Love Wins? – 12/2/23

Musical Prelude: ‘Adoration’ by Florence Price – George Ireland and Abby Lorimier

Opening Words and Chalice Lighting: ‘Kindling the Lamp of Love with our Lives’

Bengali poet and social reformer Rabindranath Tagore wrote in one of his many poems: ‘Let not the hours pass by in the dark. Kindle the lamp of love with thy life’. I’m making that our invitation for today – let’s consider how we keep the lamp of love alive in our hearts. And let’s keep that flame alight for one another when the going gets tough.

Our chalice flame is alight here at Essex Church in London, where Kensington Unitarians have their spiritual home, and that flame beams out a warm welcome to all of you gathered here in person as well as to you who are joining us online today – especially our visitors from Brighton Unitarians. It’s good to have you with us. So let’s all take a moment to gather ourselves here and now in this present moment, wherever we are, however we’re feeling today, whatever we are dealing with in our lives, let’s know ourselves to be members of the human race, part of the great mystery that is life itself.

And let’s remember that this symbol of the flaming chalice connects us with Unitarian Universalists the world over, a community that encourages people to make up their own minds about matters of faith, with love and justice as guiding principles for our work out there in the world. I’ll often say that this one flame represents the oneness of humanity, living our lives amidst the oneness of all life forms, on this our one planet earth home.

Hymn 134 (grey): ‘Our World is One World’

That message of the interconnectedness of us all is expressed in our first hymn today which you’ll find as hymn number 134 in this grey hymnbook – or the words will be there on your screen for you and the invitation is to stand, sit, sing, or simply listen along to this hymn with its poignant reminder that we are part of the greater whole: our world is one world, what touches one affects us all, the seas that wash us round about, the clouds that cover us, the rains that fall. Let’s sing together.

Our world is one world:
what touches one affects us all —
the seas that wash us round about,
the clouds that cover us,
the rains that fall.

Our world is one world:
the thoughts we think affect us all —
the way we build our attitudes,
with love or hate, we make
a bridge or wall.

Our world is one world:
its ways of wealth affect us all —
the way we spend, the way we share,
who are the rich or poor,
who stand or fall?

Our world is one world,
just like a ship that bears us all —
where fear and greed make many holes,
but where our hearts can hear
a different call.

Candles of Joy and Concern:

Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we invite anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. We’re going to go to the people in the building first, and take all of those in one go, and then I’ll call on the people on Zoom to come forward.

So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us briefly who or what you light your candle for. We’re asking people to keep their masks on for this candle lighting – please keep your masks on – if you use the hand-held microphone, get it really close to your mask, and SPEAK UP, people really want to hear what you have to say. So point it directly at your face and keep it nice and close to your mask and then people at home as well as here in the room will get to hear you. Thanks.

(in person candles)

And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.

(zoom candles)

And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)

Time of Prayer and Reflection: with a time of silent sympathy for those affected by the recent earthquake

Let us join now in a time of prayer and reflection as I call on the divine spirit of life and of love to be with us now and to bless all that we say and do together here today.
As we sit quietly and turn our attention inwards And focus our thoughts what we focus upon is different for each of us.
For we are unique beings and each of us has our own unique sense of that which we hold to be divine.
Yet we share a common humanity
And it is this common humanity
That brings us our concerns and anxieties
our hopes and fears, our gratitude and our joy.
For this is what it is to be human:
We care for others – both those close to us and those whose lives we hear of only in the news,
We delight in the natural world with its rich gifts for our senses – the sounds, sights, smells, tastes – the very touch of it all,
We have an idea that we can be greater than we often are – that there is perhaps something of the divine in each and every one of us,
We sense mysteries beyond our comprehension as we look at the stars or gaze upon a flower. We know the power of love to make a difference and we know the limitations of our powers, that we are sometimes powerless.
In the last week many of us have been shocked observers of the effects of the earthquakes in Turkey and northern Syria. Let us spend a minute in reverent silence, acknowledging the suffering of so many people. (silence)
May all those who have lost loved ones, suffered injuries, or worked tirelessly in the rescue efforts be held safely and may we who observe do what we can to assist their struggles. May we know ourselves as part of a world community, may we remember that what affects one affects all. And let us pray for politicians the world over that they might hold power with awareness, aware of the power they have over the lives of others, aware that their vision may not be the only way forward, aware of and humbled by the enormity of the tasks they face in creating a world of justice and love.
May we be open to the possibility of divine love within and beyond us, touching the places within us that need the healing power of love and beaming out through our wider world. (Pause)
May the peace and the stillness of this time and this place stay with us and strengthen us for the task of living our lives as people aligned with the causes of justice and of love, now and always, amen.

Hymn (on sheet and screen): ‘There Is More Love Somewhere

There is more love somewhere
There is more love somewhere
I’m gonna keep on ‘til I find it
There is more love somewhere
Spoken: There is more love here
When we find ways to open our hearts
To love others and ourselves

There is more hope somewhere
There is more hope somewhere
I’m gonna keep on ‘til I find it
There is more hope somewhere
Spoken: There is more hope here
When we find ways to connect with others
And share our dreams

There is more peace somewhere
There is more peace somewhere
I’m gonna keep on ‘til I find it
There is more peace somewhere
Spoken: There is more peace here
When we find ways to speak honestly
Of our inner turmoil

There is more joy somewhere
There is more joy somewhere
I’m gonna keep on ‘til I find it
There is more joy somewhere
Spoken: There is more joy here
When we find ways to live our own lives
In all their glorious imperfections,
Accepting too the imperfections of others.

Stories: Of hearts and homes, perfect and imperfect’ based loosely on original stories by Anthony de Mello & Rev Garry Izzard

Here are two teaching stories that seem to have had a message for me recently – in those times when I’ve been wanting things to be a certain way and then life has had other plans. I wonder if they speak to you today.

There was once a man who was busy, so very busy, building a home for himself. He wanted it to be the nicest, cosiest home in the world. He took a great deal of care as he built his precious home.

Someone came to him, to ask him for help because the world was on fire. But it was his home he was interested in, not the world. And when he finally finished building his beautiful home, he found with dismay that there wasn’t much of a world left to put it in. It had all burnt down whilst he was busy thinking only of his own hopes and dreams, busy building his own house without thinking of anything beyond that. A story oft told by Jesuit Priest Anthony de Mello – a simple reminder that thinking only of ourselves and our own interests is not all that sensible in this shared world.

Another story that somehow fits our theme today tells of a young man once stood on a street corner, opened his coat, and cried, “Look at my heart, look at my perfect, perfect heart.” A crowd soon gathered, impressed by his perfect heart. They stood in awe of a heart without blemish, perfect and complete in every way.

Soon an old man walked by and paused to see what the commotion was all about. When he heard the young man proudly crying “Look at my perfect heart” the old man pushed his way to the front to get a closer look. And when he saw the young man’s heart he scolded him. “Son, that’s not a perfect heart. If you want to see a perfect heart you need to see mine.” With that the old man opened his coat to reveal an old, knotted and ugly heart. It was full of bumps and holes, and pieces of it had broken off here and there.

The crowd began to laugh, but the old man raised his hand and began to speak. “See this bump” he said, “That’s when I met my first love. Oh, how the sun shone that day, how bright the colours of the universe were, how sweet the singing of the birds in the trees. What a wonderful moment it was…Ah, but see this hole, that’s when my first love and I broke up. How it pained me, and pains me still. But the wound once ran much deeper. The years have managed to fill it in a lot…See this bump, this is where I found the work I loved – what a blessing that is. But look here this scar shows when that particular job became too tough and I had to step away. Ah, here is the sweet spot where I discovered my love of the mountains, a love of walking and breathing the fresh air. I can’t manage the hills anymore and that saddens me but look – these little sparkles are my memories of those happy times and favourite places. Over here, this place where a piece of my heart has been broken off, this is when a beloved friend died. Oh the ache – yes it still aches even today, for a part of me went with her.

The old man went on to describe many other bumps and holes and scratches on his heart, and when he finished the crowd was silent. “You see son” he said, turning to the young man with the unblemished heart, “yours is not a perfect heart, for it has not lived, it has not been touched with joy and tears and laughter and love and pain and anguish and hardship and celebration. Only when you are an old man like me will you be able to look upon a gnarled and battered heart and be able to say, ‘yes, now that is a perfect heart.’” (with thanks to Rev Garry Izzard for this story I have adapted)

Meditation: ‘Times when Love Made a Difference’

The older person in the story we just heard had a heart shaped by their life experiences and by the love they had felt. Our invitation in this meditative time is to think of times in our own lives when love made a difference – that might be love we received or love we showed to another, or both, as we all circle around one another in mutual reciprocity in this experience that is life. As always, please feel free to think your own thoughts in your own way, these are simply suggestions. And my words will lead into a couple of minutes in silence and then we’ll hear Elgar’s timeless piece Salut D’amour – love letters.

Period of Silence and Stillness (~3 minutes) – end with a bell

Musical Interlude: ‘Salut d’amour’ by Elgar – George Ireland and Abby Lorimier

In-Person Reading: ‘We do have to be each other’s Valentines’ by Rev David Blanchard (read by Liz)

This reading is taken from a longer sermon by Unitarian Universalist minister David Blanchard, and is written as a spiritual approach to celebrating Valentine’s Day. Earlier on he tells the story of his 2nd grade class – 7 year olds – where the tradition was to send everyone in the class a Valentine’s Card – however you felt about them. As an adult he’s exploring how loving everyone, including the people we find difficult, can be a useful spiritual challenge.

The people we like are easy to love. They take us as we are, treasuring us for our gifts and overlooking our deficiencies. The difficult ones whom we do not like are the ones who have come into our lives, by design or by accident, to teach us something essential about how to love others, and perhaps most essentially, how to love ourselves…..

A deep spiritual challenge that most of us face is seeking a spirit of unity with the people we find most difficult. It is often the last thing we’d want to do. I fail at it regularly. Eventually I hope to fail less frequently. I am learning that it is not impossible, however, to achieve unity in relationship to those who bother us the most. There are a few basic disciplines that make it a less absurd concept to imagine. The first discipline is to be aware of judging. Our judgment is an unfair lens to use if we want to see the whole of another person. The second discipline is to accept the situation for what it is. Perhaps this is not a person we’ll ever like, but here we are. We need to deal with it. Third, we need to be at least willing to see the good that exists in others. We need to challenge ourselves to be fair and open to more than one dimension of another. And last, the fourth discipline, is to be prepared to manifest kindness toward these people whom we find difficult – not because of what we know about them, but because of what we do not know.

So I’m here to tell you, – that you do have to be each other’s valentine. No exceptions. An old jealousy does not excuse you, nor does your position on politics or some other ancient disagreement, your seniority in your company, or your varied judgments about each other. Those are all just smokescreens to keep you from seeing each other in your fullness and worthiness. Every splendid, grumpy, generous, judgmental, complicated, devoted, and difficult one of you had better figure out a way to be each other’s valentine. If we can’t find a way to do it for each other as Unitarian Universalists, what hope is there? We are here to manifest for one another the love that we need most. And it may be that some of what we need, will be delivered to us by the most difficult people we know.

Address: ‘Love Wins?’ by Rev Sarah Tinker

Thank you for that reading. Those last lines: ‘We are here to manifest for one another the love that we need most. And it may be that some of what we need, will be delivered to us by the most difficult people we know’. Those words need to travel around with me, for all the times when people don’t behave how I want them to behave, for all the times when my lovely plans fall apart in the face of life’s twists and turns.

This service has the title ‘Love Wins’. Those of you here in church with strong magnifying glasses might just be able to pick out these words in the photo on the front of our order of service. But for everyone else, let me describe a walk I took a few weeks ago on the southern bank of the Thames, in one of its less salubrious stretches of urban decay and post-industrial dereliction – which of course has a certain charm all of its own, and is much loved by wildlife that can inhabit it undisturbed. We’d been looking at the shags, or are they cormorants, with their mighty black wings stretching out to catch the sun’s rays. And then I saw it – across the river – a rough piece of graffiti with those words written – Love Wins. Whoever wrote it had made it quite an effort to daub those words on the river wall. And I have to thank them for sparking a chain of questions – who wrote it and why. What led them to that idea. And strong as it sounds – love wins – I’ve got the kind of mind that immediately starts thinking of all the situations in which love can quite spectacularly lose – and I imagine many of you will have examples from your own lives of times when love lost rather than won.

‘Love wins’ has a similarity for me with a statement such as ‘God answers our prayers’. It’s aspirational and may be a comfort at times – but it’s clearly not true. Bad things happen in this world and not all stories have a happy ending. Our story of the older person that we heard earlier on with his imperfect heart showing life’s knocks and wounds is heart warming but we know how life’s damage can sometimes be just too great. And inspiring though David Blanchard is when he advises us to learn from the difficult people in our lives and love them for the teachings they bring us – sometimes in real life we just have to back right away from people and draw clear boundaries that won’t be crossed. So I’m personally fully in support of the idea of everyone being my Valentine and I won’t be putting it into action anytime soon.
And yet, and yet, that message behind the idea of writing love letters to everyone, especially those who challenge us – that message is the message of mystical paths the world over – these are the teachings of the Sufis, of the Christian mystics, indeed of Jesus – love all, love everyone. Allow the power of love to infuse all our ways of being in the world. Exclude no-one. And exclude no-one because in truth we are all one. Our separateness is illusion and once we can move beyond that illusion of isolation and instead embrace the oneness of all that is – then everything changes and love might then well be said to win.

All easier said than done I hear you muttering! Yes this is a life time’s work. Each of us at this moment could no doubt think of a handful of people we are not feeling love for – even if our own personal lives are relatively steady at this time I imagine there will be the odd name from the past that still riles you. Or maybe some larger group out there in the world? Assorted politicians, both local and international, can usually be relied on to raise a growl or a grimace from those of us who despair of their approached to world problems.

One of the sources I’ve been reading this week is this slim volume written by our very own Jane Blackall – it’s the dissertation she wrote at the end of her theology degree and it’s called Models of God and the Meaning of Love. Thanks Jane for reminding me of some inspiring academics including Sallie McFague who writes of the earth as God’s body.

‘I came to see how loving the world is loving God … I no longer see God as off in the sky, but as the spirit of the body we call the earth. God is always everywhere with each and every smidge of creation as the loving power of life to all, in their sufferings and joys.’ Sallie McFague

This combining of our spiritual ideas with the life of our planet earth home seems to have ever greater appeal to those of us who are concerned with the effect our human lives are having on our blue green planet, so precious, and so very crucial to our own health and well-being.

So in the days ahead, let’s allow love to be our teacher and our guide. We’ll have to be brave. Kahlil Gibran’s Prophet reminds us that this love will prune us and shape us, will dig down to our roots and give us a shaking.

‘Even as love is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.’ – Adapted from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
But let’s not be dismayed by love’s challenges. Let’s be willing students and be open to the lessons that remaining open-hearted can bring. And shall we all write some Valentine’s message this week – but write them to our world – with all its problems and its painful aspects. Let us be the writers of messages of love – Salut d’amour. Amen.

Hymn 131 (grey): ‘Love Will Guide Us’

Love will guide us, peace has tried us,
hope inside us will lead the way
on the road from greed to giving.
Love will guide us through the hard night.

If you cannot sing like angels,
if you cannot speak before thousands,
you can give from deep within you.
You can change the world with your love.

Love will guide us, peace has tried us,
hope inside us will lead the way
on the road from greed to giving.
Love will guide us through the hard night.

Announcements:

With thanks to our musicians George Ireland and Abby Lorimier who’ve played so beautifully for us today and thanks also to our tech team of Ramona Cristea here in the church and Jeannene Powell sorting everything out for folks online – we couldn’t do these services without you. And thank you Liz for our reading today. (Sarah will add further announcements from Order of Service).

Our closing words will be followed by our final piece of music today – a Beatles classic – feel free to join in as you may well know the words – all you need is love.

Benediction:

These words from an old chant brings us a blessing of springtime, as the days lengthen and the warmth begins to return to the sun’s rays.
‘May the longtime sun shine on you, all love surround you,
And the pure light within you, guide your way home.’
And may love be your companion and your teacher on the road that lies ahead,
Amen, go well all of you, and blessed be.

Closing Music: ‘All You Need is Love’ – George Ireland and Abby Lorimier

Rev. Sarah Tinker

12th February 2023