I realize we\u2019ve already collected the offering this morning so your wallet is probably empty.\u00a0 But if by chance you have a bill in your billfold, or a stray coin in your pocket, you could fish it out and confirm for yourself what I\u2019m about to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or you could simply trust me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every US coin and every bill of every denomination has printed on it, the words, \u201cIn God We Trust.\u201d\u00a0 Not \u201cBelieve me\u201d, as Donald Trump likes to say, but \u201cIn God We Trust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn God We Trust\u201d is wreathed around the top of Lincoln\u2019s head on the penny and it\u2019s floating in the sky above Independence Hall on the back of the $100 bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn God We Trust\u201d is printed on the head side of every US coin currently in circulation and on the back side of every paper bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn God We Trust\u201d has been the official motto of the United States since 1956 when that phrase was adopted by the US Congress, at the height of the red scare, and as a rebuke to the Godless Communists.\u00a0 \u201cIn America we believe in God, by God!\u201d Congress declared, falsely, and unconstitutionally.\u00a0 But there you have it.\u00a0 It was at the same time that the phrase \u201cunder God\u201d was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to 1956 if you asked anyone to give you the motto of the United States, if they had a guess they would have told you our motto was, \u201cE Pluribus Unum.\u201d\u00a0 Technically they would have been wrong.\u00a0 Unlike, \u201cIn God We Trust\u201d in 1956, \u201cE Pluribus Unum\u201d was never officially designated our national motto.\u00a0 Instead, the phrase appears on the Great Seal of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the end of the 1939 movie, \u201cThe Wizard of OZ,\u201d the wizard reveals himself to be a showman from Kansas, a \u201chumbug\u201d he says, who was blown to OZ years earlier in a hot air balloon.\u00a0 He still has the balloon, and now he proposes to Dorothy that they use the balloon together to get back home.\u00a0 He says, \u201cAnd in that balloon, my dear Dorothy, you and I will return to the land of\u00a0E Pluribus Unum!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Latin, \u201cE pluribus unum\u201d means \u201cout of many, one.\u201d\u00a0 It refers to the unique nature of our Federal government, out of many independent states we create one nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On July 4, 1776 Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, were appointed to a committee charged with designing an official seal for our new nation.\u00a0 They proposed the motto E Pluribus Unum.\u00a0 Although most of the rest of their ideas were rejected the motto remained through the work of a second committee and a third and finally another guy working alone.\u00a0 Finally, in 1782, Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The front of the seal shows a bald eagle.\u00a0 In the eagle\u2019s beak is a ribbon with the words, \u201cE Pluribus Unum\u201d written on it.\u00a0 By the way, if you have a one dollar bill with you, you can see the great seal printed on the back side of the bill.\u00a0 In the eagle\u2019s left claw it clutches thirteen arrows, symbolizing the combined power of the thirteen original states.\u00a0 In its right claw the eagle holds an olive branch with thirteen leaves, symbolizing how the states live in harmony with each other.\u00a0 (Or at least we are supposed to).\u00a0 The eagle\u2019s head is turned to the olive branch showing that we favor peace.\u00a0 The shield the Eagle stands behind has thirteen vertical stripes, alternating red and white, representing the first 13 states, and all of them together supporting a field of blue, representing the Federal Government that brings us together:\u00a0 out of many one.\u00a0 E Pluribus Unum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One detail I\u2019ll point out, just because it\u2019s interesting.\u00a0 On the American flag there are thirteen red and white horizontal stripes.\u00a0 The top and bottom stripes are red, so our flag has 7 red stripes and six white.\u00a0 On the Great Seal the first and last vertical stripes are white, so on the seal we have 7 white stripes and six red.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
E Pluribus Unum is still printed on all our US coins.\u00a0 It\u2019s on the tails side, with \u201cIn God we Trust\u201d on the heads side.\u00a0 But the one dollar bill is the only bill that has the phrase, and only because it reproduces a picture of the Great Seal.\u00a0 The Seal is also on your passport so you carry, \u201cE pluribus unum\u201d with you when you travel abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The phrase, E Pluribus Unum has its own interesting history.\u00a0 Before Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson proposed that phrase for our national seal, the phrase was the motto of an English magazine called,\u00a0The Gentleman\u2019s Magazine<\/em>.\u00a0 At the time, a magazine didn\u2019t refer to printed periodicals like\u00a0Time<\/em>, or\u00a0People<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>; a magazine was a storehouse, like a magazine in a fort where the weapons are stored.\u00a0\u00a0The Gentleman\u2019s Magazine<\/em>\u00a0saw itself as a kind of storehouse, bringing together many different kinds of articles and stories and notices into one publication:\u00a0 out of many, one.\u00a0 So it gave itself the name \u201cmagazine\u201d and the motto, \u201cE Pluribus Unum.\u201d\u00a0 The magazine also had a logo for itself: a hand holding a bunch of flowers, tied together by a ribbon, making from many separate flowers a single bouquet.\u00a0 Out of Many, One.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A church is like a magazine:\u00a0 many different stories, one congregation.\u00a0 Or we\u2019re like a collection of many separate states, joined together in one government, or \u201cpolity\u201d to use the religious term. We are stewards of a storehouse that includes history and memory, hopes and resources and people.\u00a0 We\u2019re like a bouquet of flowers, each of us beautiful, sweet-smelling, valuable, and completely lovely entirely on our own, but something different, and something more, arranged into a bouquet, tied by a ribbon of our congregational covenant.\u00a0 We even have our own Unitarian Universalist ritual, the flower communion, that makes exactly that point.\u00a0 Out of many one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re like a clutch of arrows, strong on our own, but stronger together.\u00a0 We\u2019re like an olive branch, one branch holding together many separate leaves, all growing together, expressing our individual identities but dependent on a shared source.\u00a0 We\u2019re like a single constellation though we are all separate stars, which is another symbol from our United States Seal:\u00a0 one unified image, beautiful to look at and telling one story, but composed of independent elements.\u00a0 We are several independent stripes, like pillars, holding up a single, overarching roof.\u00a0 Earlier symbols circulating around the colonies likened the US to a harp with 13 strings, tuned in harmony; or a candelabra with 13 candles, shining more brightly when we each add our light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My spiritual life is inspired by my early experience playing clarinet in an orchestra or band, or singing in a choir.\u00a0 Individuals, each with their own voice, individual skills and talents, separate parts to play, coming together to make a music together that none can make on their own.\u00a0 Every player necessary or the whole experience is diminished.\u00a0 But the music is only made when we give up our individuality and take a seat or stand together and watch the conductor for the cue, and play what the composer put on the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a church to be successful, there must be this similar, voluntary, subsuming of the individual into the collective.\u00a0 There must be, firstly, something that we all do together, as a congregation, ahead of the many different things we want to do for ourselves.\u00a0 That is the agreement of communities.\u00a0 We are here for a shared purpose.\u00a0 You can do that other thing on your own time, and have fun, because it sounds like fun.\u00a0 But here, with these people, in this faith tradition and using this congregation\u2019s accumulated resources, we\u2019re going to do this one specific thing.\u00a0 That is our covenant.\u00a0 We will walk our own paths even within our community, because that\u2019s Unitarian Universalism, but we covenant to walk together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a community to be successful, to be an actual community, there must be a common goal, a place we are all going.\u00a0 There must be a common mission, some one big thing that we all agree is our common work.\u00a0 We must hold together a common vision of what we, and our neighbors, and perhaps the larger world will look like when we accomplish our mission.\u00a0 And from that commonly held mission and vision, we then create a common identity:\u00a0 a picture of who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are the people who come together to do this work.\u00a0 Mission.\u00a0 We are the people who come together to make the world look like this.\u00a0 Vision.\u00a0 This, specifically, is who we are.\u00a0 Identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our identity then becomes useful as a way of bringing new members into the community.\u00a0 We can say, \u201cIf you want to do this specific mission with us, in order to achieve this specific vision with us, then you should come be this church with us.\u00a0 We need your help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And because communities must be defined to be successful, and definitions are boundaries that have two sides we should also be able to say, \u201cBut if you don\u2019t want to do this specific work, or if you have a different picture of what you want to achieve, then this isn\u2019t the church for you.\u00a0 Your mission may be a good one, it sounds like it is, in which case, good luck to you.\u00a0 But your work isn\u2019t our work.\u00a0 Your vision may be a happy place, I hope you get there.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not where we\u2019re going.\u00a0 We\u2019re walking this way.\u00a0 You can choose to walk with us, this way, or go your own way but without us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard for Unitarian Universalists to name who we aren\u2019t, what we aren\u2019t doing, where we aren\u2019t going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like every church community we want to be nice.\u00a0 So we tend to say yes to everything.\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 Great idea!<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Unitarian Universalists we have an inflated opinion of our own power so we often think we can do more than we really can.\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 We can do that, too.\u00a0 Why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a liberal religious tradition we are primed to be open to new ideas.\u00a0 So if an idea seems crazy or risky we\u2019re likely to say, \u201cLet\u2019s do it!\u201d because we like to think of ourselves as slightly crazy, risk-taking people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re proud of our long history of always being at the forefront of social change.\u00a0 And we\u2019re desperate not to miss our generation\u2019s opportunity to add to that legacy.\u00a0 So we\u2019re early adopters of social movements.\u00a0 Sometimes uncritically.\u00a0 And we are willing, too easily, to abandon established identities still serving us well, and still needed by people who want to be with us.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naming who we aren\u2019t is especially hard for Unitarian Universalists because inclusivity is one of our most cherished values.\u00a0 We want to be a place of welcome for all people.\u00a0 That\u2019s actually part of our faith\u2019s mission and vision.\u00a0 \u201cThe inherent worth and dignity of every person.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThe interdependent web of all existence.\u201d\u00a0 How can a Unitarian Universalist ever leave anyone out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I understand the multiple impulses that pull us toward trying to do everything, achieve everything and be everything for everyone.\u00a0 Those are powerful impulses that speak to cherished aspects of our character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But to be a successful community we must learn to see where those positive characteristics lead us astray, where they become damaging to our identity, where we let our love of the many prevent us from becoming the unified communities our congregations must be in order to do the work we are gathered to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our motto ought to be E pluribus unum, out of many one.\u00a0 It can\u2019t be, out of\u00a0everything<\/em>\u00a0one.\u00a0 And once we are together we can\u2019t still be many, we must be one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A church must be one thing.\u00a0 That one thing may be composed of diverse elements.\u00a0 It can even be composed of contradictory elements as long as those elements are bound together in a creative tension that contributes toward a common goal.\u00a0 We must be one.\u00a0 As we sang this morning, \u201cOne in the freedom of the truth, one in the joy of paths untrod, one in the soul\u2019s perennial youth, one in the larger thought of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The one thing may be different for different churches, even within Unitarian Universalism.\u00a0 Our one thing might be fierce commitment to social justice activism.\u00a0 Or it might be contemplative worship.\u00a0 Or it might be high emotionalism or cool intellectualism.\u00a0 Or it might be creativity and fun.\u00a0 Or it might be ministry to all ages.\u00a0 Or it might be a diverse culture that artfully combines more than one of those things, or that is able to skillfully alternate between several things.\u00a0 But however multiply constituted it must be one thing.\u00a0 However hyphenated is our identity, eventually a community must be clear, and clear among all the members, that we share one mission, one vision, one identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A healthy community must know its one thing.\u00a0 We sang, \u201cthe seekers of the light are one.\u201d\u00a0 Talking about the \u201cprophet souls in line\u201d, we sang, \u201cThey witness to one heritage, one Spirit\u2019s quick\u2019ning breath\u201d\u2026 \u201cThrough every race, in every clime, one song shall yet be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Healthy communities gather many together, but from that many they create one thing.\u00a0 E pluribus unum.\u00a0 The \u201cone\u201d thing is the goal.\u00a0 Not an unfocused and purposeless inclusivity that welcomes all indiscriminately, that drains resources and invites conflict and blithely accepts elements that would tear us apart from inside.\u00a0 But a purposeful and planned collection that knows who we are, where we are going and gathers to work deliberately and graciously toward a common goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A magazine doesn\u2019t contain every article written that month.\u00a0\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine is different from\u00a0Sports Illustrated<\/em>\u00a0and both are different from\u00a0Guns and Ammo<\/em>.\u00a0 Who would want to read the magazine of everything?\u00a0 A bouquet doesn\u2019t contain every flower in the world, but a careful selection that work harmoniously together, tied by a single ribbon.\u00a0 The separate arrows aren\u2019t just scattered randomly on the floor, but are held in a strong talon, pointed in the same direction.\u00a0 A trumpet player might spend Monday evenings at a club improvising his own tunes with his jazz combo, but on Friday evening at the concert hall, he sits down with the rest of the orchestra and plays what\u2019s in the score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s what a church must have.\u00a0 A score we all play from.\u00a0 An eagle\u2019s talon that holds us tightly.\u00a0 A ribbon that ties us into a bouquet.\u00a0 A single branch we\u2019re all attached to and growing from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some communities emphasize the branch and ignore the leaves.\u00a0 That\u2019s dangerous.\u00a0 We\u2019re not all the same.\u00a0 The individuality of our members gives us gifts and resources we wouldn\u2019t have if we were all alike.\u00a0 Multiple leaves on a branch allow some leaves to catch the sun while others are in shade.\u00a0 Just so, we need all of us contributing our separate parts to make our churches flourish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our danger, though tends to be the opposite: our tendency to love the leaves but ignore the branch.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, we must see that both leaves and branch are essential to the health of the whole. The health of the tree comes when the individual leaves and the communal branch both are cherished as a necessary part of the strategy to success. Leaves to catch the sun, to turn in the wind, to express the shimmering beauty of the tree in every moment and the transient beauty of life as seasons change one to the next. And strong branches and a sturdy trunk that defines who we are, that gives us particular shape, strong roots, a place to set ourselves, a secure connection among us, and lifts us all to the sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"