March 23, 2025: “Love Blooms Here!”

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

Today, we kick-off our annual Pledge Drive to fund our next year of ministry together! In this time when so much feels uncertain, and so many of our values and communities are on the line, our commitment to UUCB creates a much-needed beacon for love and justice in our community and our state. Let’s celebrate who and what we can be together!

View the video archive of this service here:

Sermon Transcript

03.23.25 Love Blooms Here

UU Church of Bloomington, IN

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

SERMON “Love Blooms Here”

Welcome to the 2025-2026 Pledge Drive Campaign!

Every year in the spring, we hold our annual pledge drive. This is a time when all of our members renew their membership by filling out their pledge card and making a commitment to support this congregation for the next fiscal year. The financial pledges of our members and friends account for nearly 85% of our operating budget - so this support is absolutely essential to everything we do.

Now, there are a few things I want to say about membership and pledging right off the top. And some of this is because I am your new minister, and this is our first time doing a pledge drive together.

First, membership is a partnership. As members, each of us is agreeing to join with each other to nurture this congregation and invest in its ministry. The vast majority of our pledges come from members. However, we also have a number of friends of the congregation. These are folks who want to to make a financial gift to the congregation, but for various reasons do not wish to be - or are not ready yet - to be members. We welcome these pledges are and grateful to everyone who supports this church.

Making an annual financial pledge is a part of being a member - and so the annual pledge drive is the time when individuals and families renew their membership with the congregation.

Now, while pledging is a responsibility of membership – it is not optional, I want to be clear that there are times in many people’s lives – I have had them myself – where just making ends meet is difficult; sometimes impossible. I want to be clear that your needs, your family’s needs come first. And on every pledge card is a box to let us know if you need a financial waiver this year. If you need that waiver, it is okay. We got you. One’s ability to give is not a requirement for membership - but letting us know that “You are In!” and a partner in this ministry by filling out and returning your pledge card is a part of renewing your membership.

Also know that all pledges – at any amount matters, is needed, and makes a difference. No pledge is too small when it comes from that place of generosity, for it is only when each of us gives as generously as we can from what we have that we make this ministry and community possible. More than this, when we each do our part – we make this congregation bloom with love, with care, with commitment and investment. We all have a role to play in making this community strong – and it is amazing what we create in this place together, each bringing our gifts – of time, of care, and of financial support.

And friends, this community – this congregation – our Unitarian Universalist faith matters. And it needs our support.

I’ll speak plainly. We are in dangerous times. So many things we have taken for granted are being threatened, undermined and dismantled.

Our fundamental, constitutional right to free speech is under attack.

We witness this as college students are being investigated, arrested, moved across state lines and jailed, having their visas revoked, and potentially deported all for using their constitutionally protected right to free speech.

We witness this through the chilling acts of censorship being carried out by the Federal government. According to the New York Times, there is now a growing list of words that are to be avoided, limited or outright banned on government websites and communication. In response, across the country, agencies, organizations, scientists, researchers, governmental bodies are scrubbing their websites, their grants, their data of specific words like diversity, climate change, Black, female, woman, inclusion, transgender, equity, indigenous community, racial justice, racism, LGBTQ, disability, disabilities, gender, marginalized, privilege, underrepresented, Native American, mental health – the list goes on and on.

We are witnessing the loss of free speech in the attacks against universities – taking away funding and investigating colleges under the guise of combatting anti-semitism.
To be clear antisemitism is dangerous and it is on the rise. And so are other forms of hate – and the message and intention of these investigations is not about creating positive diverse and inclusive environments for all students - rather it is a tactic of suppression – suppressing speech, free expression and criticism of the Presidential administration. And as we have witnessed at Columbia University – where the University has agreed to review curriculum, increase campus law enforcement and crack down and punish students for free speech and free assembly – these tactics are being used to force universities to be complicit in the ideological and authoritarian goals of the administration.

At the same time, before our very eyes, we are witnessing the shredding of the Rule of Law and the breakdown of the separation of powers which are cornerstones of any democracy. The rule of law means everyone is equal under the law and that no one – not even the President is allowed to break laws. And the separation of powers means that the President, Congress and the Courts each have jurisdiction over separate areas. This is critical to preventing the concentration of power in one branch and creates a system of checks and balances that is a guard against authoritarianism.

We witness the Rule of Law and separation of powers breaking down as the President ignores court orders and deports people without fundamental due process to prisons in other countries as the Trump administration did by sending hundreds of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador and refusing to provide details of these people. This is a form of disappearing people.

And we see it as entire agencies – critical to the lives of so many people, especially the most vulnerable – from Social Security and Medicaid to USAID and the Department of Education (with the critical support they provide to rural schools, low income schools, and student with disabilities) – being dismantled or defunded without actions of Congress which established and funds these departments.

The courts are trying to hold the line in many cases, but the willingness of the administration to defy the courts, which they have done is some cases, and the outright intimidation of lawyers and law firms is a direct threat to the system on which our freedom and democracy is based.

These are dangerous times. I don’t think it is valuable to sugar-coat or ignore it.

And in this moment, we must understand the power and the importance of community and specifically, our religious community. For we are not funded by the government; nor dependent on any government funding. And our separation is protected by the constitution – a separation we must valiantly cherish and defend.

And our religious tradition is clear that we are committed to justice, to equity, to diversity, to the inherent dignity and worthiness of each and every person – Black, white, Asian, Latino, Trans, Gay, Bi, man, woman, immigrant, undocumented, incarcerated, homeless, disabled, rich, poor – everyone.

This is a community that holds love at the center – and it matters that we invest in our community as a place not of just resistance and freedom, but as a place of love – where community and compassion are nurtured. Where, in the midst of messages of fear and division and intimidation – we create hope, strength, joy and love – where we nurture these in our lives, in the ways we gather, and that we nurture them for our children and surround them and each other in this love and care.

This is a community that holds love at the center. What does it mean to hold love at the center? This is the image created to show our UU Values with Love as the center and from Love emanates – Justice, Equity, Pluralism (that is just another word for Diversity and Inclusion), Interdependence (that means we belong to each other), Generosity (that is the spirit with which we meet our neighbors, this earth, and our commitments to each other), and Transformation (that means we know another world is possible and we seek to nurture it here every week, and in our lives and families every day).

I can’t know what is ahead. But I know that this community will be a source of strength, of care, of resilience, of courage, of love, of power and of justice for all of us. And when love blooms here, it is a beacon for what is good and just and beautiful in this world.

Now more than ever, our community needs to be strong. And your support – our shared support from each of us as members, friends and supporters of this community is essential to keeping us strong.

We all have a role to play in nurturing the love and justice that lives in this community. As your minister, I am in! I have made my pledge!

And I support the key goals of this campaign – to be more just employers to our staff, to make increases in staff hours and program support for our growing program, and to strengthen our support of our wider denomination, the UUA, because they are supporting all of our congregations in this precarious moment. This is why I increased my pledge by 25%.

I ask that each of you pick up your pledge packet and pledge card after the service. Consider thoughtfully and generously how and what you are able to pledge to support this congregation financially for the next year. Let us all be in together – to strengthen each other and to strengthen this community of freedom and courage, love and justice.

May it be so.

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