We’ve come a long way to be together, you and me.

Do you remember that song? Probably not – it’s okay if you don’t. We only sang it once here, at our ingathering service last September. It’s a song for coming together:

It’s been a mighty distance, dangerous journey to be here.

And we’ll stay holding to each other,
Fighting and trusting as we grow. 

It’s taken the sacrifice of so many of us to be one.”

Bernice Johnson Reagon wrote that song for the first night of Kwanzaa, which carries the theme Umoja, unity. I chose it for us back in September because it spoke to me of gathering as a community across differences and through time, carrying the memory of those who came before us, while opening the door for those still to come.

It still means all of that to me, but in the past six weeks (Good God, has it only been six weeks?) it has come to mean a lot more. It speaks of perseverance through shared struggle, of difficulty, and determination. It speaks of inclusion and love. It speaks of beloved community.

And we’ll stay holding to each other,
fighting and trusting as we grow.

Umoja. Unity.

We have never needed our Unitarian Universalist community more than we do right now. We have never been more important to each other, and to the world, and to our society than we are right now. We need each other’s strength and care and love. Some of us need a munity like this one just to make it through just to survive, and I mean that literally. We need the joy we insist on creating together – because we will not let the forces of Fascism take away our ability to laugh; we will not give them that victory. We need each other.

And other people need us. West Chester needs us. Our neighbors who are immigrants, who are LGBTQ, who are government employees, who are people of color, or who are close to the edge need us. This world needs us – not just to do things, but to exist as the community we are. I believe in my heart that the antidote to the disease which plagues our society today is healthy, beloved community. Faced with an ideology which sees people as commodities, which values power over truth, which sows division and exclusion as a means to that power, which openly fosters bigotry and exploits ignorance, I believe in my heart we are called to a better way.

We are called to create beloved communities that find strength through our differences, that recognize all people as worthy, that encourage every person to seek the truth both freely and responsibly, that hold one another in love, and that labor for a better world, not just for us, but for everyone and for the Earth itself. That’s what a Unitarian Universalist congregation is. We are here not just to build the beloved community, but to live it.

Most of us who talk and write about beloved community learned the phrase from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He said that it was not enough to support some policies and oppose others, or even to struggle together against injustice. “A boycott,” he said, “is just a means to an end…, a means to say ‘I don’t like it.’ The end is the creation of a beloved community.” Using the language of his day, he said “The end is the creation of a society where men will live together as brothers…. That we would bring these creative forces together… we would be able to live in this new age which is destined to come….” He said, “The forces of darkness cannot permanently conquer the forces of light and this is the thing that we must live by. This is the hope that all men of goodwill live by… that truth that stands at the center of our faith.”

His was and is a vision of inclusion for all people, not just for people who think like we do, or look we do, or believe what we do. It’s a commitment to diversity and care and community. And you have to live it to be able to achieve it in the world. “Our goal,” he said, “is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as our lives.”

Stop for a moment and consider the importance of those words. Consider the importance of Unitarian Universalism in bringing about that qualitative change in our souls.

It’s what we are here for – to be transformed and transforming, to build our beloved community together so that together, we can build the beloved community on Earth. By living our values, by supporting our values, by supporting each other as we live our values in these difficult, difficult times, we engage in the holy act of creating the beloved community on Earth.

It’s a long project, I know. It’s longer than some of us thought it would be. But it is sacred work, and it is work we can do together. It is the work of this moment in history, and it’s who we are. Anything else would betray the core of our being.

And it makes a difference. We make a difference. Have no doubt that we make a difference.

In the last ten days, five different people have told me, “This is the first church I have ever felt safe in.” “This is the first congregation where I have ever felt like I could be myself, and not have to hide who I am,” as an atheist, or a Pagan, or a liberal Christian, or a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person, or as someone who is neurodiverse. This is the first congregation of any kind that ever made an effort to include me. This is the first congregation of any kind where I knew I could come and be, without worrying about getting attacked. This is the first time I have ever been in a congregation that didn’t tell me I was guilty, I was wrong, I was bad.

I heard it from young adults in the LGBT group at West Chester University, after we donated our sanctuary and kitchen for their spaghetti dinner, and in turn they invited some of our members to break bread with them. I heard it from new folks, getting ready to join. I heard it from people who always knew they had a rich spiritual life, but never imagined they could find a community to share in it.

And maybe that hasn’t been your experience. Maybe you, like me, were fortunate in your upbringing. But the mere fact that for so many people – members, non-members, neighbors – this community has been life changing and life saving ought to mean something, especially now.

Especially now, when so many of us are afraid, when so much is threatened. It seems like everyone’s asking, “What can I do?” and I’ve asked myself the same question. So have a lot of us. Back in November, the columnist Perry Bacon wrote about five things you can do other than doom scroll. Number two on his list was “Join a Unitarian Universalist congregation,” which he had done not long before. “I was relieved,” he said, “to be in a space where we openly discussed shared values and ideals we felt had been rejected by America.”

Unitarian Universalist community – our Unitarian Universalist community – has never been so relevant or so revolutionary. While science is under direct attack, we are building a spiritual community that honors both scientific truth and religious experience. In a period of racist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, antisemitic, Islamophobic and misogynist authoritarianism (and I probably missed a few “phobics” and “ists” in there), we place the highest value on human dignity, and yes, diversity, equity, and inclusion. At a time when so much of religion has been coopted by the propagandists, we offer religion that respects and encourages the growth of the free mind. In an era when the forces of hatred threaten our society, we choose to embrace love – even when we don’t feel it. We live it. We are building the beloved community – for ourselves, for our ancestors, for our children, for our neighbors, for every human being, for this green and glorious Earth, because that’s who we are, and it’s what we do.

It has never been so important that our congregation is strong, and vital, and prepared to meet this moment.

And of course it takes money. But honestly – we can do this together. It means stepping up maybe more than we have before, but we can, as we must, build our beloved community. We know we want to. Building our beloved community is defiance and joy and comfort and growing and learning all wrapped up together. But if we’re going to do it, it’s going to take all of us together.

It’s time for our congregation to get out of the pattern of having to worry about every year’s budget, wondering whether we’re going to have enough to make payroll, to keep the heat on, to fund basic programming. If we want to meet this moment, to give to each other and to our values, and to our neighbors, and to our children, and to a world that needs Unitarian Universalism to be vibrant, we need to do more.

So I’m going to do something I haven’t done much before. In the past, I’ve asked gently. Today I’m imploring you to look at your resources and ask yourself what you can give to help build our beloved community. If you are already pledging, look at your pledge, and ask yourself – can I give more, not just for the congregation that I love, but for the world that needs Unitarian Universalism and UU community? Maybe you’re planning on increasing your pledge. I hope you are, if you are able. Maybe you have an amount in mind for that increase. Ask yourself, could I reasonably double it – for myself, for this UU community, for my values? Could I do more? A few people may be in a position to double your entire pledge.

Other folks are in lean times. I get it. And there are some among us who don’t have the resources to pledge much at all. I understand. We give in different ways, and no person in this congregation is more or less valuable to this congregation than any other, based on what we pledge. It’s not like that. But it does mean that those among us who are able to give more have an even greater responsibility, because that’s part of what it means to be in community together. We cover each other, and we give as we can in the ways that we can. And if you are going through a financial crisis right now, if you aren’t able to give at all, please come talk to me. We have a Minister’s Discretionary Fund, and we may be able to help you through your crisis. That’s part of what we’re here for.

Some of you are brand new. Thanks for sitting through this. I don’t expect anyone to pledge until they’re ready; I just hope that you know how welcome you are here, and how important you already are to all of us. We are so glad that you are here – as yourself. Your being here is part of building the beloved community, here in our congregation, in West Chester, and on Earth.

Our being here together is building the beloved community. Living our values is building the beloved community. Speaking out is building the beloved community. Offering safe haven is building the beloved community. Listening to each other as we seek our truths, and growing together is building the beloved community. Loving, caring, giving, and forgiving is building the beloved community. Serving beyond ourselves is building the beloved community. Opening ourselves to the possibility of all we create together is building our beloved community.

We’ve come a long way to be together, you and me.
It’s been a mighty distance, dangerous journey to be here.
It’s taken the sacrifice of so many of us to be one.
And we’ll stay holding to each other,
Fighting and trusting as we grow
We’ve come a long way to be together, you and me.

So may it be.