“Living Stones”: Communion Sermon
Friday, October 20th, 2006This sermon “Living Stones: Good News in the Garden” by the Rev. Naomi King of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Utica, NY, was preached at one of the UUCF Communion Services during General Assembly in St. Louis. June 24, 2006
Song of Songs, Luke 18:1-8, 1 Peter 2:4-5
In the morning, one of the early matters of my day, after first prayer, is to pray the news. Sometimes I do this by listening to reports, sometimes by watching, sometimes by reading, sometimes gathering in the coffee shop near the church, sometimes cloistered with a colleague or a parishioner. Praying the news means absorbing the stories, for good or ill or indifference, watching my responses, praying the response of lamentation or praise or prophecy or reconciliation, and searching always for the good news. It is not that I turn away from bad news, but some time ago, I learned just how bad the bad news can be, how unrelenting grief and anger and injustice can challenge my capacity to see and feel and walk with my Beloved. Bad news has a capacity to possess me and torture me as wretchedly as any demon named in scripture; today’s powers and principalities may be best named in the local and in the global, but they always show up through the medium of the news. The good news, the evangelion, is much, much harder for me to hear.