A Celebration Of Joy
Reverend Kenneth W. Collier
February 25, 2001
Palo Alto, CA

In our culture we tend to think of religion-and sometimes even life itself-as something that can get pretty grim. It's one of the legacies of Calvinist Puritanism and the kind of dire Catholicism that pays primary attention to the dark side of humanity-what it calls our sinful nature-and makes that side out to be the center, the essence of who we are. This legacy has even infected the way some people who are not religious talk and think about the world. How many times do we have to listen to people talk about how hatred, cruelty, negativism and alienation come more easily to human beings than love? "It is hardwired into our brains that we separate ourselves into 'us' and 'them.' We're programmed to alienate each other and have to work at reaching across those boundaries."

I get pretty tired of that. Life may be difficult from time to time, but why should it be grim? If hatred is part of our genetic legacy, why isn't love also part of our hardwire? If sorrow and alienation are the human condition, why isn't joy and connection also the human condition? I think the answer is that they are.

One of the things I've noticed in my life is that sometimes it feels as if there is nothing there but sorrow interrupted occasionally by joy, and other times it seems as if life is filled with long periods of joy that are interrupted occasionally by sorrow. Isn't that peculiar, because either way it's the same life. So which way of looking at it is right? Perhaps the hardest lesson that I've had to learn is that neither one is right. My life is just...my life. And sometimes there is sorrow in it, and sometimes there is joy in it. Most of the time, both are in it. So why should I let the sorrow overtake and denominate the joy? Both are real. Why shouldn't I embrace them both and even celebrate them both, in their turn?

The deepest joy, I have found, happens when we really do reach across the boundaries that separate and alienate. It comes when we find ourselves genuinely in relationship with one another, and it transforms us from lonely, isolated individuals into connected, interdependent communities of people joined at the heart. And this is one of the reasons why we have a church, at least a Unitarian Universalist church.

We do not come together on order to escape from the grim, dark, sinful nature of human life. We come together to transcend the boundaries of our skins and allow our hearts and minds to touch and change and grow and so to become more and more deeply and profoundly human. We come together to cultivate that very special joy that explodes with the realization that we are not alone and that hearts and minds and souls create one another in love.

Have you ever reflected that it is not possible to love in isolation, that love is not something we do but something we enter, that it is a relationship? To love requires a community. Therefore we say that the church is a loving community. It is a group of people who seek to deepen their ability to love and so to commit themselves to the fuller realization of their sacred interdependence. When we isolate ourselves-whether that isolation be physical or psychological or spiritual-we are lost, but when we join with others and transcend our terrible aloneness, we transform one another into something that is greater than any of us can possibly be alone: we become human beings. And that is what our church is for.

Darcey spoke of the joy of giving. Have you ever noticed that giving is a also communal act? You cannot give alone. You have to give to someone or something. You cannot give unless you are in community. Now, there are two ways that we give. The first is grudgingly. We give because we have to for one reason or another. Think about taxes. It's surprising how many gifts actually fall into this category. You can do an inventory of your own gift-giving and see for yourself. These gifts rarely are given in joy, and rarely move us to joy.

But there is another, a second, way of giving. This is giving from a sense of love, giving because you really do feel connected, responsible, touched, grateful. This is what is really meant by generosity. An interesting word, "generous." It come from a Latin word that carries the sense of nobility," and it is related to the words "genius" and "genial." This second form of giving ennobles and transforms us, and it is a necessary part of our becoming profoundly human. These gifts are given in joy, and they create joy, both in the giving and in the receiving. You cannot be human without giving away, and giving genially, with joy

There is another very interesting word in this regard: "stewardship." As you may know, the suffix "-ship" indicates the art or quality something, as in leadership or fellowship. But what is a steward? The word is Old English. In Anglo-Saxon times, a steward was the one who kept, guarded, or watched the hall. Now, Saxon villages, like many Native American villages, were centered on a large, communal hall, what they called the Mead Hall. Think back to Beowulf. The social and religious life of the village and its governing all happened there. The steward was the one who was entrusted to care for it. It was a very important position and the steward commanded a lot of honor and respect. In later times, when the Saxons became Christians, the Mead Hall was transformed into the church, and the idea of a steward was generalized into anyone who cared for the Church, the village manor, and so on.

Stewardship, then, is the art or quality of caring for the community. I suggest that you are called to be stewards of this our church, of this our religious community. Into your hands is entrusted its well-being, its health, its vitality, even its very existence as a transforming institution. Its present is in your hands; its future is in your hands; its very life is in your hands. And one of the responsibilities this places in your hands is the responsibility to give generously to it-which is to say to everyone in it. To give joyfully, the gifts of your time, your energy, your best thinking, and your money. If the church is to give you the best that you are, then you must give it back the best that you are as well, for to give really is to receive.

And so I leave you with this question. When you give your gifts to the church, are they given grudgingly and out of a sense of grim obligation, or are they given in nobility and generosity? Do you give as honored stewards of the community? Do you give because you are "supposed" to, or because it really is a joy to give and a joy to receive and a joy to be constantly joined with one another, deepened in your humanity, and transformed more and more profoundly into the person whom you really are?

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