We are so pleased that we are able to be here this morning, worshipping with all of you. This is the first time that we have had a group from our church in Franklin, Massachusetts visiting Transylvania (introduce Pat Slovacek, Harriet Fisher, & David Kassay). Your minister has visited with us several times in Franklin and, over the years, we’ve become good friends. It was through Csaba that we came to know a little bit about you and your country, that we learned a little bit more about the roots of our own religious faith and how this faith continues to be practiced here. We are, indeed, partners in faith. I bring you greetings from Tibor Bodor with whom I talked this week. He wanted me to say, "Hello from the United States!" and let you know that he is well.

As I was thinking about what I wanted to share with you this morning, I recalled that the last time I was here in Kolozsvar, we Americans were still reeling from the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City & the Pentagon in Washington, that horrible, unthinkable day that we now refer to simply as 9/11. There is so much that has changed in America since then. It seems that we’ve lost a little of our innocence and the world does not seem as safe as it used to.

You see, most of us in America, especially younger people, had led pretty sheltered lives up to 9/11. We knew, of course, that terrible things happened in the world, but these were always things that happened someplace else, somewhere far away. Oh, it’s true that there were still those who remembered the missile crises at the peak of the Cold War in the 50’s & early 60’s, there were still some who remembered building bomb shelters in their back yards. But these bomb shelters had never been used, except to store jars of preserves from the garden’s bounty and overflows from the garage. And so we were lulled into assuming that we were safe from the wars that had consumed other nations around the world. We didn’t need to be concerned about terrorism on our homeland. America was too powerful. We were invincible.

9/11 was a wake-up call for many Americans. The shock that most of us experienced as we watched those planes exploding into the Twin Towers turned into gut-wrenching fear as we realized just how vulnerable we really are. Within moments the world no longer seemed safe.

President Bush and his administration were quick to frame this in terms of Good and Evil. We Americans were the good guys of course, at least we Americans who weren’t of Middle Eastern ancestry or recent immigrants from other suspect nations or as long as we were Christian instead of Muslim. It was up to the Good Guys to defeat the Evil Ones and so we went to war in Afghanistan in an attempt to destroy the Islamic terrorists who had attacked us, we initiated a war in Iraq in our search for weapons of mass destruction that apparently never existed, and a war has been waged at home in America as well.

One of the things that has been at the heart of our American democracy has been the freedom of speech, the freedom to assemble in protest, the freedom to go where we want to go, to do what we want to do, to be who we are determined & qualified to be. Endless possibilities in America—at least for those in the white, middle & upper classes. But all of this has shifted since 9/11.

Under the guise of what is called "Homeland Security" many of the personal freedoms we had taken for granted have been curtailed. Profiling has become common, especially for those with Arabic names or physical features. People are being detained and held indefinitely without access to legal assistance. And those who dare to challenge the current administration’s policies are too often labeled unpatriotic.

There are a lot of people in America right now whose anxiety levels are pretty high as the Administration keeps issuing terrorism alerts. Who can we trust anyway? Where can we feel safe? How do we protect our children? A lot of people are nervous. Some are angry. And many are afraid.

So what is the role of the church during a time like this? One of the basic Unitarian beliefs is that people have the potential to do enormous good. That we are not basically sinful creatures, rotten to the core, in need of a Christ-like figure to suffer and die in order to atone for our sins. But that instead we are filled with goodness and that it is this goodness that will come forth and flourish if it is carefully nourished. As a result, Unitarians historically have been reluctant to divide the world into clear divisions of Good and Evil. Instead we’ve understood that every person has the potential for both.

In our church it has been this basic religious belief of ours that has led many of us to have trouble accepting that it is the Americans (especially the white, middle & upper classes) who are the good guys, above reproach, above criticism, who should have free rein to go after and destroy Evil. And so many of us liberal religious folks in America have been speaking out and working within the political system in order to bring about change. We will find out how successful we’ve been when our national elections are held in November!

But perhaps even more important is the role of the church in providing a place where the goodness within people can be affirmed and helped to flourish; a place where we can learn together and speak without fear of censure; a place where we can trust each other’s good intentions; a place where we can feel safe; a place where our hope for the future can be re-kindled; a place where love can be experienced.

This is what we are always trying to do when we gather together as a religious community in Franklin, Massachusetts. We are always attempting, at least, to live out of the best parts of ourselves, and to forgive ourselves and each other when we fall short, as we too often do. The climate in America right now is one that is filled with fear, distrust, and anger. It seems to me that the church is needed now in ways that it has not been for a long time.

I’m assuming that those of you who lived for so long under a communist dictatorship already know this. That you already have experienced how important your religious faith has been in sustaining you during hard times. That your religious community is what supported you when the light of hope grew dim.

It is important that we do what we can to maintain our communities of faith, to remain grounded in the faith that affirms the presence of goodness in life. Because it is in community like this that we can learn better how to love each other and to know the presence of God’s love in our lives.

Amen