"When have you received the blessing of neighborliness? When have you been greeted with respect, cared for, and invited to take shared responsibility for the common good? I have experienced neighborliness when I’ve been through big milestones in my life and people brought me food, when I was participating in activism on behalf of people and a community that I loved, and when I’ve received the kindness of strangers who recognized me as a member of the human family."
The Rev. Lyn Cox brings light to the idea of being a good neighbor -- what it means to BE one and what it means to RECEIVE the kindness of others.
The Rev. Lyn Cox brings light to the idea of being a good neighbor -- what it means to BE one and what it means to RECEIVE the kindness of others.
Listen to this sermon now or read the entire sermon below.
A Covenant of Neighborliness
By Rev. Lyn Cox
When have you received the blessing of neighborliness? When have you been greeted with respect, cared for, and invited to take shared responsibility for the common good? I have experienced neighborliness when I’ve been through big milestones in my life and people brought me food, when I was participating in activism on behalf of people and a community that I loved, and when I’ve received the kindness of strangers who recognized me as a member of the human family.
I like to think of neighborliness as a kind of covenant. It’s not a written covenant. Neighborliness is an unwritten set of sacred promises, a sense of relatedness with other people and the world and with something larger than ourselves. Neighborliness is rooted in a particular experience of time and place, yet ripples outward to the horizons of our awareness of the interdependent web. Covenants bind us together in mutual care and responsibility, whether or not our promises are expressed in words.
You are probably familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Rich B. dramatized it for us so well last Easter. A traveler is attacked and injured on the Jericho road. Respected members of the traveler’s own community don't stop to help. A Samaritan, a member of a culture on the other side of a bitter divide, is the person who not only stops, but invests in the injured traveler's future care. The parable demonstrates that obligations to our neighbors include those beyond our immediate circle, even to those we may consider "them" instead of "us."
It's easy to say in theory, of course we would help someone from another group, of course that person would be our neighbor. What if that person were connected with a political movement with which I heartily disagree? What if that person is from a dangerous place, and may bring danger with them? What if that person is a member of an organization that betrayed me? When the roles were reversed, when I needed help, there have been people who surprised me by stopping. Overcoming my assumptions about "us and them" is a constant discipline.
This congregation puts a lot of work into being neighborly. It's one of the things I love about you. You have long been committed to being a respectful member of the interfaith community. UUCY is a reliable participant in the annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration, to be held this year on November 22 at Luther Memorial on Hollywood Drive. You have been practicing food justice through the community garden and Our Daily Bread. You welcome neighbors into the parlor for the weekly English Conversation Club. All of these represent the hospitality of a good neighbor. This church shines like a friendly porch light on the way home.
I would like to suggest that being neighborly will grow into action on a larger scale. If we take our values seriously, reflect on them, and challenge ourselves to spiritual growth, I think we will find that this congregation is called to be a neighborly institution, an organized group that not only takes the time to help, but also addresses the root causes of suffering.
Who is our neighbor and what does that mean? For us as Unitarian Universalists, neighborliness encompasses several of our core values. The values I want to lift up today have to do with justice, equity, and compassion, which comprise the second of our seven UU principles.
Being neighborly involves considerate curiosity. Somewhere in between apathy and nosy-ness, there is a sweet spot of taking interest in one another. Considerate curiosity allows people to speak for themselves and to know that they will be heard warmly.
Recognizing our interdependence is a second value of neighborliness. What happens to one affects us all. Alliances of responsibility help us to respond with strength.
A third value of neighborliness is the willingness to expand our comfort zones. Building relationships means risking things like awkwardness and disagreement.
Neighborliness means a lot of different things. Today we’ll start with considerate curiosity, interdependence, and expanding our comfort zones.
Considerate Curiosity
Cultivating an atmosphere of considerate curiosity is a group discipline. It is harder than it sounds. We have to commit to it as a shared expectation. In this sanctuary, people listen warmly during Candles of Sharing, and at home members click the link to find out how they can help when they see the virtual candles of sharing in the Beacon email newsletter. Sometimes we notice without prompting when someone isn’t well or is having a tough time or has something great going on.
Sometimes we don’t notice. We can work on that. I don’t think it’s possible for a congregation to notice 100% of the time when a well-placed question is in order. As you increase your fellowship and adult faith development activities, there will be more opportunities to notice. Check out Grounds on the Ground after the service today, bringing your beverage and your greetings to the lower lobby of this building. Unless you’re in the Path to Membership class, in which case I’m looking forward to meeting you here.
This congregation has done well in the past year with growing your pastoral ministries. You have increased the number and the preparedness of Pastoral Associates, members who will listen compassionately and help you stay connected with the church. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to guess that hundreds of cards and casseroles have traveled between families in the last year. All of that begins with people being interested in one another’s wellbeing.
Considerate curiosity is a practice for institutions as well as individuals. Through the connections formed between groups and the growing we do within groups, we learn how to ask the questions that improve our world. In this congregation, we are learning together how to talk about racism, gender diversity, and overcoming the generational divide that separates humans into market segments. These are difficult and rewarding disciplines, and we will get better at them as we practice direct address and covenantal behavior toward our common goals.
The part about institutional relationships is important. Our Racial Justice Team is just getting started with studying resources and relationships for congregational involvement in racial justice. We’re learning that racial justice is both global and local. We need legislation at the state and national level, yet much of the work of racial justice is relentlessly local. Black lives matter. We live out that truth, in part, by building relationships in our own neighborhoods between this congregation and the congregations and community-building organizations led by people of color. To be effective allies, we will collectively invest our time and energy, and we will risk the vulnerability of relationship. We will not be instantly good at this. We are not likely to be leading the charge or providing expertise. Let us approach congregation-based relationships as a spiritual practice of considerate curiosity. Show up, make mistakes, learn, try again.
In terms of the Good Samaritan parable, the Samaritan shows considerate curiosity when he stops and notices what has happened. It’s a first step. Paying attention seems like a basic practice. I don’t expect a reward for noticing pain or discrimination or how someone’s day is going. Even so, considerate curiosity is a learned skill and it takes time. Organizing our intentions will help us to mature in our capacity to pay attention.
Interdependence
The second step is recognizing our interdependence. That’s the crux of the issue in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The injured traveler is not some irrelevant object. The danger on the Jericho Road affects all travelers. Acts of kindness are not simply benevolent gifts to people who have nothing to do with us. Neighborly behavior is an act of relationship, not pity.
Perhaps you had an opportunity to see the documentary, Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War, on PBS this past Tuesday, or you remember the Mystery History quiz last week. Martha and Waitstill Sharp were some of the first representatives of what became the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in Europe during World War II. They saved intellectuals, artists, journalists, and children, among others. This is during a time when Americans did not have unanimous feelings about the Nazis. Some were suspicious of Jewish immigrants and thought that refugees would include Nazi spies. Today we may be horrified by the Holocaust, but at the time there was a very real sense of “us” and “them” between those in power here and those who were fleeing Nazi persecution.
Hearing the Sharps’ words about their work, I was struck with how little difference they perceived between themselves and the people they were helping. Martha wrote with touching compassion about the mothers who entrusted children to her care. She gave the children of one envoy beige berets so that she could keep them together as a group and give them a sense of belonging in transition. She pretended to be the spouse of at least one intellectual she smuggled out right under the noses of the Gestapo. Martha and Waitstill Sharp reached out across divisions of language, geography, culture, and religion and found people related in the human family. They worked with a network of others who arranged transportation and jobs, people more swayed by compassion than fear of the other. Injustice across the ocean affects the world we live in right here. Who is my neighbor?
Our present-day Unitarian Universalist Service Committee reminds us that there are still refugees and asylum seekers in the world. There are Syrian refugees meeting rhetoric identical to what was said about Jewish refugees in the 1930s. There are Central Americans fleeing violence that is, in part, a consequence of U.S. foreign policy. There are asylum-seeking women and children at the Berks Detention Center, still being incarcerated over a year past the supposed 20-day limit as their asylum applications are considered. Our wellbeing as a nation is affected by our ability to exercise compassion and moral courage. Visit uusc.org for more information about how you can add your voice. What happens to a refugee or an asylum seeker affects us all. Who is our neighbor?
Expanding Comfort Zones
After considerate curiosity and recognizing interdependence, the third neighborly step is expanding our comfort zones. This is the extra mile between being polite and being a good neighbor. The above-and-beyond actions of the Good Samaritan from the Book of Luke are a good illustration here:
He went up and bandaged his wounds, bathing them with oil and wine. Then he lifted him on to his own beast, brought him to an inn, and looked after him. Next day he produced two silver pieces and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Look after him; and if you spend more, I will repay you on my way back.’ (Luke 10:34-35, Revised English Bible)
In other words, being a good neighbor involves going out of your way. All around, I see people challenging themselves like the Good Samaritan.
Challenge is good when it helps you grow. You have been through plenty of challenges together and have seen the promise on the other side. Some members are most interested in direct service, following the call of every spiritual tradition to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless. Some members feel called to prophetic public witness. Some are strategic connecters, doing the radical work of introducing people to one another. It is right and good that members show diversity in their giftedness for shared ministry. In the magnificent breadth of issues and opportunities we hold among us, there is work to do in cultivating a sense of shared purpose beyond this campus. Organization is how we make the most impact and keep it up. Sustained organizational maturity has to go through barriers of uncomfortable conversations, stretching institutional capacities, and organizational unity.
I am so grateful to the Strategic Long Term Planning Task Force for the great work they are already doing in inviting discernment, and to the Board for their invitation to members to engage in Powerful Questions. During this turning point year, I would suggest that one of the things every member and friend can do starting today is to talk with people in the congregation you don’t normally talk to. Spend the social hour in a different part of the room. Plan a fellowship event. Sign up to be a greeter or a coffee host so that you can have a role as you introduce yourself to people you don’t normally talk with. In a congregation of this size, it is easy and tempting to stay within a comfort zone of a dozen or two people. Your ability to move forward together as one church will be enhanced the more you talk with each other in compassionately curious, slightly uncomfortable ways.
It seems to me, expanding our comfort zone is an opportunity to grow spiritually. We would need to be honest and vulnerable. Interactions with people in true relationship risk awkwardness, conflict, and scarcity. Social action and strategic planning are opportunities for spiritual growth because conversation means confronting things like awkwardness, conflict, and scarcity.
I believe that, if we listen to each other and to the still, small voice within, our experience will lead us to a unified calling. Whatever this congregation’s calling, I know it will grow in strength, fueled by the power of love.
Conclusion
Being a good neighbor is held in high esteem at this church. Members here already practice compassionate curiosity. We reflect together on interdependence. We grow our comfort zones in our outreach and our honest discussions with one another. May we continue to grow in our practice and in our understanding of the covenant of neighborliness. So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
By Rev. Lyn Cox
When have you received the blessing of neighborliness? When have you been greeted with respect, cared for, and invited to take shared responsibility for the common good? I have experienced neighborliness when I’ve been through big milestones in my life and people brought me food, when I was participating in activism on behalf of people and a community that I loved, and when I’ve received the kindness of strangers who recognized me as a member of the human family.
I like to think of neighborliness as a kind of covenant. It’s not a written covenant. Neighborliness is an unwritten set of sacred promises, a sense of relatedness with other people and the world and with something larger than ourselves. Neighborliness is rooted in a particular experience of time and place, yet ripples outward to the horizons of our awareness of the interdependent web. Covenants bind us together in mutual care and responsibility, whether or not our promises are expressed in words.
You are probably familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Rich B. dramatized it for us so well last Easter. A traveler is attacked and injured on the Jericho road. Respected members of the traveler’s own community don't stop to help. A Samaritan, a member of a culture on the other side of a bitter divide, is the person who not only stops, but invests in the injured traveler's future care. The parable demonstrates that obligations to our neighbors include those beyond our immediate circle, even to those we may consider "them" instead of "us."
It's easy to say in theory, of course we would help someone from another group, of course that person would be our neighbor. What if that person were connected with a political movement with which I heartily disagree? What if that person is from a dangerous place, and may bring danger with them? What if that person is a member of an organization that betrayed me? When the roles were reversed, when I needed help, there have been people who surprised me by stopping. Overcoming my assumptions about "us and them" is a constant discipline.
This congregation puts a lot of work into being neighborly. It's one of the things I love about you. You have long been committed to being a respectful member of the interfaith community. UUCY is a reliable participant in the annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration, to be held this year on November 22 at Luther Memorial on Hollywood Drive. You have been practicing food justice through the community garden and Our Daily Bread. You welcome neighbors into the parlor for the weekly English Conversation Club. All of these represent the hospitality of a good neighbor. This church shines like a friendly porch light on the way home.
I would like to suggest that being neighborly will grow into action on a larger scale. If we take our values seriously, reflect on them, and challenge ourselves to spiritual growth, I think we will find that this congregation is called to be a neighborly institution, an organized group that not only takes the time to help, but also addresses the root causes of suffering.
Who is our neighbor and what does that mean? For us as Unitarian Universalists, neighborliness encompasses several of our core values. The values I want to lift up today have to do with justice, equity, and compassion, which comprise the second of our seven UU principles.
Being neighborly involves considerate curiosity. Somewhere in between apathy and nosy-ness, there is a sweet spot of taking interest in one another. Considerate curiosity allows people to speak for themselves and to know that they will be heard warmly.
Recognizing our interdependence is a second value of neighborliness. What happens to one affects us all. Alliances of responsibility help us to respond with strength.
A third value of neighborliness is the willingness to expand our comfort zones. Building relationships means risking things like awkwardness and disagreement.
Neighborliness means a lot of different things. Today we’ll start with considerate curiosity, interdependence, and expanding our comfort zones.
Considerate Curiosity
Cultivating an atmosphere of considerate curiosity is a group discipline. It is harder than it sounds. We have to commit to it as a shared expectation. In this sanctuary, people listen warmly during Candles of Sharing, and at home members click the link to find out how they can help when they see the virtual candles of sharing in the Beacon email newsletter. Sometimes we notice without prompting when someone isn’t well or is having a tough time or has something great going on.
Sometimes we don’t notice. We can work on that. I don’t think it’s possible for a congregation to notice 100% of the time when a well-placed question is in order. As you increase your fellowship and adult faith development activities, there will be more opportunities to notice. Check out Grounds on the Ground after the service today, bringing your beverage and your greetings to the lower lobby of this building. Unless you’re in the Path to Membership class, in which case I’m looking forward to meeting you here.
This congregation has done well in the past year with growing your pastoral ministries. You have increased the number and the preparedness of Pastoral Associates, members who will listen compassionately and help you stay connected with the church. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to guess that hundreds of cards and casseroles have traveled between families in the last year. All of that begins with people being interested in one another’s wellbeing.
Considerate curiosity is a practice for institutions as well as individuals. Through the connections formed between groups and the growing we do within groups, we learn how to ask the questions that improve our world. In this congregation, we are learning together how to talk about racism, gender diversity, and overcoming the generational divide that separates humans into market segments. These are difficult and rewarding disciplines, and we will get better at them as we practice direct address and covenantal behavior toward our common goals.
The part about institutional relationships is important. Our Racial Justice Team is just getting started with studying resources and relationships for congregational involvement in racial justice. We’re learning that racial justice is both global and local. We need legislation at the state and national level, yet much of the work of racial justice is relentlessly local. Black lives matter. We live out that truth, in part, by building relationships in our own neighborhoods between this congregation and the congregations and community-building organizations led by people of color. To be effective allies, we will collectively invest our time and energy, and we will risk the vulnerability of relationship. We will not be instantly good at this. We are not likely to be leading the charge or providing expertise. Let us approach congregation-based relationships as a spiritual practice of considerate curiosity. Show up, make mistakes, learn, try again.
In terms of the Good Samaritan parable, the Samaritan shows considerate curiosity when he stops and notices what has happened. It’s a first step. Paying attention seems like a basic practice. I don’t expect a reward for noticing pain or discrimination or how someone’s day is going. Even so, considerate curiosity is a learned skill and it takes time. Organizing our intentions will help us to mature in our capacity to pay attention.
Interdependence
The second step is recognizing our interdependence. That’s the crux of the issue in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The injured traveler is not some irrelevant object. The danger on the Jericho Road affects all travelers. Acts of kindness are not simply benevolent gifts to people who have nothing to do with us. Neighborly behavior is an act of relationship, not pity.
Perhaps you had an opportunity to see the documentary, Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War, on PBS this past Tuesday, or you remember the Mystery History quiz last week. Martha and Waitstill Sharp were some of the first representatives of what became the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in Europe during World War II. They saved intellectuals, artists, journalists, and children, among others. This is during a time when Americans did not have unanimous feelings about the Nazis. Some were suspicious of Jewish immigrants and thought that refugees would include Nazi spies. Today we may be horrified by the Holocaust, but at the time there was a very real sense of “us” and “them” between those in power here and those who were fleeing Nazi persecution.
Hearing the Sharps’ words about their work, I was struck with how little difference they perceived between themselves and the people they were helping. Martha wrote with touching compassion about the mothers who entrusted children to her care. She gave the children of one envoy beige berets so that she could keep them together as a group and give them a sense of belonging in transition. She pretended to be the spouse of at least one intellectual she smuggled out right under the noses of the Gestapo. Martha and Waitstill Sharp reached out across divisions of language, geography, culture, and religion and found people related in the human family. They worked with a network of others who arranged transportation and jobs, people more swayed by compassion than fear of the other. Injustice across the ocean affects the world we live in right here. Who is my neighbor?
Our present-day Unitarian Universalist Service Committee reminds us that there are still refugees and asylum seekers in the world. There are Syrian refugees meeting rhetoric identical to what was said about Jewish refugees in the 1930s. There are Central Americans fleeing violence that is, in part, a consequence of U.S. foreign policy. There are asylum-seeking women and children at the Berks Detention Center, still being incarcerated over a year past the supposed 20-day limit as their asylum applications are considered. Our wellbeing as a nation is affected by our ability to exercise compassion and moral courage. Visit uusc.org for more information about how you can add your voice. What happens to a refugee or an asylum seeker affects us all. Who is our neighbor?
Expanding Comfort Zones
After considerate curiosity and recognizing interdependence, the third neighborly step is expanding our comfort zones. This is the extra mile between being polite and being a good neighbor. The above-and-beyond actions of the Good Samaritan from the Book of Luke are a good illustration here:
He went up and bandaged his wounds, bathing them with oil and wine. Then he lifted him on to his own beast, brought him to an inn, and looked after him. Next day he produced two silver pieces and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Look after him; and if you spend more, I will repay you on my way back.’ (Luke 10:34-35, Revised English Bible)
In other words, being a good neighbor involves going out of your way. All around, I see people challenging themselves like the Good Samaritan.
Challenge is good when it helps you grow. You have been through plenty of challenges together and have seen the promise on the other side. Some members are most interested in direct service, following the call of every spiritual tradition to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless. Some members feel called to prophetic public witness. Some are strategic connecters, doing the radical work of introducing people to one another. It is right and good that members show diversity in their giftedness for shared ministry. In the magnificent breadth of issues and opportunities we hold among us, there is work to do in cultivating a sense of shared purpose beyond this campus. Organization is how we make the most impact and keep it up. Sustained organizational maturity has to go through barriers of uncomfortable conversations, stretching institutional capacities, and organizational unity.
I am so grateful to the Strategic Long Term Planning Task Force for the great work they are already doing in inviting discernment, and to the Board for their invitation to members to engage in Powerful Questions. During this turning point year, I would suggest that one of the things every member and friend can do starting today is to talk with people in the congregation you don’t normally talk to. Spend the social hour in a different part of the room. Plan a fellowship event. Sign up to be a greeter or a coffee host so that you can have a role as you introduce yourself to people you don’t normally talk with. In a congregation of this size, it is easy and tempting to stay within a comfort zone of a dozen or two people. Your ability to move forward together as one church will be enhanced the more you talk with each other in compassionately curious, slightly uncomfortable ways.
It seems to me, expanding our comfort zone is an opportunity to grow spiritually. We would need to be honest and vulnerable. Interactions with people in true relationship risk awkwardness, conflict, and scarcity. Social action and strategic planning are opportunities for spiritual growth because conversation means confronting things like awkwardness, conflict, and scarcity.
I believe that, if we listen to each other and to the still, small voice within, our experience will lead us to a unified calling. Whatever this congregation’s calling, I know it will grow in strength, fueled by the power of love.
Conclusion
Being a good neighbor is held in high esteem at this church. Members here already practice compassionate curiosity. We reflect together on interdependence. We grow our comfort zones in our outreach and our honest discussions with one another. May we continue to grow in our practice and in our understanding of the covenant of neighborliness. So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
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