WHO ARE YOU?
Sermon offered by Rev. Dr. Maureen Killoran
At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville, FL
August 30, 2015
(c) M. Killoran, Gainesville FL, 2015
Note: sermons are an oral event, a shared experience of speaker and congregation. Thus the
printed word captures much but not all of the presentation – we come as close as possible. Enjoy!
READING - from Matthew B. James (source unknown)
As human beings, we are quick to identify ourselves using our circumstances, how others perceive us,
our behaviors, or our positions in life. It’s somehow comforting to clothe ourselves in these identities.
But none of those are really who we are. And the problem with latching onto these identities is, in
addition to limiting our growth, it leaves us lost and confused when they are stripped from us.
When marriages break up, for example, it’s not just the pain of losing someone you once loved. There is
also the loss of the future you were heading toward.
Or take the loss of a job. So many people, especially in our culture, identify with their work or their
positions. When that job or career is lost, no matter what the reason—even retirement—people report
feeling useless, unworthy, even embarrassed or humiliated.
We even cling to seemingly negative identities. “I’m a diabetic,” or “I’m not good with money,” or “I’m
not mechanically inclined.” But consider, if you will, what happens if we look at things a different way.
What if you were to turn “I’m a diabetic” into “I live with diabetes” or “I’m broke” into “I would like to
have more money.” Circumstances, both good and ill, can change, and, who you are will still be intact
when they do.
Think about it: You aren’t a banker, but a person who currently works in a bank. You aren’t a runner but
a person who runs. And if – when – you can no longer do these things, you will still be you.
The question is worth engaging, and engaging again: Who are you? Who do you want to be?
SERMON
I’ve got a problem with Pluto. Back when I was a kid, everybody knew that Pluto was either a
cartoon character or a planet. I made paper mache models of nine (not eight) planets. My Very
Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas . . . I learned this mnemonic, maybe you did too. . . Then ten
years ago, Pluto got demoted, and now I guess kids learn “My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us” . . .
eight planets and a whole passel of dwarfs.
Even as we speak, a space probe is sending back pictures of Pluto, now called “the largest of the
dwarf planets.” And a “plutoid” to boot, complete with something like a dozen of its very own moons.
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So, yeah, I get it, in the world of astronomy this is a Very Big Deal. If Pluto could talk and we asked the
question, “Who are you?” I think we’d find that, on at least one level, its answer had changed.
Recall the caterpillar’s challenge to Alice -- “WHO ARE YOU?”i “I hardly know. . .” Alice replied.
I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.”
You’ve had days like that. You know who you were just a little bit ago, but, now, well . . . you’re
quite certain something significant has changed.
The great religions teach human beings are made in God’s image which once upon a time
connoted something constant, unchanging. According to Hebrew scriptures, humans were made “a
little lower than the angels,” -- and yet, for some of us, angels have developed an unbearable lightness
of being and the traditional concept of God has faded from relevancy. As to human beings, in the words
of poet Czeslaw Milosz,
We used to see ourselves as handsome and noble
Yet later in our place an ugly toad –
Half opens its thick eyelid
And one sees clearly, ‘That’s me.’
On the broadest spectrum, I think there’s little argument that our species has made a mess of things.
But it’s like Pluto’s being demoted . . . We know more and more about the horrors to which our flesh is
heir, but these do not – they must not -- determine our answer to the question,
“Who . . . am . . . I. Who do I want to be?
There’s a class I sometimes offer called, “What Do I Say After I Say Hello?” The idea is that,
sooner or later, we’re all going to have to visit someone in the hospital or a nursing home. No problem
– we hop in our cars, get ourselves to the parking lot. And then . . . what? Many of us are unsure. What
do I say? What should I do?
We start by recalling what’s involved in becoming a patient . . . a “resident” . . . an “inmate” . .
.how you lose most of your identity step by step by step, from the ID numbers and endless admission
forms, through the diagnosis (“the kidney in room 412”), through the jargon and needles and bedpans
of ongoing care.
I give participants 10 slips of paper and ask them to complete on each slip the
phrase I AM . . . think about it . . .
Then I have each person give me three of their little slips. I crumple them up and shove ‘em in
my pocket. In a minute, I request three more. Crumple them up . . . By this time you can usually cut the
hostility in the room with a knife . . . and I have to be pretty assertive to get those folk to give me all
but one of their remaining “I AM’s.”
And I take those little sheets of paper. Those declarations of identity. I tear them up. And toss
them aside.
This is what happens when you’re admitted to the hospital, or a nursing home. Or when there’s
serious illness. Or you get a divorce. Your identity is stripped, bit by bit, your peripherals are taken
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away. And you’re left with the question: Who . . . am . . . I? What is your core, the deep reality that
remains?
If we’re lucky, this is an abstract exercise, a thought experiment if you will. Oh, sure . . . there’s
that nagging awareness that you can’t maybe do as much as you could ten years ago . . . Your car keys
are increasingly playful . . . your parents are getting frail . . . your children going to kindergarten . . . or
college . . . or moving away. We have these little identity checks, reminders, and we deal with them . . .
and keep on keeping on.
You may recall the TV commercial where a midlife couple was eating breakfast. You hear a
sarcastic voice from off-screen, “Okay, ignore me, see if I care.” It turns into a lecture, on and on about
how they haven’t handled their retirement funds responsibly. Finally, the camera shifts and we see
speaker: “Go ahead. No need to pay attention to me. I’m only the 800 pound gorilla in the room.”
We’ve all got our 800 pound gorillas. Aging. . . Money. . . Illness. . . Jobs we hate or people
we choose not to forgive or . . . you know what I mean. My friends, when your 800 pound gorilla
comes . . . if you do not know what your core identity is about, then I say to you that it will take all your
identity scraps. There will be nothing left. Not of you. Nor, in my turn, of me.
OK, so you did this years ago, sorted out who you are and what that means to you and why.
Well -- years ago Pluto was a planet and the oceans weren’t rising . . . mass shootings didn’t make
tragically frequent headlines . . and . . . oh, you get what I mean.
Just as our bodies renew their
raw material every minute, so does our core identity mature, shift. And it needs regularly to be revisioned.
The question is not just “Who are you?” But “Who are you NOW?”
Given all you’ve lived, and all you’ve loved, all you’ve won and lost, and given the unfolding
realities of planetary need . . . WHO ARE YOU NOW? Who do you want to be?
Then there’s the broader question. If (as is taught by most of the world’s spiritual traditions),
we are most human in community . . . if our self-definition is rooted in connection . . . then if we are
truly to figure out who we are, we must to look to our communities.
And here we are. Unitarian Universalists. Some of us turned out to be anomalies in our families
of origin . . . some couldn’t squish our edges into round holes . . . a bunch of us wanted an open minded
place in which to raise our kids . . . some of us were born into this faith . . . others just wanted
meaningful community where we didn’t have to check our intellect at the door . . . It was Somerset
Maugham who said Unitarians are people who very earnestly disbelieve in almost everything and yet
manage to have a lively sustaining faith in we don’t quite know what. Somebody else called UUs the
“intellectuals of the lunatic fringe.”
And yet, for hundreds of years, Unitarians and Universalists have united in the conviction that
we need not believe alike to love alike . . . that living our values matters. . . that community is a work in
process. We come together believing that that what matters is not just “who are you?” but “who are
we?”
Who are we? “Who” is the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville?”
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As I mentioned last week, I’ve met with what is by now over 70 members in the past month. I
asked people what brought them to this Fellowship, and what has kept them here, through thick and
thin.
Some of you said that what matters most to you is passionate people making a difference in the
wider world. I heard about your work for marriage equality . . . for multicultural awareness . . . your
interfaith connections and dedication to Family Promise and Food4Kids and more. I listened and I was
moved by your pride . . . I couldn’t help wondering -- if this church is in the first instance an agent of
social change . . . where does this leave others I talked with, people for whom social justice is not the
primary reason they call themselves UU?
Another thread I kept hearing was about theology. . . “The Fellowship is one of the few places I
can be comfortable as an atheist . . . as a non-theist . . . as a secular humanist . . .” I get that. These are
core parts of our Unitarian Universalist tapestry, and it is right that they have a respected home in this
community. And then an hour later, somebody else said, “I’m a UU Christian, and I feel like I have to
keep quiet here about my beliefs.” A woman said, “I’m a Wiccan.” And one man was almost whispering
when he said, “I’d be laughed at if people knew that I pray.”
We dare to dream of something close to a world at peace. . . and I say to you, if we can’t honor
the wide range of theologies and a-theologies that walk in these doors, then, my friends, we might as
well toss in the towel as human beings.
But there was another thread that was most prominent in my conversations, the one I heard
most often. . . people saying . . . “this is where my friends are” . . . often followed with a wistful
comment about how many of your friends had gone away. You told me stories of deep pain, of patterns
of congregational conflict going back decades . . . I heard anger . . . I heard regret . . . and yes,
understandably enough, I heard stories of blame. “This is a small city,” one of you said through your
tears. “There’s nowhere else for me to go.”
This. Fellowship. Matters. It matters to you who’ve stayed through thick and thin. It matters to
you who just walked in this week. It matters to you who’ve been away and are considering whether to
return.
You need to be able to count on this religious community. Lean on it. Trust it to flex with the
normal stresses of being human – and to be resilient enough to hold together and manage conflict in
values-based ways.
You need to be able to count on this religious community – and Gainesville needs to be able to
count on you as a reliable presence – hands, voices, and hearts of liberal religion, committed to
nurturing spirits and healing the world.
We have work to do here, folks. If this Fellowship is to be taken seriously – if you’re going to put
your trust in its future, y’all need to get very clear about WHO YOU ARE and WHO YOU WANT TO BE.
[LONG PAUSE]
Imagine something with me. Let’s say I hand you each ten slips of paper. I invite you to
complete ten times the phrase, “UUFG IS . . .” What will you write? [PAUSE] . . . then I come, and ask
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you to surrender almost all of your papers, so you’re holding one or two or maybe three . . . what would
those papers say about this Fellowship’s core identity?
How do you think what you wrote might be different from what others said?
How can you make room for what you believe . . . without making others throw their core
vision away?
You can’t roll back time. Pluto is unlikely ever to be called a planet again, and that’s got to be
okay. This Fellowship can never go back to whatever you personally think was its “golden age.”
Remember the title of our reading – “Whoever you think you are, you’re more than that.”
Whether we’re Alice in Wonderland or a dwarf planet, or a motley collection of human beings,
our identities are constantly challenged. Constantly trying to grow. Constantly navigating change.
I ask you: given all you’ve lived, and all you’ve loved, and all you’ve won and lost along the way,
WHO ARE YOU NOW?
Who do you want to be?
What are you willing to do to make this real?
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Today’s Story Wisdom depicted Alice talking to a caterpillar, taken from Lewis Carroll’s beloved children’s book,
Alice in Wonderland.
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