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Micah, Micah (IV)
A Sermon Given
by The Reverend Douglas A. Taylor
on October 31, 1999
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
My uncle John used to be a young man. One of the first meals
he learned to cook was scrambled eggs. He had only one problem
. . . he always ended up with enough scrambled eggs to feed a
small army, no matter how small he started. If he cracked two
eggs and poured in some milk, he would always have too much
milk. (Because even if he had too little milk, he could never top
it off with the right amount, so he would always have too much
milk.) Of course, with too much milk, he had to add another egg.
This would make too much egg and he found it necessary to add
some more milk. You can see where this is going. He always had
too much of one or the other, until he had such a large amount of
scrambled egg batter that so small a difference no longer mattered.
When ever I think about the topic of church growth and size,
I am reminded of my Uncle John and his scrambled eggs. I spent
two years with a very small fellowship in Delaware, Ohio, where
I served my first stint of ministry as their fellowship coordinator.
I was fresh into seminary and full of ideals. I stumbled into a
community of Unitarian Universalists who had been meeting for a
number of decades. They struggled to maintain around twenty
members for most of that time. But eventually they felt the need
to grow. They bought a building, hired a coordinator, began
offering their children religious education; and when I met them,
they had doubled their membership through these efforts.
But not everyone was in favor of growth. And this is where I
am reminded of my Uncle John and his scrambled eggs, because
some people experienced the church growth that way. We started
out so small, just a few eggs, (they might say). Then some people
poured in, so we got ourselves a fellowship coordinator egg. Well,
with the fellowship coordinator, more people poured in. After that
we built an egg house, which, of course, caused more people to
pour in. So we formed another egg committee on social egg-tion
. . . well, you can see where this is going. Until we have such a
large amount of eggheads, that our small but precious differences
no longer matter!
It is just so hard to go from a small group of people joined
together for a common goal, to, . . . well, to something big. Back
in Delaware, Ohio they wondered if bigger would really be better.
Now there would be so much more to do because of it. Things
were changing faster than they thought they would. As this small
fellowship grew, they began to see that there would be a need for
bigger space, bigger programming, bigger goals, bigger committees.
Would it end up the way they wanted or were they creating a
juggernaut which they wouldn't be able to control?
Now, here at Cedar Lane, we did not begin in this way, and
size has never been of concern. But the story of our coming
together is not so far back that it is lost in institutional memory.
Sufficient worship space, empowering leadership, and dynamic
programming are vital issues for the healthy growth of any church,
not just in the quest for larger membership numbers. The
scrambled egg style of growth is not the only style. I know a story
about a guy who had some different ideas about how a church
should be structured, that I'd like to share with you.
A long time ago there was a fellow named Micah who lived
with his mother in the hill country of Ephraim. He had some extra
money, thanks to his mom, which he used to buy some God. By
this I mean he had a prayer building erected, graven images made,
and even a Levite priest installed. Micah said, "Now I shall surely
prosper!" But soon a band of marauding Danites sauntered by, six
hundred of them. They knew they would need some graven
images and a Levite priest when they finished their hostile takeover
of the neighboring city. So they stopped off at Micah's, sacked his
prayer building, and persuaded his Levite Priest to follow them.
Well, when Micah heard about this he ran after the six hundred
Danites who were all armed with weapons of war and said to them:
"You took my Gods that I made and my Levite priest. You have
left me with nothing. I want my God back!" Some of the Danites
replied "You had better keep your voice down or some of our hot-tempered
fellows will attack you." So Micah turned and went
home. No priest. No graven images. No God.
This story in the Bible (book of Judges, chapters 17 &18) is so
often cited as the example of external religion: portable, external,
too easily lost. This is compared with the other Micah, the big one
from the book of Micah, chapter 6, verse 8: "What does God
require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with your God?" This for me and many others is a
mountain peak in the Bible: A definition of internal religion. So
great is the contrast between the two Micahs that they are often
painted black and white to say "Be like this Micah, not like the one
who lost his Gods." There is more to it then finding a skilled
minister and an attractive sanctuary.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, an eminent UU prophet, said in his
essay titled, The Oversoul, "When we have broken from our God
of tradition, and we have ceased from our God of rhetoric, then
may God fire the heart with his presence." Alfred North
Whitehead said, in his book, Religion in the Making, "Religion is
what the individual does with his own solitariness." Micah,
Emerson, and Whitehead: they are saying that your spiritual
foundation is not in here (gesture around the room), but in here
(gesture to body). Do away with the forms and fashions of
religion, and build a spiritual center where it will really help:
inside.
I have struggled with this for awhile because I don't quite agree
with that. We can all see the problems with the first Micah's style
of church, but the second Micah's style has its problems too. If it
is thought through to its natural conclusion, and if it is like an
evolution from total dependance on the authority of the church to
independent acceptance of responsibility and freedom, what
becomes of the church?
We're not here to praise God. We don't need a church to tell
us what to believe. Well, then, why do we bother?!? Well, some
don't. I'm sure there are a large number of people out there in the
world who could use a little of what we've got in here (but that is
evangelism and we'll talk about that another time). So, what are
we doing here? If "free and responsible search for truth and
meaning" is what we are about, we don't need to be here. You can
get that on the internet now! If we are aiming to have everyone
find their own spiritual center inside themselves instead of inside
a church, then aren't we minister types working ourselves out of a
job?
What about Micah? He says ALL I need is: to do justice, love
mercy, and to walk humbly in the face of all that I hold holy.
That's it! I've told you all you need to know for the rest of your
spiritual life. You can go home now, no need to come back next
week. You've graduated!
Well, it's not that easy. Seems easy . . . but how much do you
really know about justice, mercy, and being humble? Doing these
things practically necessitates a community. To pick up a stone
and throw it into a still pond will cause a splash. Any action you
take in the name of social justice will have ramifications beyond
the immediate. There will always be ripples. The mission of this
or any church should be as a stone in the waters of complacent
injustice. Ours is a religious tradition full of people making very
large splashes. But make no mistake, the greatest effect will be on
the stone: on you the individual! The one you can change the most
is yourself. This is not to lessen in any way the recognition that
people are social creatures. Part of the mission of a church is to
create this community of transforming love and uplifting support.
But invariably our UU church mission statements have some
reference along the lines of the church as a vehicle of social
change. These are the ripples of a religious community: justice,
mercy, and humility.
What I am getting at is that most UU congregations understand
the social action demands of the second Micah quite well. We are
comfortable and sure on this line. Now let's get back to the first
Micah, the "bad example" Micah. Are we really suggesting that
his mistake was to make the building and hire a priest? Should we
have thrown out the temples and the priests when we stopped
worshiping graven idols? Are we somehow still making the same
mistakes the first Micah made? No, his mistake was that there
were no other people in his church. As I see it, the people are the
church, not the building.
I have another story. It's the last Sunday of 1995. My son,
Keenan (who was at that time 3), and I head out for church. At
this time the Delaware UU fellowship which I have been attending
frequently is still a migratory tribe and I haven't quite figured out
its migration pattern. I am fairly certain we are gathering in the
chapel at Ohio Wesleyan, but as I drive up to the chapel I see that
there are no cars parked there. Not to worry, I think, we are
probably meeting over at the Andrews House, a small community
building down the street. My son looks up as we pull out of the
parking lot and asks "Are we going to church?" "Yes," I say.
"Well, isn't that church?" "Uh, yes. Sometimes. Nobody is there,
son. They are probably over at a different place." He understands
completely. "Oh, at a different church?" Well, he sort of
understands. "Not a different church, just a different place," I say.
"Oh," says he. By this time we have arrived at the Andrews
House. We are about five minutes late and we rush up to the front
door . . . but of course nobody was there. Back to the car.
"Was that church?" he asks hopefully. "No, we're still
looking," I answer. "We can't find church?" There is a hint of
worry in his small voice. "No, no, we'll get there," I quickly
reassure him. Though now, I am fresh out of ideas. (You see at
that time I did not know that the fellowship also met at a place
called the Arts Castle, which is where everyone was that day, of
course.) I think to myself, it's a long shot, but I'll try the newly
purchased, still unfinished building up on Sandusky street. As we
drive by I can see that there are no cars in the parking lot. So I
turn around and start home; just like the first Micah had done.
"Are we going to church?" "No," I say sadly, "We can't find it."
"We can't find church?" It occurred to me then that I was only
confusing the boy. I knew that a church is not a building, but the
people. And he know, with just as much certainty, that a church
is the building where the people go. Upon reflection now, I am
certain we are both right.
Last week my son showed me around this church. Keenan is
in the "Around the Church, Around the Year" 2nd grade class and
had been on a tour of the building with Ed, one of our sexton.
And then, a week later, I received a similar tour from my son. He
showed me the secret door over there that leads outside. We went
up to the balcony and looked at the organ pipes. And he took me
out to the fountain in the Memory Garden, too. And last night,
continuing the tour on my own, I crawled around into the balcony
above to chapel to speak with the harpsichordist about the wedding
music. I feel closer to this church now. I understand it better.
Many people, however, feel it naive to say that the building is
the church, instead of the people. I'm sure this may sound
confusing because it sounds like now I am saying the building is
the church, while earlier I was saying the people are the church.
You see, I have found both Micahs inside myself. I'm sure we all
can. It is because we are a church community that we can do what
both Micahs demand. The important thing to keep a hold of is
this: we draw our center of meaning from this community of
people. We must make this building a physical representation of
that center of meaning.
The stones built up around us will not have power because we
call them church stones, they will only have what power we bring
them. Some people may never understand what the prophet Micah
has to say about spiritual centers and internal religion. They will
go through the motions in their hallowed and hollow buildings.
Others may never grasp the insight to be found from the story of
the Micah who lost his Gods. They will drift, understanding what
it is to have a spiritual connection, but never feeling connected.
We gather here in this space to grow as individuals. But we
must not seclude ourselves religiously, for in that way, we surely
would not grow. We come together in this community to learn,
grow, serve and celebrate, that we might accomplish our mission.
That we might grow, not in the scrambled egg style of always
pouring in more people and adding more programs necessarily.
But that we might grow evenly, both inward and outward.
In a world without end, may it be so.
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