Mystery's Meetingplace

Part of Sermon of the Month Series Subscription Service

By Heather Janules

A middle-aged white woman with short, chemically-assisted red hair, wearing a shawl of colorful stripes. She is sitting on the stone steps of a church.

Sermon

Unitarian Universalists often name the experience of “transcending mystery and wonder” as a foundational element of a spiritual life. This service will reflect on two contemporary stories about the intermingling of the sacred and the secular, inviting us to consider how we welcome mystery and wonder, within and beyond sanctuaries on Sunday morning.

Presented by Rev. Heather Janules, UUA Congregational Life Staff in the New England Region.

Opening (by Sermon Author)

We gather in this sacred space, made more sacred in this moment by the presence and attention of each and every one of us.

We gather with hearts broken, hearts open, seeking a greater, larger love.

We gather, held in the embrace of both memory and of hope.

May our gathering be for gladness. Come, let us worship together.

Reading

From “Subversive Suburban Soul” (Abridged) by Victoria Safford

My family’s favorite place to view the sunset is a place where the westbound highway meets the main commercial artery of our suburban city. There is a vast expanse of parking lot between the mammoth supermarket and the monstrous home improvement store. It is one deeply unholy place, with miles of sprawling strip malls as far as the eye can see, and farther. Yet more than once, on leaving the store, I have all but fallen to my knees there because the sunsets are astonishing, and on evenings when the full moon rises, they are breathtaking.

This unlikely and unholy hill offers so startling and memorable a view that one time in the summer, when my family was camping in a far-removed, wild wilderness, watching the sun melt down to the sea, my daughter sighed blissfully, snuggled closer and said, “Wow. This is so beautiful. This really reminds me of the shopping center on Highway 36.” …

What makes a place a holy place? How much is what is there, and how much is what we bring or what we choose to see? How I’ve been told that this parking lot is set upon a hill that not so long ago—perhaps 150 years ago—was in fact a sacred site of the native peoples living on this land, a stopping place between one great river and another. A few remember that there was an ancient stand of oaks up here. It is known that the sun went down, and heaven and prairie were engulfed each night in flames. It is known that the moon came up in splendor.

Beneath the pavement, earth remembers. Everything—every thing—is gathered in, for it is known, it is remembered, that the holy holds all weeping as well as all celebration, all desecration as well as all tenderness. Every thing is gathered in. How could a place once sacred at once be rendered otherwise?

Closing Words by Sarah York

We receive fragments of holiness,

glimpses of eternity,

brief moments of insight.

Let us gather them up for the precious gifts that they are, and,

renewed by their grace,

move boldly into the unknown.

Hymns

  • Mother Spirit, Father Spirit (note binary language)
  • Spirit of Life
  • The Lone, Wild Bird
  • Ubi Caritas
  • O Life that Maketh All Things New
  • Every Time I Feel the Spirit