31 October 2003
Copyright 2003 by K.A.L. Tomlinson.

http://pages.prodigy.net/kaltomlinson/

This sermon may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.

[Stage Direction: Minister reads the denomination, different worship committee members read each answer. All read first line of the UU answer and the minister reads the rest.]

"How Many Church People Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?"

Baptists and Methodists: At least 15. One to change the light bulb, and two or three committees to approve the change.

Charismatics: Only one. Hands are already in the air.

Episcopalians: Eight. One to call the electrician, five to say how much better they liked the old one, and two to mix the martinis.

Jewish Mothers: What? You should worry about us?; we’ll just sit here in the dark …

Lutherans: None. Lutherans don’t believe in change.

Mormons: Five. One man to change the bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.

Unitarian Universalists: We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship with your light bulb, and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, florescent, three-way, long-life, and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

Herein ends the Reading.

[Back in the fall, Wendy introduced us to the idea of looking at our worship time together in terms of an x-y axis made up of varying degrees of ceremony versus enthusiasm. We learned how our beliefs, denominational history, age range, and geographic location can influence which of those axes predominates in our worship.]

[Some of you know that] I have two churches: a summer church and a rest-of-the-year church. It’s [month], guess which one this is? While we are/one is a 200+year-old Unitarian Universalist church (high on the ceremony scale) and the other is a 2 years’ young fundamentalist Christian church (equally high on the enthusiasm scale), it is amazing what we/they have in common. First, there are the wonderful people with a real sense of caring and family; then there are the warm and wonderful ministers with sermons that give you something to think about. But there are similarities that extend to worship and ritual in ways that challenge the labels we might be tempted to assign. Let me explain.

The mission of NewSong Community Church in Westford is to bring people back to church who have been disillusioned by church and by God, or who never had a church. They avoid doctrinal details that so often divide people. Sound familiar? They attract members to their worship service through upbeat Christian rock and roll, video clips, brief plays, and excellent, contemporary, and relevant sermons. People dress casually and there are multimedia slides instead of hymnals, and you are encouraged to get a cup of coffee in the middle of the sermon¾ in fact, it says so right in the bulletin. OK, now this no longer sounds like our church and some of you may start to squirm wondering where am I going with this. Not to worry! What I would like to do is explore historical and contemporary church drama a bit before turning to another thing my two churches share: a lack of strong ritual. The reason for this exploration is that next to the upbeat music and solid preaching, it’s the dramas that stay with me after the service¾ whether I agree with their message or not. Intrigued by the trend of drama in church, I started to research its history and it got me thinking [uh-oh!]. Here is what I learned.

In fifth century Europe, Bible stories were sung and performed in the church in order to educate the illiterate majority. (That’s church with a capitol "C", you know the one I mean.) By the tenth century, these stories or tableaus were added to the liturgy and expanded into dialogues. Twice a year priests mimed the Nativity story and the Easter story of the three Mary’s. (As if mimes aren’t scary enough, just imagine priests doing it!) [With hands making the sign of the Benediction act as though there’s an invisible wall in front of you.]

By the thirteenth century, the Pope forbade clergy from being on stage in public. In response, the town guilds took up the stories; performing them on wagons rolled through the towns. Each guild selected a story that fit them best; for example, the Plumbers’ Guild performed the story of Noah and the Ark – and who better to start and stop a flood? [grin] You probably know these sacred town dramas as morality or miracle plays like the well-known Everyman play, and they are the forerunners of the modern English and Italian drama. Now, some Protestant denominations are bringing theatre back in to church - and it may not be who and where you might think. While popular in Texas and the south, the trend is also found in Lutheran and other mainline denominations, some Unitarian churches, and as I mentioned in my introduction, right here in neighboring Westford. Now, I don’t want to overstate the function of drama in the Catholic church. From what I can tell, plays were only part of the Mass twice yearly and became, well a … big production … when the town guilds took them over. However, monks continued to supply some of the scripts and, by retelling Old and New Testament stories, these plays certainly supplimented worship and other forms of religious education.

The medieval role of using theatre like art or architecture to teach people about Bible stories and the spiritual and moral journey of man is obvious. But drama can also be used for social change. Historians have shown how common motifs in plays are used to tell a story that either maintains, challenges, or changes the status quo. By stepping out of traditional class or gender roles from the safety of the stage, characters have permission to instruct us in ways not normally available to us.

A group in Western Massachusetts known as DramaWorks, provides a modern example of effecting change in business and hospitals through drama. While attending a seminar at Babson College, I had a chance to learn first hand how drama can be a successful tool for correcting counterproductive individual and group behaviors. DramaWorks presented a farce showing the major players in a hospital whose own personal problems, bureacracy, and conflicts eventually got in the way of patient care. For example, the troupe used props such as a funnel, a long rubber hose, and a water cooler jug to "take blood" from the patient underscoring how frightening hospital tests and equipment can be. After the play, the actors divided the audience into small groups in order to invent a new character who could create or influence a more positive ending. Each group selected a representative to act out their idea and the skit was then performed over again. With each retelling, the DramaWorks actors stuck to their roles – be it doctor, nurse, or insurance representative, but ad-libbed the dialog based on input provided by the new character. Our groups suggested such diverse roles as: a chaplain, a patient advocate, and even an angel! The transformations were startling and, this time, each skit had a happy ending!

According to the DramaWorks troupe, theatre works to educate and transform hospitals and businesses because of three reasons: 1. Theatre creates sacred space and time. 2. We see ourselves from a comfortable distance. 3. We have a story we can use as a reminder to reenforce new, more positive behaviors. Their motto is: "Making the Invisible … Visible" and if that doesn’t describe church ritual, I don’t know what does. [Smile.]

So, we’ve learned that drama was a part of the Catholic Mass, that it was banned by the Pope and taken over by the town guilds, and is now making its way back into Protestant and even some Unitarian congregations. We have also seen how watching a play can teach us and transform our beliefs and behaviors through the distance and objectivity that it provides. Now some of you may say that theatre has never left church – just attend any Roman Catholic or Episcopalian Mass. And, even I’m wearing a costume! So just how much of ritual is theatre? If both make the invisible visible, is there a real difference? And how do we use ritual in our church and for what purposes? To start to answer those questions, let’s turn now to ritual in general, in our denomination, and here in our church.

Do we have instructive, powerful, transforming rituals of the kind described earlier, or do we rather have historical continuity? Is there any magic, any mystery in our ritual? Are you comfortable with my use of the word "magic"? Perhaps you think "Well, it’s about time?" Or, maybe you are squirming again? Is our space, like the stage sacred, transcending time and place? And what of our sacred space? Let me share with you a story. One Sunday I was sitting in a back pew when a couple came in. The man slipped into the pew in front of me. Before joining him, the woman faced the front of the church and genuflected. I began to think about her involuntary, but pious action. What is there at the front of our church? There is no cross, no altar (‘though there are in some in our churches). And while I consider our beautiful, lovingly handmade furniture worthy of adoration, genuflection doesn’t come readily to mind. Do you consider the front of the church where I’m standing sacred ground or a stage? Is this [grasp pulpit] a pulpit or a lecturn? Maybe you have a view about this space, but haven’t consciously thought about it. Beliefs can be like that; we often don’t know we have them until we ask the question. And I’m asking you now to join me; to take a moment to consider how you view our ritual and our ritual space. I encourage you to "celebrate" it with friends at coffee hour/pot luck J .

As I alluded to in my introduction, one thing I believe we have in common with the church in Westford is a lack of strong ritual. With the exception of a monthly communion where a few lines from the Book of Matthew are read, I suspect that NewSong Community Church’s lack of ritual is intentional. I thought ours was too, until I started reading up on our denomination’s history.

In centuries past, our denomination – including this historic church, observed Holy Communion consisting of bread and wine. To be able to take communion was a sign of good standing in the community. To be denied it, was a very powerful tool for enforcing or changing individual and social behaviors – just like the early theatre. A little research into service manuals and hymnals shows that our church has also closely followed our denomination in selecting and observing seasonal and cyclical church rituals. For example, we observe Passover, Easter, and Christmas Eve – all carryovers from our past. Of the top of my head, I can think of services for Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day, and Mother’s Day, with an occassional nod to a pagan festival. We have introduced recent rituals such as the Flower, Bread, and Water Communions, and we have special services for new and deceased members, as well as child dedications. Our weekly Sunday worship has its own built-in ritual¾ that is, the Judeo-Christian worship format. And while we may not be outwardly consious of that format, we surely notice when someone changes it. And we culminate each Sunday service – not with the Benediction, but with my favorite ritual: Coffee Hour! J But are these modern rituals transformative? Can they transcend space and time and generations? Do they teach you what to do and what not to do and help you dream of new possibilities? Do they heal? In comparison to other traditional forms of worship, have our Flower Communions gone to seed, our Bread Communions become stale, our Water Communions parched dry?

Now, I’m not suggesting we need to introduce plays nor "dramatically" revamp our services [well, yes, I am], but I am asking us to examine what we may take for granted. I want us to consider the following: are we people who have been turned off – perhaps even hurt or angered by traditional religion and therefore, by ritual? Is this why Unitarians, in my opinion, lack strong, effective ritual? And lastly – and this is the real question I want us to ponder, are we selling ourselves short by closing the door to the power and drama of ritual if we dilute or exclude it so as not to offend? About two years’ ago, there was an uproar on the campus at Brown University around the issue of making reparations to the decendents of slaves. It started in the college paper and ended up on the national news. The professor who unintentionally opened the debate criticized Brown and other college campuses for trying to be so "politically correct" that there was no dialog allowed between either side. How unlike a college campus, he noted. How unlike us we may say. Yet, I think we often fall into the political correctness trap as a denomination and as a church. In an attempt to not offend anyone, we don’t speak about what really matters to us as individuals in a community. I know I experienced that as a member of the Folk Group one summer when we tried to select songs to sing. There was always someone in the group who was offended or upset by some lyric or another. In trying not to offend anyone, it seemed we ended up pleasing no one. This is in distinct contrast to the motto of the interfaith seminary that I attended: "Always in addition to, never instead of." [repeat] It is additive, not subtractive – and how much richer our experience is when all views are given the respect of being heard. You don’t have to agree with them all, but it is important that our differences, our dreams, and our desires be voiced, heard, and acknowledged. If all are given equal time, it is possible to honor all traditions and beliefs (including the right to non-belief). If in asking ourselves these questions about ritual, we find that it’s the fear that we won’t all be heard or the pain of previous religious experience that keep us from sharing what’s important to us and from learning what’s important to others, then I ask that we open the curtain to the possibilities and wonder of drama ¾ be it play or ritual. Not the drama of conflict but the drama that makes the invisible visible in ourselves and in our community. Buy a ticket, grab a pew, let’s raise the curtain, and bring down the house!

The End. Amen.

Catholic Encyclopedia, various.

"Miracle, Mystery, and Morality Plays," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

"Passion Play," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001

http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Ackerman, Jerry. "BostonWorks: Acting lessons", Boston Sunday Globe, January 28, 2001, p. J1

DramaWorks Interactive. For more information, refer to http::www.dramaworks.com.

Belletini, Rev. Mark. "Worship in Unitarian Universalist Congregations". UUA Pamphlet Commission Publication. Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, 1993

Chung, Tsai Chih. Zhuangzi Speaks: The Music of Nature. Translated by Brian Bruya. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992

Hunter, Doris, Ed. "Unitarian Universalist Views of God". UUA Pamphlet Commission Publication. Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, 1995

Smith, Houston. The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions, San Francisco: HarperSanFransisco, 1991, (section on Earth Religions and sacred space and time in ritual)

Wright, Conrad. Congregational Polity. Boston: Skinner House Books, 1997