“Keep Doing It”: A Farewell Sermon from Rev. Joan
(Our minister, Rev. Joan M. Sabatino, is retiring from parish ministry. This blog post has been created from her farewell sermon.)
A few weeks ago, on Sunday, June 2, 2019, I shared my last Sunday worship service with First UU. As in the past, we ended the traditional church year by participating in a Flower Communion.
The Flower Communion Service originated in 1923 Czechoslovakia with the Rev. Norbert Capek. Capek’s congregation was in spiritual and emotional turmoil. His country was in turmoil; perhaps like our country today.
Capek’s congregation was losing the ground of their being. As a Christian church, communion with Jesus was what had held them together for centuries. And now individuals, first a few, then more and more, began to no longer believe – not only to not believe in the ritual of communion, but also in the hierarchy of their religious tradition. What ritual could Capek give his congregation that would replace the history and tradition and theology upon which they had built their lives?
Sitting on a park bench, outside his church, Capek came upon the idea of a flower communion. He asked each member of his congregation, all ages, to bring a flower to church. An individual flower for each person in the family, representing the individual talents and gifts each individual shared with the congregation.
Pulled together in one large vase, these flowers represent what we create together. By living together through individual joys and sorrows, disappointments and accomplishments, both within families and in the congregation, the bonds of friendship (comradeship in Capek’s time) are formed. Through the years, through the commitments to the people and the collective whole of this congregation, these bonds of love are strengthened. The actions we take for justice (just like Capek’s congregation) stem from the strength of this community built on love.
This ritual, Capek’s Flower Communion, is only four years shy of its 100th anniversary. For almost a century, our understanding of our individual gifts and talents, shared together in community, is what has held this Unitarian Universalist congregation together.
My parting charge to the congregation is simply: keep doing it. Keep loving each other and sharing that love wider and wider in the larger Indiana County community.
Be ready to learn and grow with your next minister – whoever that might be and however that is arranged.
Dream big. Hold on to each other. Consider the health and growth of the whole community when making decisions. Continue to take educated, calculated risks. Pray in whatever way you do. Keep our sanctuary as a sacred, safe space. And don’t forget to love your neighbors as you go.
Amen.
