so what about Farmer Brown? What did Farmer Brown do at first when he got the notes? He was very angry. Farmer Brown did not want to give electric blankets. He was not happy about that. And so what about the duck? What was the duck's role in all this? He was sort of like the messenger, the postman, yes. They described him as neutral, although I'm not sure how neutral in the middle he was. And he wanted a diving board. Eventually they wanted a diving board. So at first, the farmer is really angry about the demands that are made of him. What changes in the story? There are changes actually that happen with many of the characters. What happens to Farmer Brown as he continues to receive these notes? Does he stay mad or does something else happen? Yeah. He stays mad at first. He stays mad for a little bit. But then what happened? Then what happened right as he kept receiving these requests? He's like, okay. At some point he began to give in a little bit, right. He thought maybe that's not a bad solution. Right. In order for me to get some of what I need, I'm willing to give up some of what at first I wasn't willing to do. And so what happens when he gives in? The ducks use the typewriter to make their own message. Yes, indeed. So the story moves on. But what happens this time when the ducks make a request of the farmer? They want a diving board and what happens when they request that? They got one. They got one. And so sometimes when you're in community, you can each hold on to what you want so tightly that you can't get anywhere. You're really stuck. But if people are willing to think about what they really want and everyone is willing to give up something so that everyone can get some of what they want, sometimes we can move forward. So this story talks about the importance of not only letting your needs be known, but also being willing to give and take together so that everyone can get some of what they want. It reminds me of when we have stuffies that we want to hold on to. Yes. We want to play with them too. And sometimes we take turns. We don't get to keep our stuffie all to ourselves. No. But we get to share it and then we get to bring it back home. Exactly. So there's some ways that we get to share the things we have in order to all get what we want, at least a little bit. Right. Give and take all the time. So, yeah. Stuffies and other people and friends and it's a kind of a complicated thing to think about, yeah. So as you think about how you are in your classrooms, think about the ways that you sometimes give and take with each other so that you can be more peaceful with each other in the classroom. And so we will look forward to hearing about what happens in your class and we'll send you off to your classroom by singing together and hope that you have fun. We'll hear from you soon about what happens. We're going to sing hymns number 2, 11 and 2, 12. We'll sing the first verse of each and then we'll go back to 2, 11 and sing the fourth verse. I'll shout it out while we sing. Let's rise in all the ways that we do. We are climbing Jacob's ladder. We are climbing Jacob's ladder. We are climbing Jacob's ladder. We are climbing first verse of the next hymn. We are dancing Sarah's circle. We are dancing Sarah's circle. We are dancing Sarah's circle. Sisters, brothers. Back to the other page, verse 4. Though the road is steep and rugged. Though the road is steep and rugged. Though the road is steep and rugged. You may be seated. We have a very robust community out there online of Unitarian Universalists who share their thoughts with each other in various blogs. And so the reading is taken from one of those blogs that actually is shared on a Unitarian Universalist congregation's website. And it is taken from the reflections of Bob Patrick. Without my teachers or me knowing it, I am fairly sure that my first encounter with any broad or deep understanding of justice in this life came in these familiar terms when I was a child. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This proverbial wisdom is found in so many words in a variety of religious and philosophical traditions. It was taught to me as quote, the golden rule. By calling it such, I understood that it was supposed to count before anything else. The golden rule certainly embodies what later I came to know in modern literature as relational justice. Relational justice is defined in published research as the justice produced through cooperative behavior, agreement, negotiation, and dialogue among actors in a post-conflict situation. A review of the literature on relational justice demonstrated work using this concept of relational justice in 30 different fields of inquiry, from behavioral sciences to criminology to law to philosophy. What strikes me about justice as a relational work between human beings is that it allows neither the idea of justice nor one considering justice as isolated from the rest of life. When justice becomes relational, it inherently must become a conversation. In my own experience, this conversation begins within myself. How would I want to treat others? How would I want them to treat me in this situation? What do I know about the other person in this situation? What do the other persons want or need to survive or thrive in this situation? What role do I or my community or my culture play in this surviving and thriving? In some form or another, relational justice brings me to a certain moment when I must consider how extending myself to the other person requires something of me. So much of me that I am changed. I wonder, can I go that far? Do I want to be changed? I often feel that extending myself for the other is going to change me a lot. On some level, relational justice shows me that I am not a separate self. None of us are. We are connected, and the injustice at stake threatens that interconnection. Here ends the reading. Chapter one. Liz could hardly believe that she was calm as she was, and she was hardly calm, but it was her turn to pull forward, and so she took a deep breath and told herself, this is important. But paradoxically, at the same time, she almost wanted to chuckle to herself at the absurdity of such a by-the-rules person in this situation. But stronger still was her love of people. It was that love that had called and led her to be a teacher, but she would have rarely in the past named herself to be political, much less an activist. These thoughts mulled around as she pulled up to the border crossing at the Peace Arch Park, a park distinguished by being half in the United States and half in Canada, and she would soon enter into British Columbia. The border guard wished her a good morning, asked her name and citizenship and the purpose of her visit, and she answered him cheerfully as they were on their way to a church picnic. The border guard looked in the back seat and said, and who do we have here? Liz smiled broadly and said with deep sincerity, these are my sons. The border guard looked puzzled for a moment, looked at Liz and her Volvo, and said, have fun. This was the summer back in the heart of the Vietnam War, and Liz, a young mother, had found herself wanting to find some way to protest the war. And when a conscientious objector had spoken at her church, she had been taken with his story and his courage. She invited him to lunch immediately after the service and asked him to tell her more of the story. This led her to begin volunteering with the American Friends Service Committee, and she got to know more and more of the young men who were conscientious objectors and soon discovered that young men with less privilege, especially non-white or poor men, were often imprisoned rather than granted conscientious objector status. She grew to know these young men and so a thoroughly respectable middle-class law-abiding citizen had just smuggled two conscientious objectors across the border because they had been denied their status. Phillip, who was clearly a different ethnic persuasion from Liz and Matthew, who was African-American, she imagined that the border guard assumed that they were adopted. But the trio was going to a picnic. They met up with the members of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation from the Vancouver, British Columbia area. They're in the peace park for a picnic. They enjoyed the food, the good company, the beauty of the park, and then they went their separate ways, each back to their homes, except that Matthew and Phillip left with the members of the Canadian Congregation to begin a new life in Canada. What had once been a very abstract issue to Liz was now very personal and powerful because she had learned about the lives behind this big story. She had explored with them every option and discovered how difficult it must be for them to decide what to do. And so, as these two young men turned to say goodbye, she realized that she really did think of them in a sincere way, at least in some way, as her sons. She began to cry as she wished them a good life, knowing that what they had ahead of them she could not even imagine. And in this way, a few Unitarian Universalists in the Pacific Northwest and in Canada for what would be known as the Underground Railroad of the Vietnam War, for Liz, and for so many others, they were changed by knowing the lives and the stories of these young men. And it led them on a journey to being activists in ways that they never imagined. For all of us, and for us all, the ways that we understand the many layers on our pathway to do the right thing does not form overnight. We journey to new places and how we see each other in the world, and in this life-giving, difficult, joyous, and heartbreaking at all the same time journey, we find new things out about the world and ourselves. And it is an ongoing conversation in our lives and ultimately with the world. And it is an ever-changing relationship with all of those things. The thing is, justice is relational. And it is more than a concept. And relationship has, again and again, been one of the strongest common denominators in someone's journey to deeper justice. We do it because we love our children. We do it because we love the gift of this planet. And very often, we do extraordinary things, at least in our own sense of what we believed at one point possible, because we have come to know the story of lives of human beings that have been changed and hurt by injustice. And that deepening relationship with their story and with that person calls us on the journey to justice to connect. Chapter 2. The journey to justice is also relational and how it weaves various strands into one larger strand. Well over a decade ago, progressive thinkers in both the business world and socially justice-minded folk were troubled by the tensions they experienced between the various camps of social activism. They posited that rather than separate truths to look for some deeper relationships beneath the various strands of justice-making. And as they explored, they noted over and over again on a global scale that transcended cultural differences and gross national product, but even within the most resource-laden countries, people in communities with the least privilege experienced struggles with access to ample economic resource, they were often denied basic equity as human beings, and very often they lived in areas that lacked in natural resources such as water or fertile land and in environments that had been destroyed by the shipping of waste products to their areas. These visionary thinkers in their exploration maintained that the health of the world, the strength of economic progress, the success of justice work could not progress without a deeper relationship between the human rights realm concerning itself with various conditions of human beings in various ways. Or without economic justice and its attention to the distribution of resources and power, or third, the ecological justice process that worked to restore the planet and its resources. Connected by many names and theories like the triple bottom line or the three pillars theory, but holding together these various concepts of sustainability and eventually contributing to our understanding of intersectionality in justice work and beyond, these ideas speak to a different way of thinking about how we work together for justice. These ideas have been around for a very long time and yet I believe we can do more in letting those ideas help us see the deep relationships in how we are called to do justice work. Sometimes the journey to justice can invite us to claim a larger sense of relationship that breaks down the silos of activism and asks us to see the interconnected importance of our peace and justice work. The more integrated understanding draws together what might be considered a competition for our energies to become a thoughtful and connective collaboration. If the journey to justice calls us to relational truths, and I believe it does, these truths ask us to learn from the connections we foster, especially those that teach us something meaningful and transformative and call us to act in surprising ways for justice. And if the very nature of the world is relational and it is, it asks us to understand that journey to justice as a braided reality in which we work within the deep connections of economic, human rights, and ecological justice. And all of them are needed for us to be transformed and whole in our world. Chapter 3, the final chapter. The journey to justice calls us to a relational power and very often into deeper community. Communities I would argue like First Unitarian Society. It calls us into community and how we are in relationship with the larger understanding of connection in our justice work. And in that larger connection it is just as important how we relate with integrity with each other in this congregation and how we practice generosity and compassion with each other and how we work together in sharing authority and power and being at the table in hard conversations. A few months ago, I presented to you some of the ideas that I had discovered in my anti-oppression work and around dismantling white supremacy that had called me to see how damaging the culture around that is for the diversity of our congregations but also in attracting younger and more sensitized folks of all kinds and in just allowing us to encounter the deeper truths of who we are. The list includes things like perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, worship of the written word, that there's only one right way, paternalism. A list of characteristics that are shared by a culture and often are very much at work in our congregations. But I think in particular, some of them are especially hard for us. Things like perfectionism, paternalism, fear of open conflict, and the right of comfort. These are often especially significant places of struggle. In the relational journey of justice, recently I've been taken with the writing of Unitarian Universalist minister, Nancy McDonald Ladd, who explores how our journey to justice and our work to dismantle white supremacy asks us to consider new relational truths. Quote, she tells us, nothing we do will be perfect and it will not always or even very often feel good to be in the trenches fighting to dissenter white normative culture in our congregations and in the world. We are not, she continues, going to have a perfect strategy and the strategy we ultimately follow cannot be a strategy that the white people among us, speaking with the authority we have come to expect in white center institutions, have contrived to build. We can't do this work alone. And so she believes that we must repeatedly preach these words to each other. How perfectionism and the expectation of perfectionism, how the difficulty to be in hard conversations, how hard it is for us to be uncomfortable, these will stop us from doing the work that we must do. Because again and again what happens is if we live in those illusory truths believing in some way that we are perfect, believing that we really have a choice to avoid difficult conversations or discomfort, when those things come our way and they will, they leave us feeling very fragile. And often when we are fragile we become angry and defensive and the entire process of justice breaks down. We have to find a new way of understanding ourselves and how we relate to each other that is stronger than those old norms. There are many different examples. One that I will give you just because I think it speaks to a particular viewpoint that many of us would find interesting is from Anthony B. Penn. In his view, there is no human being that is not first and foremost inside a body responding to other bodies and through that relationship we move into mutuality. He writes in his book The End of God Talk an African-American humanist theology quote, humans as embodied selves will and are flawed, but this does not constitute the grounds for a basic need for ontological reconstruction. The goal of this theological anthropology is to speak of humans in ways that not only affirm perceptions of experience but change the ways in which particular categories of embodied selves such as African-American embodied selves are viewed and processed. The thing is in this non-theistic approach Penn does not say that because we are trapped and folded in our humanness that we are intrinsically broken. No, he teaches that by being inherently embodied we are called into a certain kind of relationship. He writes, the ways we view and engage with various categories of those fragile, beautiful, sensuous and breakable human bodies constitute the mechanism of either inclusion or destruction. Mutuality is a given. Perfection is nonsense. And so the only motion we can choose are motions toward mutual inclusion or mutual destruction. And so we must steep ourselves in ideas that bring us beyond fragility and our privilege. Our journeys to justice as members of communities and individuals include things that will ask much of us but it will give much in turn. It asks us to step outside of our typical circles and meet new people and encounter new stories and much of what we hear will not be easy but it will invite us to a greater and deeper experience of relationship and love. Our journeys to justice will ask us to move beyond our siloed understandings of justice work which will challenge us and invite more people to the table and make our journey longer and more complex. But the good news is that it will serve the truth of our interdependence with greater integrity and strength. And finally, the journey towards justice will implore us to be in community for both its support and its challenge and in looking at new ideas as hard as it is and in living new truths as arduous as that is we will do it imperfectly but as we continue together talking together acting for compassion we will create new ways of being. Saying engaged in uncomfortable conversations is the first step for creating this new way of being together forming the future of our faith. In our journeys we will find connections in our connections we will find truth and strength and encountering truth and living strength may we find a bold in transforming love. Amen. And blessed be. Each week we have the opportunity to tap into those connections of generosity and abundance so appropriately today's outreach offering is going to the Wisconsin Network for Peace, Justice and Sustainability to further our collective journey to justice. We will receive today's offering. The translation of what we'll be singing is where charity and love are God is there also. His love has gathered us into one let us rejoice and be pleased let us fear, let us love the living God and may we love each other with a sincere heart. So thanks for your generosity in our offering and speaking of generosity in addition to generosity of the financial kind we have generosity of the volunteer kind that we would like to acknowledge this morning. I'm talking about the people who help these services run smoothly including Ann Smiley who has served our lay minister and who also donated the flowers that you see behind me in honor of her impending grandmothership she's about to become a grandma so thank you Ann. David Bryles for Operating the Sound System our ushers Brian Channis, Mike Locey and Dan Bradley our coffee is being prepared by Sandra Plisch John McGevna is going to man the information table excuse me and John Powell is our tour guide for those interested in learning more about our buildings. The Offertory continued on our theme of Journey to Justice in this case ecological or environmental justice as does the announcement I'm about to share with you you may have heard about the youth climate strike which is going to take place this Friday, March 15 as students throughout the world walk out of their classes and strike for climate action. The march to the capital will begin at East High School 11.30 in the morning on Friday and the rally at the capital will take place at 12.30 p.m. If you're interested in helping with this you can check with our social justice coordinator Tim Corden who will be here during the fellowship hour to answer your questions about how you can help including setting up the rally at the capital at 10 o'clock Friday morning so this is an example of things that we are able to do at First Unitarian Society in our collective journey to justice and the reason we are able to do these things is because of you and your stewardship of this organization remember stewardship is collective responsibility for something larger than ourselves and that's what we do at FUS that's who we are we are about stewardship so as chair of the stewardship campaign it's my pleasure to tell you how we're doing so far we're one third of the way there because of generous support from 145 people so far we have pledges totaling more than half a million dollars our goal is 1.5 million and we're going to reach that goal and we're going to celebrate on April 5 bless you April 5 Friday evening and there are only 26 days left until that magic day of April 5 but one third of the people who have pledged so far have become sustaining members sustaining stewards by committing to multi-year pledges and one fourth of our pledgers so far have increased their commitment above last year's level so we're doing a really good job of springing forward in the spirit of daylight saving time on this stewardship campaign we're not just going to celebrate on April 5 as we complete a successful campaign we're going to celebrate every week by recognizing one donor at each service who has pledged in this stewardship campaign and the prize is a $25 gift card to food fight restaurants and today's winner if I draw the name out of the envelope Len and Jen Berry Len, Jen here's Len, thank you Len so as Len and his family decide which food fight restaurant they're going to use that gift card for you can take some comfort in the fact that while Len and his family won the prize this week we are all winners because we are all able to do things such as our social justice and environmental justice programs our music programming the programs for families so that families can thrive here the religious education and youth programming our music program becoming a tool of our community outreach process and so many other things as part of this commitment to stewardship your gift of any size makes a difference so I mentioned that we've raised half a million dollars so far that doesn't mean that everybody has to contribute to have a huge level we can take gifts of any level so that we collectively take responsibility for this organization we call First Unitarian Society if you have questions about your pledge Florence and Cheryl are at the back of the room we have comments to answer any questions you might have about your pledge as together we spring forward in our stewardship of First Unitarian Society so endeth the announcements before we move forward into our day we'll take just a moment to remember that we gather every week as a community in the midst of deep joys and sorrows and so it's important for us to remember the ways that we are deeply connected and to share with each other as we can and so we remember today that Sparrow Senty is in Meritor Hospital and that she and Al are doing okay we also share the news with heavy hearts of the passing of Terry Millar who died either yesterday or the day before we're still getting news he was abroad Terry was a bright light in our community with a brilliant mind and a compassionate heart so we send our love to his wife Susan their children and family we hold all the joys and sorrows that are present and in our community that are still too tender to share we remember that we are part of the web of life that makes us one with each other and with the universe may we be grateful for that miracle and the love and life that we share as we remember and love so may it be I invite us to rise in all the ways that we do as we join in our closing hymn hymn number 168 we'll sing the first and last verses only one more step we will take one more step till there is peace for us and everyone will take one more step verse 4 one more song we will sing one more song till every song is sung by everyone we'll take one more song as we prepare to leave this morning may we be reminded of all of the truths of our journey to justice the ways that relationship will change us will deepen our lives will teach us about the power of love as we extinguish this chalice we do not extinguish the wisdom that we share we do not extinguish the power of the call of our justice making we do not extinguish the warmth of love and community these remain until we gather in this place again I invite us before we move on into our day to take our seats one more time and receive the gift of music together