Mar. 8th, 2010

lotusbiosm: (god bless)
Unconditional Love'--Rev. John T. Crestwell, Jr.

First of all, I have discovered the perfect way to get in sermon time and gym time: listen while at the gym. Average All Souls sermons are about 20 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time to spend on the treadmill.


Anyway, on to the sermon.

Rev. Crestwell makes the argument that all love is conditional. We love our children because of self-preservation, we do acts of love because they make us feel good inside. Which is a valid argument, I think. My friend Lauren is fond of saying that no act is entirely selfless, that even the most giving and self-sacrificing act usually comes with some sort of reward for the person doing it, even if it's just that good feeling, and I think she's probably right.

Rev. Crestwell also talks about how loving someone in spite of your differences isn't really love, it's tolerance, and that the challenge is to love someone because of your differences. And that we should find in the diversity of the universe at large inspiration to love the diversity of humanity and want to create a community that celebrates that diversity.

There actually wasn't much that I found particularly spiritually uplifting about this sermon, it was mostly a relatively common UU theme: church should be a place where everyone is welcome and we have to work to make that happen. Which I suppose is actually something that we should work on broadening to our other communities. How do we make all communities inclusive, loving and welcoming? It's hard for me, sometimes, when new people show up seeking to join my community, to welcome them as openly and warmly as I should. Not because of race or religion (though sometimes because of politics), but usually just because I don't want to be friends with them personally, which really ought to be irrelevant.
Hey, look at that, something useful did come out of this sermon!

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