The ‘We’ Above the ‘I’ ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
October 10, 2021
Braiding Sweetgrass, a beautiful book about indigenous wisdom and what plants have to teach us, is full of stories. The author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, recounted that she once met a European engineering student who had gone wild rice harvesting in Minnesota with an Ojibwe family. He accompanied the harvesters out in their canoe as they paddled through the rice beds, and knocked ripened wild rice into their canoe. As an engineering student, he noticed that the traditional method was not very efficient, and that probably half of the ripened rice fell into the water. So he designed for them a device to capture all of the rice, something to attach to the canoe, and told them that they could collect 85% more rice if they used it. The Ojibwe family were polite, but pointed out that the rice had to be able to seed itself for next year. And they told him, “’What we leave behind is not wasted. You know, we’re not the only ones who like rice. Do you think the ducks would stop here if we took it all?’ Our teachings tell us to never take more than half.” (Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, p. 181-2.)
We meet Dr. Kimmerer as a young girl, watching daily for the wild strawberries to flower, form fruit, and ripen, until finally they could be picked and eaten. She was, she said, raised by strawberries. Wild strawberries, it turns out, had much to teach an observant child. She watched, and she learned that she could take freely from the gift that the earth was offering her. And she learned to give back, to reciprocate, and to say thank you. The way she offered her gratitude was to prepare the land so that the runners of the strawberry plants would find good purchase and be able to more easily put down roots. In this way a relationship developed; one of reciprocity, of alternately giving and receiving.
There is a deep meaning in these stories. Here in these stories I found relationships based on ancient covenants between the people and the land. “Our teachings tell us to never take more than half.” The people have pledged, and the land responds.
The practice of creating covenants is very important to Unitarian Universalists. We are a faith tradition that does not form around shared creeds, or belief systems, as do most religions. Instead, we are people of covenant – of promises made to one another, of vows. This is a tradition that has been passed down to us from our Puritan ancestors. It’s usually a surprise for contemporary UU’s to learn that we draw from the Puritans. Our religious beliefs have moved far, far beyond what was acceptable in the 1600’s. And yet, what we kept was the Puritan belief that congregations should be able to organize themselves, that people could gather together in communities to practice their religion without the hierarchy imposed by religious organizations. To be able to organize in this way, Puritans created covenants among themselves; between themselves and God. Here’s the language from the Salem church covenant, of 1639:
“We Covenant with the Lord and one with another; and doe bynd our selves in the presence of God, to walke together in all his waies, according as he is pleased to reveale himselfe unto us in his Blessed word of truth.”
To walk together. To bind ourselves together in community.
Here is how that sounds to a UU congregation here in 2021: “In the light of truth, and the warmth of love, we gather to seek, to sustain, and to share. Life is a gift for which we are grateful. We gather in community to celebrate the glories and the mysteries of this great gift.” We state our vow here each Sunday.
We gather in community. Life together in community offers us so very much – as we have discovered in the past 19 months as we have struggled to live much more solitary lives. Community offers us connection, opportunities for growth, the chance to look beyond ourselves. Community is a life-creating and life-sustaining force, the connective tissue that brings us together, to walk together. It reminds me of the definition of God offered by Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams, whose words we said in our responsive reading just now: God is the ‘community-forming power.’
I am fascinated by this concept: community not as an organization or an entity, but as a force. As divine energy. If we look at community as something so elemental, as life-giving, it takes on a new importance. We become not just part of an organization, but part of this power that surrounds us and connects us; this power that some might call God, or the Spirit of Life. What we do together is vital, for our own well-being and that of others.
It’s vital, and also challenging. It requires recognizing that the community does not exist only to meet our individual needs. It exists to enable people to come together, to be seen and accepted for who they are, to be part of a living body that transforms each of us, and in turn is transformed by our presence. By definition, it is larger than any of us. It is where we practice raising the collective ‘we’ over the individual ‘I’.
Putting ‘we’ above ‘I’ creates tension. We humans tend to prize our independence and our individuality. We see this tension almost daily all around us as people reject vaccines and the wearing of masks, claiming it limits their personal freedom. But participating in community means that we have to be conscious of that tension; meeting our own needs and at the same time, recognizing that we are not present for ourselves alone, that we are part of something larger than ourselves. To understand that half of the wild rice needs to be left behind for others, and to sustain the future crop.
We try to balance that tension by creating covenant, as have so many before us. To create the intention to walk together, to share, to understand that we cannot always put our own needs above those of the well-being of the larger group. To understand that we must give as well as receive, that we must practice reciprocity. To give when we can, and to take when we need support. To put We over I.
This morning we pause to consider the value of our gathered community; what it means to us, and what it means for us to be a part of it. As we do each October, we begin the process of raising the funds we need to sustain ourselves for the next year: to care for our building, to pay our staff, and to participate in the broader community outside our walls. We so often find these conversations uncomfortable, as though we should never talk about money in church. But if we approach our life here from the perspective of reciprocity, we understand that we give when we are able, and sometimes we receive.
Recently I looked at the vows you and I made to each other on the day that I was installed as your 25th settled minister. We have our own covenant, you and I. We each made pledges to serve this community that we have honored over and over through the years since then. And I am pledging my support again today.
I will be walking with you in this endeavor. It is my great pride to have served as your minister during this most challenging time, to have watched you meet the challenges, to not turn away, to continue to help sustain our community life in whatever way you could. We have accomplished much, and I hope you share my pride. As I do each year, I will pledge to make a financial contribution to the health of this community, and I ask you to join me.
As I close, I find myself wishing that we could sing (as I hope we will soon.) But these words from my favorite hymn rose in my head just now that I will leave you with:
Wake now my senses, and hear the earth call, feel the deep power of being in all; keep, with the web of creation your vow, giving, receiving, as love shows us how.
Blessed Be,
Amen.
