Sermon     “We Gather Together” Rev. Rali Weaver

As we approach this year’s thanksgiving table I have been pondering the importance of gathering together.

I don’t know about you but the bustle of preparation and the sometimes headaches of being together with family have often left me wondering what good there is in gathering together at all?

So while the moving Aaron Copeland piece the choir sang this morning stirs my senses – my first answer to the question of “shall we gather by the river” is generally “I would rather not”.

It is a beautiful melody and a sweet idea. Imagine a beautiful and sacred place (where bright angel’s feet have trod -and all that) where we can all gather and lay our burdens down.

It would be nice if every gathering would have that effect. Imagine going each Thanksgiving Day to a beautiful place that is blessed by god and receiving respite from our weary lives and renewed energy for the challenges ahead.

Isn’t that what the first settlers at the Plymouth Plantation did in 1621?

It would take some planning of course.

You would have to have the proper place settings. And the menu would have to be just right.

Location would be important too, you would need a view of a meadow or river or autumn tree. And the guest list—of course you would want all the right people at the table. Not to mention the seating chart. There is so much to be done to prepare.

When you think about all that Thanksgiving entails it follows that in order to find respite and to really lay our burdens down we would need to prepare.

I have believed all my life that preparation is the key to a good thanksgiving and that was the key I was going to hand you all today until I examined all of the instances when preparation played absolutely no role in my ability to lay down my burdens. In fact preparation in many cases interferes with my ability to lay my burdens down. Hustling and bustling can be a distraction from any sort of real interaction.

So lets just imagine going to somebody else’s house for Thanksgiving Dinner and when asked what you can bring they say: “just bring yourself”. That type of lack of preparation really does allow my workaholic, over accommodating self to lay my burdens down— at least for a minute.

I realized there was more to it than that but I had been having trouble cracking the code until, when listening to the Radio360 program last night on WBUR, I heard two stories that pointed me in a different direction entirely.

At such a late date I couldn’t find transcripts of the show to share with you so I hope you will forgive my most likely erroneous retelling.

The first story was of a bunch of orangutans (or some type of primates) who while living in a wildlife refuge contracted Polio (or some other serious illness). The caretaker described the disease in details that I will save you from hearing— suffice to say whatever the virus was it is very destructive in animals. The scientist caretaker observed the animal’s behavior and noticed as the community of animals became ill and some of them died they became gentler and kinder to each other. That is to say over time and tribulation, the naturally aggressive orangutans became tender toward each other. The illness had in fact enlightened them to a new nature.

Watching the animals he had studied for so many years grow ill and die had made the scientist very sad and so he left the wildlife refuge and someone else came and took his place. Many years later he went with his new wife back to the location where the animals he cared for lived and what he found surprised him.

Of all the animals he cared for only one of the males had survived and as a result the pack was replenished with wild orangutans. The scientist assumed that wild orangutans would re-introduced the aggressive nature of orangutans to the pack but what he saw instead was that the new group of healthy orangutans continued to behave in the kind and generous way of the sickly orangutans. He realized that as he observed the animals with fresh eyes that the way that the new members of the pack had learned to be kind was by receiving a kind a generous response from the one remaining male orangutan when they entered in instead of an aggressive foreboding welcome.

In other words the primates, who by nature were aggressive, were able to lay the burden of their aggression down when confronted by a different nature. By gathering in community with other primates who responded differently, their own nature was able to transform their way of interacting.

One important key to laying our burdens down is how we are received in community. How we are received limits or expands our ability to see and be seen.

Being greeted on Thanksgiving Day either with a cheer or a jeer greatly affects how we feel. Be it at work, or here at church or any place we go, how we are received plays a big part in how comfortable we feel in any gathering.

The second story on WBUR last night concerned the incumbent Mayor of Silverton, Oregon: Stu Rasmussen is the first openly transgender mayor in the United States. Elected for a third non-consecutive term a year ago, he grew up in Silverton and has served for twenty years in city government. The interesting part of this story for our purposes today (to find out what it would require to lay our burdens down) is what happened at his inauguration in 2008.

In 2008 despite his 20 years of dedicated service to his community there were many people who felt uncomfortable with Stu’s appearance and would not go to his theatre or vote for him based on the fact that he dresses not only as a woman but also in somewhat provocative woman’s attire. On his third inauguration day a conservative evangelical Christian group from Kansas or Kentucky (or some other Midwestern state) came to Silverton to protest his inauguration. The visiting protestors yelled hate messages that implied that all of Silverton would go to hell because of the sin of electing a Mayor who dresses as a woman.

Needless to say this could have caused some disruption to the proceedings but the Mayor asked everyone to simply ignore it and go along as planned. Some of his townsfolk felt differently and decided to offer a counter protest. First it was just a few guys standing across the street from the evangelicals. After a bit of time a few more came. Someone suggested that the men should dress as women and the women dress as men. As the Inauguration time grew closer the crowd also grew and before you knew it there were 200 people of all ages dressed in garb befitting the opposite gender, standing across from the conservative protestors and protesting the protest.

In a town with a population of 7,414 a protest of 200 people represents quite a showing. Imagine what it would take to rally a group of 200 protestors in our own town, which is more than twice the size of Silverton.

As it turns out some of the people protesting the protesters were not the people that those who witnessed, expected them to be. Some of the men who dressed as women were more conservative, some had openly criticized the mayor’s attire but when it came down to whether or not a conservative Christian group could yell hate messages at their mayor on inauguration day, these citizens came together at a moments notice and stood up for their town’s right to choose.

When we examine this event and couple it with our first reading today where 15 children could save the house by walking back and forth arm and arm in a storm, it is obvious that in both cases gathering together, strengthens our ability to act.

I would suggest that these are the reasons we gather together in any group, to widen our naturally narrow perspective and to strengthen our ability to respond.

The first definition of Communion is “the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.” This is the type of communion we participate in here today.

When we gather together for our type of communion, the communion we celebrate is not a remembrance of things past but a celebration of all the gifts of our community. This is what we do at water communion in the fall, and what we do at flower communion in the spring and what we do here today at our bread and cider communion. The breads here were brought to share from our own family traditions; the stories that are attached to them are received with a deep listening ear. The sweet cider is offered in joyful thanksgiving for all the gifts this community brings to us, and acknowledgement of how we are more together than we are apart.

May we lay our burdens down at this table and be received with gladness, and go forward from this experience with open hearts and renewed resolve to face all of the challenges ahead.