God’s Gonna Trouble the Water September 13, 2009 First Unitarian Church South Bend, Indiana The Reverend Harold W. Beu Minister

This is my first sermon as your minister. Thus, we begin our adventure and God knows how it will turn out. As you may have noticed I use God in the title of my sermon. I know that some of you may have some discomfort with that word. I am here to tell you today, I understand. I am not a believer in God as the God in the Bible or truly in any other book. God is certainly not a person, especially a father. I wince at the idea of a father who judges our every move and judges harshly. Rather, the word God has a use for me. I use it in phrases such as “God knows” or “Oh My God.” We can see its use in insurance policy contracts, for example, as in the phrase, “Acts of God.” What God therefore means to me is that which we cannot control and is beyond our understanding. I believe in the religion of humility, in that we humans, as marvelous and complex as we are, do not know everything, do not understand everything or certainly do not own the absolute truth. Hence, I believe in God, not as a person or a parent watching over us, nor as some great benefactor to whom we pray, but rather just as that which is ultimate and mysterious. The title of this sermon “God’s Gonna Trouble the Waters” comes from the African American spiritual that we just sang “Wade in the Water.” As with so many of African American spirituals out of the antebellum era, it was a song to guide slaves who were attempting to escape their wretched conditions. Harriet Tubman had slaves sing this to remind them that as they were running away, to go into the water so as to lose their scent so that the dogs couldn’t find their scent and so that the hunters couldn’t spot their footprints. But wading in the water is not without its dangers. Quite the contrary. Especially when we wade in a river, for at any moment we could be caught up by a great undertow and forced to flow down a raging river. But some slaves, not many, were willing to take that risk, to wade in the water, even though God’s gonna trouble the water. In a sense, that is what we are doing here, we are taking a risk – both of us. We wade in the water even though we know that there will be trouble. But as Ron Cook my friend and advisor from my seminary, Starr King School for the Ministry said, “Harold life is trouble, it is tough and it is our mission as ministers to remind people of that.” So, that is what I am doing here, reminding you that life is trouble, it is tough for all of us, but what is important is to ask ourselves – What do we want to do about that? We can note that some, like Harriet Tubman, with the help of God knows what or who, made that decision to wade in the water, to risk everything so as to have a new life, a life of freedom. But to do that, she first needed to imagine that freedom, a vision of another life in which she would be treated with respect and dignity. She needed to see that it was possible and worthy of the risk. Sometimes I think that to follow the principles of our liberal religion is not easy, that it would fair easier to have a faith that tells us what to do, tells us that we are better people because we have the right faith, and tell us that we have the one true answer for all our problems in our lives. Sometimes, I think we wade in the water of our liberal faith and God’s gonna trouble that water. But it is a faith that leads us to something good, a life of integrity and freedom, of compassion and tolerance. It is my faith of Unitarian Universalism. And I invite you to join me in that journey. It is a journey of creating out of separate hopes and ideals a healthy spiritual community based on the principles of our liberal faith. And central to our vision of a healthy community is a vibrant Religious Education program. Religious Education is important for at least three reasons I can think of. One is that we have a moral obligation to the well-being of our children, just as we have a moral obligation to everyone here. For example, if a woman came to one of our Sunday Services in a wheelchair and needed helped navigating the stairs, undoubtedly those of us who could, would help her. The same applies to children. They too need our help, care and guidance from the whole community and not just their parents, our DRE or the RE committee. I hope each and every one of you think of a way you can help our Religious Education program grow in spirit and numbers of volunteers working with our children. Secondly, if our faith is important to us, then it behooves us to pay attention to our children for they are our future and will carry on the principles and traditions of our liberal faith. Finally, if we care about the health of our spiritual community, then we would want to create a vibrant and meaningful Religious Education program for that is the best way for a church to grow in numbers and spirit. If we can do that, if we can make this journey of creating a healthy spiritual community based on the principles of our liberal faith, then we would have created quite an adventure for ourselves. If you make this journey with me, if you wade in the water with me, then I guarantee you there will be trouble. We will have some tough moments together, no doubt about, but if you imagine what we can do together, imagine how we can create a spiritual community that we can be proud of, that we enjoy the company of fellow spiritual seekers, and that we can be a presence of liberal faith in the South Bend community, then I guarantee you – we will wade in the water together.

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