[Introduction: The readings for this sermon were the fable of Androcles and the Lion, and a story called "Jelly Beans" by Isabel Champ Wolseley, from an anthology entitled Lighting Candles in the Dark. "Jelly Beans" is the story of how a family Bible reading session inspired a fifth grade boy to give jelly beans to a classmate who was picking on him.]

Good morning. It is a pleasure and an honor to be with you here today.

The title of this sermon is "Changing World, Changing Stories." The "changing world is our world since the events of last September 11. The "changing stories" are the stories we tell our children. In my capacity as Children’s Worship Leader at First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, I have been telling stories to Unitarian children for over seven years. After September 11, I scrutinized these stories far more carefully. And one beloved story, in particular, I felt, no longer served. I will be telling you more about that in a bit.

I know, with distinguished religious educator Carol Wolff as your minister, that you are familiar with the religious education issues that are peculiar to our way of faith. What do we teach children at church, if our purpose here together is not to follow a specific creed?

Some curricula that have been developed at our churches focus on world religions, on our Judeo-Christian heritage, on the wonder of the life cycle and nature, and on Unitarian Universalist history. Some churches focus their teachings on the Seven Principles and Purposes adopted by the Unitarian Universalist Association. For the "big questions" of many religions, such as the nature and existence of god and the afterlife, we prefer to focus on the right and responsibility of each person to ask those questions, rather than to adopt a specific creed.

Sophia Lynn Fahs, noted Unitarian Universalist educator, is widely quoted as saying, "It matters what we believe." For a creedal faith, such a statement would seem so self evident as to be ludicrous. Fahs’ statement is necessary and powerful for us because it counters the impulse to say: We are free to believe anything, therefore it doesn’t matter what we believe. And the further temptation: We can believe anything we want, we must be able to do anything we want.

The balancing act of Unitarian Universalist religious education is to nurture and defend the free faith, but at the same time insisting that it matters what we believe. And why? It is part of our religious journey in this way of faith to answer this question for ourselves. For us, it’s probably not because therein lies our heavenly reward. I maintain that it matters what we believe, because our beliefs guide our behavior. It matters how we treat others.

Unitarian Universalists tend to love ideas, and to love words. There’s the old joke about the UU who comes to a fork in the road with two signs. One sign points to Heaven, the other to a discussion group about Heaven. Guess which road the UU picks.

As much as we like to talk about our beliefs, it is in our relations with others that we can test our beliefs, find out if what we say is true. When we are in contact with others, do we find hollow and weak spots in our beliefs that call for new reflection? Or do we find that our faith in our guiding principles is strengthened? As Children’s Worship leader, I have looked for stories about such situations, such tests. Conflict. Estrangement and reconciliation. Compassion. Speaking up for what we believe is right, even at the risk of embarrassment or retaliation. Overcoming fear. Trying to discern what is right and what is wrong. These are themes I return to again and again.

Where do I look for these stories? A wide variety of sources. Once I told the children about a real life ethical dilemma involving the following cast of characters: me, my dog, the local leash law, and the park ranger.

But over the years, I have turned repeatedly to a couple of anthologies of Quaker stories. The Jelly Beans story comes from one of them. My parents’ religious journey has been varied, and for about four years during my childhood my family attended Cambridge Friends Meeting in Massachusetts. The Quakers believe that the light of God exists in everyone. This is akin to the Unitarian Universalist principle affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

I have found the Quaker literature to be particularly rich in specific stories of looking for, and finding, the light in others even under adverse circumstances. It’s not much of a trick to recognize the light in someone who is behaving in a kind, thoughtful and generous way. It’s much more difficult to discern the potential for goodness in someone who is belligerent or who means you harm. I keep going back to the Quaker stories because they explore, in a very concrete and practical way, the application of religious principles, often by children themselves, in an encounter with a hostile other.

So why am I a Unitarian and not a Quaker? The short answer is that Quakers don’t have choirs. The longer answer is that in Quakerism I did not find as welcoming a home as I do here for the other components of my religious upbringing and journey that are important to me. And I have come to believe that the UU path at its best offers something uniquely important to the religious journey. Jokes about the "discussion group about heaven" aside, the fact that we have agreed to walk in fellowship even when we know we will not agree can offer a profound spiritual path.

The Quakers are known for their pacifism: not bearing arms in war, nor in self defense. Our Unitarian Universalist way of faith encompasses a range of attitudes toward these issues. Pacifist ideas have been formative for me. But as a person of part Jewish ancestry, I also am very mindful of the military’s essential role in the overthrow of Hitler. While I would not be surprised to learn that doves tend to be more heavily represented in our congregations than hawks, we are not a peace church per se, as the Quakers or Mennonites are. Members of our churches have served in the military, and are children and grandchildren of those who fought and died for our country. Our world is complex, and our congregations are pluralistic. People of good faith and good conscience differ in their ideas about the best direction for this nation and this world to take.

Thus, I feel that not all Quaker stories are suitable for our children’s chapel setting. Here is an example. A classic story called "The Latchstring" takes place on the American frontier. Conflict was increasing between the local Native Americans and the incoming white settlers. A Quaker couple hears rumors of an attack that night, and they lock their cabin door by pulling in the latchstring. After a restless night, and some conversation and Bible reading, they decide to put their trust in their heavenly Father, and put the latchstring out, which meant that their house could be opened from the outside. Shortly thereafter, seven Indians entered their house and left again. When they awoke the next morning, they saw the smoking ruins of their neighbors’ cabins. Years later, the husband met one of the men who had entered his house. He said, [and I’m quoting from the story,] "We meant to burn and kill. We found latchstring out. We said, ‘No burn this house. No kill these people. They do us no harm. They trust Great Spirit.’"

I first read this story in junior high and it has given me food for thought ever since. However, I have never told it to the children at First Church. Ours is an urban church. Rightly or wrongly, I have not felt willing to take the risk of planting a seed in a child’s mind that could prompt an experiment with an unlocked door that could lead to tragedy – and this was before the recent rash of child snatchings from homes. Rightly or wrongly, I have felt an exposure to this story seemed better left to the parents, or to a class of older children where the issues could be discussed and explored.

Although I have never told our children the story of the Latchstring, I have told them the Jelly Beans story every year since I first encountered it. Except last year. In a moment I’ll tell you why. But first, I want to tell you about a conversation I once had with a parent at my church. She thought that our volunteer teachers were not up to the job, and that we should have trained professional teachers in our church school. When I asked why, she said it was because she felt the needs of her son, who was unusually shy and awkward for his age, were getting trampled by the presence of some very boisterous boys, whose demands for attention dominated the class.

I thought, professional training is not what will make the difference here. We need to find a way to help the shy boy finds the courage to speak up and make his needs known, and the boisterous boy to perceive the effect of his behavior on others. Another of the most beloved stories I tell in Chapel is called "Shy Judy," about a girl who is so shy that her mother, meaning well, always speaks for her, as in "Judy wants strawberry ice cream." Judy finally finds her voice, persevering after a number of setbacks where she speaks up but is not heard. When Judy finally makes herself heard, the children in Chapel always clap – and this despite the fact that they are by and large highly articulate children of highly articulate and well educated families.

After the attacks of September 11, I put the Jelly Beans story aside. Not because of the basic core of the story. I still found this family’s experiment of applying their way of faith to a here-and-now problem very compelling. I still admired their determination to move their beliefs from the talking phase into action. The part I had trouble with was at the very end.

After 9/11 I could not bring in a Christian story that referred to enemies of the faith. And I was made queasy by the story’s references to feeding "enemies" in foreign missions. The term "enemy feeding" had a whole new ring to me. In the public debate about the impetus of the September 11 attacks, some have laid the blame on our nation’s "enemy feeding," though not agreeing whether we had done too much of it, or too little. As I had felt before with the Latchstring story, Jelly Beans, if told at all at that time, should be told to a class of older children where the issues could be discussed and explored.

But it was late September of 2001, and I needed a story. What could I tell that would leave room to respect the wide range of responses there were bound to be among these families about How did we get here, and what should we do next? And while I could not truthfully tell the children a story that would promise their safety could be guaranteed, what stories might offer guidance in a personal encounter with a hostile other?

I concluded that stories of courage and stories of compassion were never out of season. And so I told the ancient tale of Androcles and the Lion. I told other stories that we end up telling nearly every year: The Good Samaritan. The work of Dr. Martin Luther King. Shy Judy. A story called "The Hating Book," about two friends clearing up a misunderstanding. Stone Soup, when everyone adds something small to the pot to the benefit of all.

I also told some stories for the first time. One, called "Little Girls Wiser than Men," was from Tolstoy. A village feud was escalating, but was broken by the sight of some little girls from each of the hostile families, playing together in the street. Another story I’d never told before was the Peaceable Kingdom. In the widespread anxiety after the terrorist attacks, I was afraid it would verge on the ludicrous, but my pets gave me the courage to tell it. My long antagonistic dog and cat, with no intervention from me or my husband, had decided that they wanted to be friends. So I read the Peaceable Kingdom and told how my dog and cat now play together, sleep together, and give each other baths.

A few weeks ago, I brought out the Jelly Beans story during our teacher orientation. I wanted to tell it because we are introducing Family-led Chapel services this year, and Jelly Beans is such a good example of a whole family working together on a practical ethical problem. One of the great gifts of our way of faith is the freedom to seek stories. Sometimes a story seems to have outlived its usefulness. Sometimes, when we return to it, it speaks to us again, often because of something new in us. It has been very affirming to find that so many of the stories that were helpful in the past are still helpful now.

The Jelly Beans family was not Unitarian. The sentence, "Well, if God says so, you’d better do it," is not one that you hear often in UU circles. In fact, many people join UU churches so they won’t have to hear that sentence. But we can learn something from the "Jelly’s". They had faith that the Biblical Word was worth following, even when it seemed mysterious or downright nonsensical. "If your enemy is hungry, feed him." An enemy? In the fifth grade? Nevertheless, they did their best to put this into practice. And a transformative experience, a minor miracle if you will, took place. The enemy became a friend.

In the book I and Thou, Martin Buber wrote, "I require a You to become; becoming I, I say You. All actual life is encounter."

Our world is complex. And, as everyone who didn’t already realize it was made painfully aware last September 11, it can be a fearsome and violent place. We don’t have a theology that holds out rewards in the next life. Our reason tells us not to expect guaranteed rewards, safety, or justice in this. What can we tell our children in the face of something like this? What can we tell ourselves?

It matters what we believe. It matters what we do with what we believe. And a prime arena for working out our beliefs is to use courage and compassion in an encounter with a hostile other. Please don’t think I underestimate the difficulty of this. If it were easy, it would not require courage. And I know that the outcome is rarely as quick or as clear cut as in these stories. But I am more and more convinced that this is a profoundly important path. Just the attempt can bring meaning, hope, joy, and dignity. It can lead to an increasing sense of calmness and serenity in the face of uncertainty and struggle. We can use every bit of that we can get in these troubled times.

One of the greatest things about the path of compassion and courage is that it can be walked by anyone, of any age, or position in society. Androcles was a slave; this did not keep him from following this path. John Jr. of the Jelly Beans story was a fifth grader. This is something a child can do. This is something that you can do.

I’m going to close with a prayer that our first and second grade class wrote a few years ago.

God, who is good, and in everything.

Thank you for clouds that float like magic dragons in the sky.

Thank you for our loving families. Let them live long.

Help us to honor our fathers and mothers. And God, help us to forgive our sisters and brothers.

May everyone be forgiven.

Thank you for our pets and for our schools. And thank you for food.

Thank you for vultures that eat up the germs in the world.

Thank you for the blackbird that flies across the morning sky.

Let the seed of growth continue, and let the cardinal always sing.

Amen.