Touching Home

A sermon prepared by Rev. Tim Kutzmark
Sunday, April 1, 2007 • Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading

On the Occasion of the First Service
Held in the Newly Expanded and Renovated Sanctuary.

It began with a dream. It began with a vision. Build a sacred space, a place for transformation. Build a sanctuary for the searching spirit of the time. Build a foundation for life-affirming religion. Build a home for that which is Holy.

It was the year 950 BCE, the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt. It was the fourth year of the reign of King Solomon, in the month of Ziv. It was then King Solomon began to build the Great Temple of Jerusalem. The site was the Mount of Moriah. The building itself was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. For those of us not current on our cubits, the Great Temple of Israel was about twenty-nine feet wide by eighty-seven feet deep by thirty feet tall.

The work force needed to build it was monumental. King Solomon conscripted seventy thousand laborers and eighty thousand stonecutters, with three thousand six hundred more called to oversee them, making a grand total of 153,600 workers. The house of worship was built using local limestone, cedar from Lebanon. and staggering amounts of gold and silver. From groundbreaking to opening, it took seven years to complete.

We began with a dream. We began with a vision. Expand our sacred space, our place for transformation. Enlarge a sanctuary for the searching spirit of our time. Magnify our foundation for life-affirming religion. Rebuild a home for that which we call Holy.

It was the year 1995, one hundred and sixty-eight years after the founding of this church community. It was the year1995, during the reign of the Rev. Jane Rzepka, when Long Range Planning discussions were begun.

Church leaders began to imagine what it would be like to expand their existing church campus. They envisioned a place that would nurture genuine warmth and intimacy, but with more space to truly celebrate the children, more space to welcome new faces who were seeking a place to nourish their spirit and nurture their humanity. With more room, more people could feed their need explore the truths of their heart and their head; wisdom in many forms could be more readily shared and celebrated. More hands could reach back into the community, shaping justice, binding up the broken. Two years later, in 1997, this Long Range Planning committee completed a plan that tied major expansion to specific triggers of attendance and pledging income.

In early 2001, members of the congregation were invited to join the conversation in a series of workshops facilitated by Wayne Clark from the Unitarian Universalist Association. Out of these ideas, the Framing Our Future Long Range Planning Committee created a comprehensive plan to grow our campus, our staff, and our programs. In Oct. of 2002, during the ministry of the Rev. Robin Zucker, this plan was presented to the congregation. A feasibility study was completed in the spring of 2003. In the fall of 2003, during the reign of the Rev. Doris Hunter—also known as Mary Poppins—a quite ambitious capital campaign was begun that netted 2.1 million dollars. And, on the 14th day of March of the year 2004, at 7:30 in the evening, the first meeting of the Building Our Future Steering Committee was convened, chaired by the unstoppable Bob Cary. And within a year, plans had been designed by our architect, Tony DeCastro, for a complete renovation and expansion of Loring House and the Sanctuary, and for the construction of a new two-story high Community Hall, new church offices, and a glass covered atrium.

The sanctuary that we expanded is now 46 cubits long at the widest point, 38 cubits deep and sixteen cubits high in the new choir transept. For those not current on cubits, the choir and Austin transepts are twenty-four feet wide, by eighteen feet deep, by 24 feet high on the choir side. Our new sanctuary now covers 2500 square feet.

Now, our workforce was somewhat different from King Solomon’s. We hired two full-time laborers, some twenty other various tradesmen, and paid one contractor, Tony Didio, to oversee them. From ground breaking to opening, it took just over nine months to complete the sanctuary work. Unlike the Great Temple of Jerusalem, we may not have inlays of gold and silver, we may not have rare carved cedar panels from Lebanon. We may not have had 150,000 laborers, or 3,600 overseers (although it seemed at times that the Building Our Future Steering Committee: Bob Cary, David Kay, Lynne Champion, Frank Fardy, Bryan Irwin, Gretchen Latowsky, Tom Mottl, Tony Ortiz, Ron Ranere, and Meghan Young often did the work of 153,600 people). But believe it or not, our renovated church home is exactly the same size in square feet as the main section of the Great Temple of Jerusalem. And we rebuilt our temple in six years and three months less time!

I think it is safe to say: we’ve built something to be proud of. We have built a physical testament to human dignity and transcendent mystery. From a strong foundation, we have expanded our ability to embrace the liberal religious impulse in communities North of Boston. We have built a home for those beliefs, ideals and values that we call Sacred.

In as much as we are here to applaud the accomplishment of this building, let us make no mistake: these strong stone walls; these windows inviting light and openness; these floors of polished wood, ultimately, none of these by themselves are the church. Look around us. See each other. What makes this building truly beautiful is that it has grown from and represents the people who are inside. A church is her people.

Without our hearts, without our minds, without our hopes, without our individual relationships to the Holy, this building would be nothing but silent stone, dried plaster, dead wood, and cold concrete.

As we rightly appreciate the fine craftsmanship, the detail, and the expanse of this building, let us not fail to appreciate each person who sits beside us, for each person is a human building block in this church community. In the end, it is our lives that sanctify this building.

But this place is more than just us, more than our individual and collective lives. This place is the people who came before us, those people who built the foundation that we have inherited.

This church is the prophetic women and men who throughout history shaped our Unitarian Universalist faith—people such as Origen of Alexandria, Michael Servetus of Spain, King John Sigismund and Queen Isabella of Transylvania, John and Abigail Adams of Boston, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Susan B. Anthony.

This church is the founding forty-six. Exactly one-hundred and eighty years ago tomorrow morning, on April 2nd, 1827, they established “The Third Congregational Society of Reading (Unitarian), the liberal church community that was the forebear of this congregation.

This church is the women, children, and men of that growing congregation, now called the Christian Union Church (Unitarian) who gathered in their too small stone sanctuary on Main Street in Reading Town Square. This church is those people who eighty-five years ago, on April 22, 1922, listened to their minister, the Rev. Marion Franklin Hamm proclaim: “This is the time when we should all fix our eyes upon the one essential thing—the welfare of the Church, and the necessity of providing an adequate building to house its activities. First we must feel the need of having the work done. Then we must see the vision of its accomplishment. We must believe that it can be done. We must believe in the power of united human efforts to accomplish great results, and we must realize that the infinite Power stands ever ready to supplement human power for the accomplishment of any good work.” He then uttered his now famous words: “Let us rise up and build.”

Rise up and build they did. Rise up and build for the future they did. Rise up and build for those yet to come they did. Rise up and build for us they did. This church is the women and men who responded to Rev. Hamm’s call, who signed a contract with the Holt-Fairchild Company to build a new stone church, this church, at 239 Woburn Street. This church is the woman and men who paid for the construction of a new stone church, this church, costing, in 1924, just under $60,000.

This church is the one hundred and fifty people who gathered on Saturday, Feb 23, 1924 for the first official function in the new building: a turkey dinner, for men only, downstairs in community hall. According to newspaper accounts, the members of the Young People’s Religious Union (all young men) did the serving which (and I quote) “lacked nothing of being perfect.” How history repeats itself: two days ago, on Friday night, the first official function in the newly expanded building was once again a community meal, the Coming of Age dinner for our Coming of Age young women and men, their families and mentors.

This church is those who gathered for the first worship service in the new building, held the next day, on Sunday, February 24, 1924. It was held downstairs in community hall because the sanctuary was not yet completed. The congregation considered it an auspicious omen that that first service happened to fall on a previously scheduled “Young People’s Sunday,” so the first worship service ever held in this building was led entirely by the youth of the church.

This church is those who gathered right here, three weeks later, on Sunday, March 16, for the first official service held in this sanctuary. Like today, there were finishing touches that still needed to be completed. A grand piano was hoisted into the choir loft for the occasion, since the organ was not yet working (and this morning, likewise, our organ is not yet working). On the rear wall of the chancel, a gold cross hung suspended on crimson tapestry. On the altar—the same altar that is behind me—was placed a vase filled with Calla Lilies, and at either end of the altar stood, as they do today, two brass candlesticks holding white candles.

But just as this church is more than us, this church is also more than those who came before us. For this is a church that moves ever forward through the ages. And so, it is right and it is good to say this now: most importantly, this church is the people who have yet to come.

For we have built anew for them, for the stranger standing outside our door who, by crossing the threshold, will find a place in this very room to discover something new about themselves, something new about the worth and dignity of all people, something new about the infinite power that lives within a liberal community that cares. We have built anew for the generations yet to come. The ones whose names have not yet been whispered into being, whose hearts have not yet begun to beat, whose place on this earth belongs to the future. But come these unknown people will, and come they will to this very room, these very rooms. And they, like each of us, will find here a community of conscience and commitment, a community of memory and ever-evolving faith.

They will sit in these pews one hundred years from now, two hundred years from now. They will look at these windows one hundred years from now, two hundred years from now. They will listen to their minister, one hundred years from now, two hundred years from now. And they will know that they are here because we were here. And we dreamed of them. And we dreamed for them. And we built because of them. And they will carry our faith forward, forward, forward.

May it be so. Blessed be. Amen.

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