(Sermon only) The Value of Friction Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley February 22, 2026

This is the part of the service where I

would normally offer a sermon, but today

instead I have for you an investment

pitch.

A quick disclaimer, I don't know

anything about investment pitches. I've

never given an investment pitch. I've

never even watched Shark Tank. So, we'll

just see how this goes. Here's the idea.

We're going to get an organization

together and we will put in in its

leadership position, hire as its head

somebody who has no business sense at

all and doesn't want to learn any.

Uh they'll have gotten at least enough

on the job training to read a balance

sheet, but that's about it. And then

we're going to surround them with a very

small team of people and give them way

more work to do than they could possibly

get done. We're going to have hundreds

of different people tell them what their

top priorities should be and leave it

kind of confusing as to who to respond

to.

And then we're going to tell them to

please prioritize

integrity

and deeply held values and healthy

relationships in their work over

efficiency and productivity.

And then here's the best part. We're

going to turn to to you, the investors,

and we're going to say you get to do

most of the work.

In return for investing, you will have

opportunity after opportunity to show up

and get your hands dirty, to sit in

overly long meetings, to do extra Zoom

meetings, and take on some frustrating

emails.

You will inevitably have the opportunity

to work with somebody who really rubs

you the wrong way.

And in exchange,

you will get ROIs and and dividends and

and and buyout options of absolutely no

financial value.

You might discover though that by the

time you're standing up here at a

congregational meeting receiving the

Flaming Chalice Award or the Schweitzer

Medal that it's more valuable to you

than any money could be.

You might discover that while sitting in

one of those circles with somebody who

you thought you couldn't stand, you hear

them share a story about their own life

that moves something deep in your own

story. And later that day, you're on the

phone with your uncle or your brother or

your daughter and you're saying, "I've

been meaning to tell you, I need to

share

the friction

of our common life." The friction of

real tangible human community is an

invaluable investment.

We have a society that has been set up

to offer a more and more frictionless

experience through our daily lives. You

know what I'm talking about. This has

been on people's minds in the public

conversation over the last few years

about, you know, especially the way

technology can just provide these

frictionless experiences so that you

never have to think for a moment between

having the impulse to you want something

and and it's on its way to you. You've

made the credit card transaction and

it'll be there between 4 and 8:00 p.m.

the next day. a frictionless society.

And what all that frictionlessness

is doing for us is debilitating

our ability to encounter one another in

that I thou relationship that Martin

Buber talked about. That real human

contact, that intimacy, that friction

that is the essence of what we really

need to warm our souls, to grow our

capacity to be human beings.

The last promise I want to make, well,

no, I've got a couple more. One is that

buyout option.

When you finally do

buy out,

there won't be any any big cash reward,

but you you will be honored.

When you die here, you will be

remembered.

People will gather to grieve and to

celebrate,

to share stories about you and how you

touched and shaped their lives.

And when your loved ones die, this place

will be here for you, too, to do the

same.

Finally, we will do our very best not to

spend a dime of your investment on cheap

grace.

Do you know about cheap grace?

Cheap grace was the term that uh

Dietrich Bonhaofer coined to talk about

well in fact he was probably talking

about unitarianism and lots of other

heresies in the Christian tradition.

This is where my investment pitch I

can't help myself deviates into a little

theological history. So Dietrich

Bonhaofer was of the conservative

theological tradition in Germany and

when uh our own uh theological

forebearer James Luther Adams was so

inspired by the liberal theological

tradition in Germany that he went there

to see how it was flourishing and how

the society must be flourishing in the

1930s.

Our James Luther Adams found that there

had been some limits to the success of

the liberal theological tradition. And

that's what Bonhaofer was worried about.

He was a Lutheran priest and he was

really worried that that this liberal

theological tradition was offering

people cheap grace. He said it was

giving them forgiveness without

repentance.

He said it was giving them the the

grace, the love of God, of Jesus without

asking them to do what it took to follow

in his footsteps.

And he said that, you know, some of the

things that we take as metaphors that

Jesus said, they should be taken a lot

more literally. He could give an example

of that what line about the rich man

coming to Jesus. So, what do I need to

do to get into heaven?

And Jesus said,"Well, sell all of your

possessions and follow me. Give it all

away

and follow me." Bonhoffer said, "No, he

really meant that."

He said, "This is not cheap grace

offered by this holy tradition. This

asked something of you."

And and it and it did. It asked a lot of

Bonhaofer himself. He was killed

eventually by the Nazis after

participating in a a plot to assassinate

Adolf Hitler.

James Luther Adams, meanwhile, came back

to the United States changed by what he

had encountered. Came back with a deeper

conviction that churches must be a place

of practice, a place of friction, a

place where we continually practice what

it means to be human. That was his

language. And so James Luther Adams

started doing that at his local church

in Chicago. He taught at our seminary in

in Chicago, Meville Lumbard. And he he

would uh I'm sorry, at the at the

University of Chicago. And he he got in

relationship with the board there. He

was on on the board of the first

Unitarian Chicago

where in 1948 like most churches in this

country including Unitarian ones it was

completely segregated not just by happen

stance but by tradition and in the first

Unitarian Church of Chicago by bylaw

like many of our churches.

And so James Luther Adams and the

minister of the time, they they got

together and were thinking this

shouldn't be this way. And so they were

working on a getting the church to

change those bylaws. And some of you

know how church bylaw changes work.

There were a lot of meetings. It took

some time. And finally, they were at a

meeting where where the the the folks

who who opposed this and there were

there were folks who opposed making the

change for a variety of reasons. There

was a lot of of thinking about what

would be, you know, worry worry about

making something a creed that the

desegregation would become a creed that

everybody would need to believe the same

way and think the same way if if we made

this change.

And James Luther Adams

was in a moment at one of those meetings

with the the board member who was most

vocally against making this change.

By the way, that is one of the things

that I can also promise you investors.

we will take the things that you cherish

most and they will change.

Friction is going to happen. So he he's

the mo the board member who's most

against this change.

And James Luther Adams interrupts the

meeting by asking with a generous

curiosity that I can only imagine came

from a depth of practice.

He asked, "What do you believe is the

purpose of this church?"

And something about the way he asked it

and the relationality with which he

approached this man. The man was able to

respond or forced to respond, called to

respond in that moment. Well, the

purpose of the church is to grab a hold

of people like me and change them. Wow.

>> To grab a hold of us and change us made

me think of what one of my childhood

ministers said at a board meeting

shortly before he died. He was leading a

board retreat a couple years ago.

Reverend Rob Beller Isaacs, who I have

to when I when I think about him, I

can't help but think about the time that

he stood behind me when I was 12 years

old and clapped my hands for me to make

sure I kept the beat right in front of

the church.

Friction I still feel every time I try

and clap along.

Oh, Rob. But Rob Eller Isaacs, he was at

a board retreat and he asked the board,

"What

has this place done to transform your

life? How have you been transformed by

your relationship here?" And there was a

awkward silence.

One board member spoke up and said, "You

know, I guess I haven't really thought

about this as a really a place of

transformation. I think of it more as a

a liberal refuge,

a place to build community." and um

have, you know, enriching cultural

experiences

and learn

uh and deepen friendships.

And when telling that story, Rob would

say, you know,

church isn't actually about building

community, although community does get

built.

And it's not about friendships, although

friendships do get formed.

And it's actually not even about

alleviating suffering, though hopefully

some suffering is alleviated.

No, really, we are a community of

accountability.

And through our lives together, we hope

that we will change the world and

ourselves for the better.

that that's what it's really about.

We're a community of accountability

gathered to change the world and

ourselves

for the better.

It's the friction,

I think, that does this.

It's the friction of rubbing up against

real people and real relationships

of finding out how hard it is to really

build that relationship with somebody

across a difference like generation or

culture or racial experience in this

country to make a real intimate trusting

relationship across difference.

It's the kind of practice that nowhere

else in the culture will offer.

And that's the last promise I want to

make that if you invest in this place at

least once a week, there will be a

gathering at which you will hear a

message you won't hear anywhere else. A

message

that is simply this. Live a whole life.

Live a whole life. Don't take any parts

of yourselves and cut them off and feed

them to the machine.

Don't leave any part of your story, any

part of your journey, any part of your

heart outside the doors. Embrace it all.

Feel it all. Be with it all. Welcome it

all.

Let us weave from our pieces a whole and

holy community,

a beloved community of love and justice.

There are billions of people around the

world this week who began practicing a

faith with friction.

A faith with friction because they would

decide to give up something for this 40

days of Lent.

or a faith with friction because Ramadan

starting on the same day where they

would fast, right? They're fasting folks

all around the world all day long and

then after they're fasting and hungry,

you know what they do? They get together

with their families.

Talk about friction.

Everybody's been fasting all day and

then you gather before you've had a bite

to eat

with the people who rub it up against

you.

In just the rawest way,

what they will do, what people will do

for a faith not full of cheap grace, not

a frictionless faith,

but a faith of friction.

What is it you will do? Maybe there is

something you want to give up or or

maybe there is some fasting you want to

do. Maybe though it's actually the other

way around. Maybe there's something you

want to start doing. Maybe you want to

take an action every day. I've got a

friend. He says, "Every day I'm taking

one action to fight fascism in this

country."

What is it that would bring you alive

with that fire of commitment, with that

f friction, that faithful friction

that you need to grow your own spirit to

practice being human?

So, I'm going to invite everyone

actually to to share an answer to that

question. What's your fire of

commitment? What what is it that is

calling to you to live with a greater

friction, a greater faithful friction in

your life right now? In a moment, we're

going to turn and get into to fire

circles. Our stewardship team is

inviting us to gather in fire circles uh

you know for a moment here in the

service but then there will be

opportunities in the weeks ahead to

gather with others to share more deeply

together. What is it about you? What

what are your fires of commitment here

at the church in your lives?

How are you going to practice a more

frictionful faith?

So, I'm going to invite you to just

turn, find, you know, maybe it's a group

of four or five. Make do what's natural,

but find some people who you didn't come

to church with. Turn around, face the

people behind you in the pews. If you're

joining with us online, you can do this

in the chat in the comment section or

you can pull out your phone and text

somebody you know at church or call

them, have a quick conversation. So,

just a few minutes, tell each other what

do you want to practice for your fire of

commitment.

Heat. Heat.

Yeah.

Heat.

Heat. Heat.

All right, folks. You're going to have

more time to continue these

conversations

in the days and weeks to come. Thanks

for doing this. Let's rise once more.

Embody your spirit. We're We're going to

sing again. Come and go with me to that

land. We're going to sing it one more

time. Here we go. Let's try and clap on

the right beats.