books

Tea and Purpose
Rev. Douglas Taylor
12-14-25
Sermon video: https://youtu.be/wS0h-ziD9V4

The amazing Terry Pratchett once wrote: “There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” (Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky)

As Pratchett suggests, we do well to pay attention to the stories we are telling ourselves about the world we live in and the world we long to live into.

Last week we talked about Star Wars and the power of hope. One of the things we saw in those stories was how resistance shows up against the forces of Empire. Star Wars is a form of dystopian fiction. Dystopian literature offers a bleak perspective on the future – things have gone wrong and now we need to work to make it better. Good dystopian fiction will go one better to reveal what is going wrong now, not just in an imagined future. It will be about our present condition more than anything else.

Today I want to talk about some utopian fiction. And in a similar vein, good utopian fiction reveals not just some imagined happy future, but how we are living with the seeds of that future even today. “Change the story, change the world.”

The story I am excited about this morning is about robots. I will confess, I’ve never been a huge fan of robot-based science fiction. And upon reflection I think that has to do with the way robots have been portrayed in science fiction over the years.

One of the things about stories is how they have a surface level entertainment and a deeper level of impact. On the surface, a story about robots may be a fun exploration of technology and imagination. On a deeper level, robots offer a mirror to explore what it means to be human. When Science Fiction leans into a character who is non-human, the author is able to help the reader better understand what it means to be human.

Isaac Asimov offered the classic version of robot stories. For Asimov, robots were an exploration into ethics and logic and the hope for a better future for humanity based on ethics and logic. Asimov wrote his robots as tools or servants to humanity. And while he did critique the premise in some ways – that was the premise. Robots were the perfect servants.

Later versions of the genre had the robots take on different roles. Think about The Robot from the Lost in Space series: “Danger! Danger!” The Robot was a powerful and loyal piece of equipment. Think about The Terminator, who was really just a weapon – and then remember how most advances in drone technology are rooted in military research these days. Think about the Droids in Star Wars who were really just a plot device and sometimes comic relief. And then think about the way Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek portrays the character of Data as a sentient being with relationships and a unique place in the crew. Data was the first (and until recently, the only) robot I enjoyed.

The Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers offers a radically different robot from the loyal equipment or perfect servant of earlier versions of this literary mirror.  Where Asimov’s robots are essentially tools of humanity and society, Chambers’ robots are peers with humanity seeking purpose and community. Where Asimov’s robots are stand-ins for a conversation about racism and law, Chambers’ robots are conversation partners on the topic of freedom and liberation.

And most alluring for me is that freedom is not an either/or scenario – it is not an apocalyptic uprising of the machines. They do ‘rise up’ but their freedom frees the humans too. And that is how this story changes the mirror of what robots reveal about what it means to be human.  

The description on the inside jacket of this book categorized as ‘cozy sci-fi’ tells us this:

     It’s been centuries since the robots of Penga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools. Centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again. Centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

     One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot has one question: “What do people need?” But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They’re going to need to ask it a lot.

How would you answer? What do you see that we need?

I mentioned near the beginning that this is a utopian story. Part of the premise as the book begins is that the people have resolved their basic needs. There is no poverty, no inequity on injustice leading to homelessness or hunger. It is a society in which everyone basic needs are met. In a world where people have what they want, what more do we need?

In the second book, there is a scene when the robot, Mosscap, first comes to a community and asks it’s question: “What do you need?” The small town of people who turned up to see the oddity of a robot were confused by the question at first. Nobody quite knew how to respond.

After a long pause, a bearded man piped up from the back of the crowd. “Well, um … I need the door to my house fixed. It’s a bit drafty.” (PCS p23)

Sometimes it can be hard to think beyond the immediate needs of our daily rounds. What do you need? Maybe not ‘what do you need help with?’ Maybe not ‘What do you need a robot to do for you?’ Because I don’t have a real robot tucked up here in the pulpit with me. And I’m not so good at fixing your drafty doorway. So what do you need? Really?

I imagine many answers in our current situation might land in the category of righting a wrong, answering an injustice, fixing a gross inequity. I need ambulance rides to be fully covered by insurance and for teachers to be valued more than celebrities. I need oligarchs and abusers to be held accountable and removed from power. I need my society to really care for the wellbeing of all the people in our society.

So, if that were accomplished, as is suggested in our little novel about a tea monk and their robot friend, then what would you need? Pretend we’ve solved our injustices and we live in a Star Fleet type of universe. What do you need?

This begins to drift into theological territory. What is the Human Condition? Many theologies are built around an assumption of sin or fallenness and how awful we are compared with God and what God expects of us. I don’t have time for that sort of sour thinking. Yes, we are imperfect and broken, but not is a sinful or bad way worthy of judgment. We are imperfect and broken in the way all the world is.

I believe our Human Condition is one in which we need to be loved – and we are loved. We may forget this truth or trauma can chased this truth from our knowing, but we are. I believe our Human Condition is one in which we are intrinsically part of the holiness that pervades the whole universe. We are interconnected – thus what I need is not only what I need, but what we need. And we need each other. I think any answer to the question ‘what do people need?’ must include the answer: each other. We need mutual thriving.

In this story I’m inviting you to read, the author makes multiple references to our need for each other. It shows up when the story talks about various things from interdependent ecosystems to friendships. What do people need? Each other.

One of the characters is the robot, the mirror of humanity revealing a deep truth about ourselves. The robot brings the question and raises thoughtful and emotionally mature reflection on the responses it hears from the humans. The other character is Dex, the tea monk.

Let me tell you a little about the work of a tea monk. Dex the tea monk travels from town to town helping people. They set up a small booth in the town market when they arrive. The booth has comfortable places to sit and relax, and it has tea. People visit a tea monk to talk through things they are struggling with. Maybe it is a grief or a confusion, perhaps they just need to talk through a decision they have to make. Usually people simply need a bit of companionship and a space to relax. Dex offers people empathy and they offer a cup of tea. Dex gives people what they need.

“What do people need?” the robot asks. Both the tea monk and the robot are in the business of figuring out what people need. Perhaps it is your business as well. What do people need? Each other, certainly.

In a cozy science fiction story where people’s basic needs are met, where folks don’t need to fight against Empire or join the resistance – they still need things. Surprisingly, what people need to fight Empire is also what people need in this Monk and Robot story – mutual thriving.

Later, during the book discussion I’m planning in January, we will talk more about mutual thriving as well as topics of economy, ecology, freedom, pleasure, our relationship with nature and with technology, as well as the meaning of life. And I’ll serve tea. I promise.

For now, I leave you that question to ponder. What do you need. May you uncover surprising answers as you wind your way through this holiday season.

In a world without end, may it be so.

Berries of Abundance

Douglas Taylor

3-2-25

Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/V-DreMzzl1A

This morning, I invite us to imagine our congregation as an abundant berry patch. Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s latest book The Serviceberry describes a natural world of abundance and reciprocity. She uses berry bushes to highlight the way a Gift Economy works. Our congregation runs on the model of a gift economy. We are flourishing and all flourishing is mutual. We are like a berry bush in full season.

Do you like berries? Do you have a favorite berry? Maybe strawberries or raspberries? I’m partial to blueberries myself. Do we have any cranberry fans? How about lingonberries or huckleberries?

Renown storyteller Joesph Bruchac (brew-shack) tells the story of the First Strawberries. And, I love this story. In this Cherokee tale, the Creator made the first man and the first woman at the same time so neither would be lonely. They marry and are very happy together. The story, however is about their first argument and the berry that helps them reconcile. The story says the man returns home after hunting and finds the woman has not prepared a meal, instead she is out picking flowers. He gets angry. “I am hungry” he says, “Do you expect me to eat flowers?” She also gets angry, “Your words hurt me. I will live with you no longer.” And she walks away.

A chase ensues, but she is a faster walker than he is. He tells the Sun that he is sorry but can’t catch up to her to tell her that. So the Sun takes pity on him and puts berries in her path to try to tempt her to slow down.

The Sun makes raspberries to grow. She pays the no attention. Blueberries, she walks on by. Blackberries, still nothing. Finally: strawberries. She sees them, stops, tastes them – and oh they are good. She starts collecting them to share with her husband. He catches up to her and apologies, they share the strawberries and all is well. And that’s why we have strawberries.

“To this day,” Bruchac concludes, “when the Cherokee people eat strawberries, they are reminded to always be kind to each other; to remember… friendship and respect are as sweet as the taste of the ripe, red berries.”

Other stories from myth and folklore relate the origins of berries, yes. There’s often magic involved, or some divine power. But I love this one about the strawberries because it also teaches us about kindness and a path toward reconciliation. Strawberries are a gift.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her book The Serviceberry, writes about berries as part of the Gift Economy of nature.

This abundance of berries (she writes) feels like a pure gift from the land. I have not earned, paid for, nor labored for them. There is no mathematics of worthiness that reckons I deserve them in any way. And yet here they are – along with the sun and the air and the birds and the rain.

Our congregation is like a berry bush in full season. All that we do is offered up as a gift. You don’t incur any debt by attendance on a Sunday morning. The berries are ripe and ready for you, all you need do is show up and they are yours. The berries benefit from being eaten, that’s how nature works. The energy needs to keep flowing, the gift needs to keep moving.

In the book, Dr. Kimmerer talks about her farmer neighbors, Paulie and Ed, who plant some Saskatoons – a western variety of this berry that goes by many names: Juneberry, Shadblow, Sugarplum, Sarvis, Chuckley Pear, Saskatoon, and Serviceberry. “Ethnobotanists know,” Kimmer writes, “that the more names a plant has, the greater its cultural importance.” 

This pail of Juneberries represents hundreds of gift exchanges that led up to my blue-stained fingers: the Maples who gave their leaves to the soil, the countless invertebrates and microbes who exchanged nutrients and energy to build the humus in which the Serviceberry seed could take root, the Cedar Waxwing who dropped the seed, the sun, the rain, the early spring flies who pollinated the flowers, the farmer who wielded the shovel to tenderly settle the seedling. They are all parts of the gift exchange by which everyone gets what they need.

She writes about how Paulie and Ed, her farmer neighbors, planted those Saskatoon bushes – and the first season the berries were harvestable, they put out a call for a free ‘pick-your-own’ day for anyone.

Paulie and Ed had put in real labor, had invested money to buy, plant, and care for the trees. But when the berries were ready the first event was free. They broke the rules of capitalism and shifted those berries into the gift economy. Ed and Paulie’s goal was to build relationship in the community around them.

Kimmerer goes on to say that gratitude is the appropriate response to the abundance. “Well,” [Paulie] said, “They are so abundant. There’s more than enough to share and people could use a little goodness in their lives right now.” (p87-8)

Have you experienced something like this? Maybe you can recall time spent with friends when you were nourished body and soul yet needed no debit card at the end of the evening to pay for all you received. You simply received the gifts of love and nourishment. How wondrous. Gratitude is our natural response to abundance.

Reciprocity follows. Kimmerer’s book is subtitled, “Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.” Reciprocity comes in many forms, offered in return through gratitude for the gifts we have received.

Reciprocity is not to be confused with a quantified exchange of some sort. There is no obligation taken on by receiving the gift. There is an exchange, but there is no payment required. There are no receipts. Instead, it is something dynamic in which the gift keeps moving. As Kimmerer writes: All flourishing is mutual. We all get what we need in the exchange.  

There is an anecdote in Lewis Hyde’s seminal book The Gift, about an anthropologist studying a hunter-gatherer community in the South American rainforest. The researcher saw a hunter bring home a large kill, more than he and his family would be able to eat. The researcher asked the hunter about how he would store the excess. The hunter was confused by the question. He threw a feast and invited the neighboring families, and every morsel was eaten. The anthropologist assumed the smarter tactic would have been for the hunter to store the meat for himself. The hunter responded, “Store my meat? I store my meat in the belly of my brother.” (See pp 31-2 of Serviceberry)

Our congregation runs on the model of a gift economy. We are like a berry bush in full season. I’m not going to stop. We are here to be a berry bush so you all better be ready for a feast because there is no better place to store the excess of our care than in you. Where is there flourishing in your life now?

When you hear an invitation into our stewardship campaign, you are being invited to take part in caring for the berry bush, that it will continue to flourish for all of us.

Yes, we’re talking about money, but also talking about so many other things – the safety we are creating together, the awareness and education, the warmth of community, the joy and laughter, the rituals and blessings, the rest and the resistance. All of it is the berry bush and your reciprocity is yours to discern. What gift do you offer? What is your favorite berry? Where is there flourishing in your life now?

We have an insert in the order of service with that exact question. You are invited to write a response and turn it in so we can post our answers. Where is there flourishing in your life now? 

Perhaps we will bless each other in the natural abundance of our care.

In a world without end,

May it be so.