Building a House Called Tomorrow ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
April 19, 2026
When you think about it, a church really is a remarkable thing. To open the service I chose words of a colleague, the Reverend Leslie Takahashi, that set forth all the many gifts that a religious community offers. She talked of space to grow, a place to learn about ourselves and others, and of how we create an environment where we learn to stand up for others and for our earth. When we’re not doing that, we’re creating worship together each week; sharing silence and song, finding nourishment to fortify ourselves for the week ahead. And we do this, week after week, year after year. And no one does it for us, or tells us how to do it. Of course, there is plenty of advice out there, and some guardrails in the form of bylaws and best practices, but ultimately we decide, every day, how to keep this community strong and relevant and beautiful. We do all this, together, willingly. After awhile, it’s easy to begin to take it for granted, how well and how steadfast we hold one another and this community.
I find it ironic that religious organizations are struggling in this era. Nowhere else can people find what is offered in a healthy religious community, and what we offer is vitally important. We live in a time of overt toxic speech, of declining trust in one another and our institutions. Our culture is too violent in word and deed, and it does not value creating space for those who are seen as ‘less than’, as unsuccessful. Where else, but in a healthy congregation, can you find the array of gifts we create and offer one another, and offer the larger community?
This week, I found myself inspired by an essay by Reverend Cameron Trimble. She is a young UCC minister, a commercial pilot, and the CEO of an organization called Convergence which provides coaching to organizations adapting to change. She wrote,
“The world does not feel steady right now. Institutions we were taught to trust are unraveling. Power is being abused without accountability. Fear is being used as a governing strategy. Many of us wake each day bracing ourselves for what new harm will be revealed.” (https://www.pilotingfaith.org/p/when-the-world-is-burning-stay)
Reverend Cameron continued on to say that this really is nothing new in world history. And she went all the way back to the end of the Roman Empire, and shared the example of St. Benedict of Nursia. She told us,
“In the sixth century, as the Roman Empire disintegrated, St. Benedict of Nursia did not try to save the empire. He also did not abandon the world. Instead, he gathered people into a way of life rooted in stability, shared labor, prayer, and care for the vulnerable. The monasteries that followed did not prevent collapse. But they preserved humanity within it.1
They became places where learning survived, where the poor were fed, where dignity was practiced when power had lost its moral compass. They did not do this by being loud or dominant. They did it by staying.” (Ibid.)
Benedict called this way of being in the world ‘stability.’ In the Rule of Benedict, the governing principles of Benedictine monasteries, it is written: “Stability is not about standing still. It is about remaining faithful when everything else is in motion.” (Ibid.)
Last week we talked about what holds the center in place. I want us to understand that we, as a community, have an important role to play in the work of maintaining stability, of holding the center. We have this role, and we do everything we can to carry it out. Holly talked a few minutes ago about all we do to further the cause of justice, to contribute to making Cape Ann a safer and healthier place to live. We remain faithful to the work. We preserve and foster the goodness of our society as best we can. We help hold the center.
Margaret Wheatley is an author and management consultant who works in leadership development worldwide. Her goal is to help leaders find ways to foster people’s ‘inherent generosity, creativity, and their need for community.’ (https://margaretwheatley.com/home/bio/
Margaret’s work has demonstrated to her that it is extremely important in this era to establish what she calls ‘conscious communities’, where people come together locally to maintain the positive values of caring for others and the environment, in other words, to preserve the best of humanity and the human spirit. You know, she could be describing religious communities.
Margaret’s other name for ‘conscious communities’ is ‘islands of sanity.’ I was struck by the parallels of what Benedict accomplished back in the 6th century with his establishment of monasteries, and Margaret Wheatley’s focus on carefully preserving local institutions to hold our values, to maintain even small pockets where we emphasize kindness, compassion, and love. To remain faithful to our ideals and to embody them for others around us. To model a different kind of shared power: what we call ‘power with’, instead of domination, or ‘power over’. To keep the flame burning in the midst of a flood of hate speech, warmongering, corruption, and scapegoating people who don’t look or speak like the majority.
We talk a lot about resistance here, and the many forms that resistance can take. Simply holding the center, providing an island of sanity, can be one of our most counter-cultural acts. Can you see yourselves as part of that effort?
Margaret Wheatley wrote a book called Who Do We Choose to Be? And in it, she asked everyone to consider in what way they can lead. Many of us don’t ever think of ourselves as leaders. But even if we are not at the head of an organization or in charge of a committee or organizing a protest at the Boulevard, we are each a leader of one thing. And that is ourselves. Each one of us is the leader of our own life. We have agency; we make choices every day about what we will do, and who we will be in the world. Being here this morning, you are choosing to participate in the life and the spirit of this community. What else do you choose? How are you showing up in the world?
What we know is that we don’t have to fix everything ourselves. We cannot. Nor do we have to hide because we feel overwhelmed. But there is a middle way: we can find a way to remain steadfast, to help hold the center, working together with others.
There are many ways to participate in this particular island of sanity, the Gloucester UU Church. Your presence here on Sundays and at church events is more valuable than you realize. Your saying ‘yes’ to being asked to volunteer when you can is vital to our health and our future. Your financial contributions are critical to both our ability to maintain our presence at the center of the larger community, and to building our future. We are called both to spend our time and talent and treasure in maintaining our island, but also called to be squarely focused on building our house of tomorrow. I cannot imagine a time in the future when we won’t be an important part of the larger community, offering our values and our vision of a different world; a different way of being in the world.
This is a tall order for a small congregation. In our eleven years together, I have watched you remain steady through a great many difficult times. You embody the words from the Rule of Benedict that I mentioned earlier: “Stability is not about standing still. It is about remaining faithful when everything else is in motion.” Life has certainly been in motion in the past decade. And here you are, still holding, always holding. What a gift you are to each other and to the world.
Together we share this ministry; a ministry that has many parts, but none more important, really, than to be holding the center. You’ve been a gift to me in my ministry. I love the work that we do together and I believe in its importance, and in you. For that reason, I will pledge slightly over $2000 this coming year to help us continue to provide the stability this world needs right now. I hope that many of you will be able to pledge even a small amount to this congregation, to building a house called tomorrow together. I believe fiercely that it matters that we are here, and that each one of you is part of that ‘we’. Everything you do matters.
A church really is a remarkable thing. And you are the church.
Our poet wrote:
From (the) centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,
The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:
That we can make a house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,
Is ourselves. And that’s all we need
To start. That’s everything we require to keep going.
Look back only for as long as you must,
Then go forward into the history you will make.
Be good, then better. Write books. Cure disease.
Make us proud. Make yourself proud.
And those who came before you? When you hear thunder,
Hear it as their applause.” Alberto Rios, “A House Called Tomorrow”
“What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,
Is ourselves. And that’s all we need
To start. That’s everything we require to keep going.“
Blessings on each one of you, and on all of your many gifts.
Amen.
