|
To Flourish Like the Cedars Reverend Amy Zucker November 16, 2003 Palo Alto, CA
Good people will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon. . . they will flourish in the courtyards of God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green. (Psalm 92, adapted from various versions)
I was happy to hear a few people say the other night how much they love looking at our madrone branch. I come in here sometimes just to sit and look at it. It's beautiful in itself and it also seems to give concrete form to the beauty in this congregation, this community of people who come here to love and seek and grow together.
Madrones live for a long time and grow slowly, and they like to grow in the shadow of other trees. So you can see, looking at this one, how it grew, slowly twisting and turning toward the light.
It must be made up of millions of cells, and each one grew individually, but each was shaped to fit into the others, to fit the form that it was building together with all the others. The branch has taken a shape that is never the same on any two madrone branches and yet is unmistakably a branch of that kind of tree. It's a fluid, dynamic shape all its own, strong and light.
We talk about growth a lot in this congregation. We worry about it, to the point that I dare say it keeps some leaders of the church tossing and turning some nights. Perhaps the trees can help us here, because the growth of a tree is only partly about size. Adding sheer numbers of cells is not enough. What form do they take? Do they together reach toward light and water, or are they urging all their corporate growth toward barren soil? Is each cell healthy and strong? All of those things and more are part of the growth of a healthy tree.
Loren Mead, who writes about how churches grow, describes not one but four kinds of growth. The first and most obvious is numerical growth. That's the one we usually mean when we say "we want UUCPA to grow." When we're focused on numerical growth, we want more people. We measure our success and failure by how many bodies walk in this door and how many stay. It's wonderful that we have a desire to grow in numbers, because too many UU churches hide the light we have to share under a basket. However, as Mead writes, and as any botanist knows, there is more to growth than numbers and size.
His second kind of growth is maturational, which concerns the growth of each person as a person. Are people being transformed by their membership in this congregation? Does it challenge you, inspire you, leave you thinking more clearly and humming with new life? Do you feel like a better person because of the changes you have experienced here? Maturational growth is about spiritual growth: being more open to possibility, more aware of complexity, more hungry for justice and thirsty for compassion.
It is also about growth in relationships. We don't measure the success of our relationships by how many friends we have. Aren't we more concerned with the quality of those friendships whether there is anyone with whom we can share our hearts, whom we trust completely and for whom we'd do anything?
Yesterday, at our start-up weekend envisioning the ministry of this congregation, we were asked to envision a utopian church. One of the facilitators observed that in both our utopia and in the actual UUCPA we described, relationships came up again and again. This, too, is not the case in every church. We value the connections among us, and although the leadership identified many areas for growth in how we make these connections–many areas in which we can still improve and mature in the way we relate to one another–we do it well. And as several people observed Friday night, we have grown in warmth and the welcome we offer. We are a friendlier place than we once were, a community that invites people into community. How much we would lose if we looked only at numbers–how much we would miss if we said we haven't grown much in the past twenty-five years. If people feel closer connections here than they did in 1976, as Jack and Susan testified the other night, then we have grown tremendously.
The opportunities for maturational growth have themselves grown by leaps and bounds. As Phyllis said Friday night, we used to carefully schedule the week so that no evening had conflicting events. We couldn't do that now if we tried. The rooms are overflowing with classes, meetings, celebrations, small-group gatherings, meditation circles, and all the other signs of people growing spiritually.
A third kind of growth is what Mead calls incarnational growth. Incarnation means "putting into flesh." How much does the congregation embody its values? Does it walk its talk? Does it leave the realm of abstractions and actually do the work of justice-making and peace-building? If we have increased our action for social justice, then we have grown. I also interpret incarnational growth as change in the way we act within this community. Our principles challenge us to accept one another, encourage one another to spiritual growth, respect one another's inherent worth and dignity. If we are being more civil and generous toward one another, then we are growing. I am told that in years past, this congregation was widely considered one of the most contentious in the district. A congregational meeting that didn't include a painful argument was considered a success. This weekend, two facilitators commented on how much affection and laughter was in our gathering. Invited to talk about our history and our hopes for the future, we spoke of many challenges, disappointments, and downright painful experiences, but the spirit was not one of a group of people who have had it with each other–far from it. As Darcey said, you could feel the love.
As for the generosity of this congregation, it has grown beyond many leaders' wildest dreams. In a tough economy, our giving to our church has increased, steadily and dramatically. Why is that? People's pockets aren't any deeper but their commitment is. That's incarnational growth, our values given flesh.
And finally there is organic growth, which is about structures and organization. A church is a living system, and its structures must change as its size and its needs change. Just as a tree needs deeper roots and a broader trunk to support a larger crown, a church of 500 needs different structures than a church of 250. A congregation may spend years putting in place the structures necessary for the other kinds of growth–years in which it may not grow numerically, but in which it strengthens itself for numerical, maturational, and incarnational growth. I think of oak trees, which create many buds that not only do not open, but are swallowed up by the other structures of the tree the bark may literally grow right around them and encase them completely. They are not for present growth; they are the tree's way of preparing for the future. Decades later, when a branch has been cut off or the entire tree has been cut down, new life springs from these dormant buds.
The other three help lead to numerical growth. But even to put it that way is to put numerical growth at the top of the heap, as if the others are just there to support it. In fact, it is no more or less important than the others.
If we do embody our values, then of course we want to have as many people be a part of that as possible. Maybe there will be so many that we'd have to spin off another congregation, but that's okay. The point is, if we here are fulfilling our mission of social justice, of building a caring community, of creating a learning community, of committing our resources to our vision, of treating each other with gentleness and our world with compassion, then by all means, we want to share that as widely as possible.
If we don't embody our values, then it doesn't matter how big we are. We'll just be a church of 1000 members and no principles. So numerical growth must be accompanied by other forms of growth.
The kind of growth I want to talk about in my last few minutes is Mead's maturational growth. "Maturation" is such a wonderful word, so much richer than "growth". Growth can be like cancer, eating up the life that makes it possible. It can be cells wildly multiplying but bringing only death instead of new life. It can be like a tree whose roots are in soft sand and whose size will cause it to topple. Bigger is not necessarily better, and sometimes it's worse. It all depends on the quality of what is being grown.
But maturation is different. It is not only growth, but flourishing. When the Psalmist imagined the realm of God in the quote given in your order of service, he or she spoke of trees: palm trees and cedars flourishing in God's courtyards. Not a "forest of cedars" overtaking the hillsides, not palms noticeable for their size not numbers, not just growth, but flourishing. Even in their old age they shall bring forth fruit. They shall be fresh and green. They shall not only grow but flourish, being more healthy, more vibrant.
Dan Packard was here from Peninsula Interfaith Action last week to tell us that there is nothing so powerful as a group of people that has discovered what it values. Any growth consultant in any field would tell you that for an organization to grow, it has to know why it should grow - what is its purpose? Hewlett-Packard's purpose is to create good information technology for its clientele and profits for its investors. What is the purpose of this congregation?
Darcey proposed an answer in her first sermon of the year: To grow souls, To grow selves. We are here to grow, not the church, but ourselves: each of us, all of us, the community of our interrelated being.
Rumi writes:
You may seem to be the microcosm
In fact, you are the macrocosm.
The branch might seem like the fruit's origin:
In fact the branch exists because of the fruit.
Would the gardener have planted the tree at all
Without a desire and hope for fruit?
That's why the tree is really born from the fruit
Even if it seems the fruit is created by the tree.
This tree, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, was planted out of the desire and hope for this fruit: people of generous hearts and sharp minds, people who see clearly and share deeply.
Today we welcome new members. We want new people to join us; of course we do. But what are we welcoming them into? What is here that people would find compelling? I know you must know the answer, because you have found here the deep well for your roots to drink from and go deep, become strong, hold you as you have grown and flourished. Or perhaps you are here to find out if the well lies under the sand for you, as it does for those who have joined this morning.
What nurtures you into growth, the growth of the perfect fruit that is your self? Whatever you have found here that has made you feel something inside swelling like a sweet, ripe peach, that is what we must nurture in our congregation.
It doesn't have to be a group with "spiritual" in the title, or with obvious spiritual content. Womenspirit and Men's Groups, Covenant Groups and Full Moon gatherings have "spiritual growth" written all over them, but they are not the only place we deepen and mature. It might be a classroom, or a Children's Chapel service. I've heard a few participants in the Peace and Nonviolence Study Group say that it has changed their lives profoundly: that it is not only the most important thing at UUCPA to them, but the most important thing in their lives. What a wonderful fulfillment of our mission: to be the source of some of the most important things in people's lives.
It doesn't have to be a group at all that makes the difference to you. Perhaps it's a song, or a conversation. Perhaps it's a story that was once told in a sermon. Perhaps it's marching side by side in a rally for peace. Each of us has a self to grow, and no two grow in the same way. But we have all come here because we sense that what we need is to be found here. We stay if we find it and feel ourselves blossoming.
Let's pause for a moment and each sit in silence. See if a memory comes to mind of a moment when you felt transformed by something that happened here . . . . Whatever makes us grow in depth and joy, whatever nurtures the selves we most want to become - that is what we must nurture here. That is what it means to grow a congregation.
This tree has been planted so that you might grow. We are all waiting to see what beautiful blossoms will spring out of your being, what delicious fruit will ripen.
What is your reaction to this sermon? Please send comments to Reverend Amy Zucker
|