This Is My Song: An Anthem of Dreams for My Country
Rev. Lori’s sermon from Sunday, November 23rd, 2025
I am a church kid and have loved hymns and sacred music all my life. I have always understood that the hymns teach us theology—or whatever word I understood early on. The organ and choir always fed me deeply. One song that stuck with me, and always brought tears to my eyes, was This Is My Song. I was born and raised a United Church of Christ kid, but the words of This Is My Song really captured my spirituality and perhaps were preparing me for the UU identity that was clearly in my bones. Or perhaps the Spirit was preparing me for another time—for this time. And preparing all UUs for another moment in time. This time.
There are moments in human history when words become dangerous. Moments when oppressive powers try to control what can be spoken, printed, or even imagined. Moments when truth has to find another way to travel—quietly, courageously, and often through unexpected pathways.
In 1899, Finland found itself in one of those moments.
The Russian Empire, fearful of rising Finnish identity, issued harsh restrictions: limiting Finnish autonomy, censoring newspapers, threatening violent actions against those who would publicly challenge them, even attempting to suppress the Finnish language. The goal was clear: silence the people long enough and perhaps they would forget who they were. But they did not.
Finlandia was composed in 1899 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius at a moment when Finland was struggling under the tightening grip of the Russian Empire. For centuries, Finland had been passed between larger powers, but in the late 19th century, a strong movement toward Finnish cultural identity was growing—through literature, language, and the arts. This blossoming was known as the “National Awakening.”
And into this moment stepped Jean Sibelius, a composer who understood that music has a way of saying what censors cannot erase. He contributed to a set of performances called the Press Celebrations—ostensibly a harmless pageant of Finnish history, but in truth an act of quiet rebellion. A gathering where people came to sit together, listen together, and recognize in one another the enduring spirit of their country.
From this moment came the music we now know as Finlandia. It did not initially have words…but the underlying meaning was known. And in the playing of it, and in listening to it collectively, comfort and solidarity and strength were found.
Let’s linger for a moment on what the Finnish people did: They gathered publicly to resist erasure—not through protest signs or fiery speeches, but through music. They dared to let beauty speak when truth was forbidden.
Jean Sibelius composed Finlandia as part of a public celebration that was outwardly harmless but quietly defiant. Its final hymn-like section became a prayer for the people: a longing for dignity, for peace, and for the freedom to determine their own future. It soon grew into a cherished symbol of national courage.
And we have those anthems that mark all of our great movements, don’t we?
Think of the Civil Rights Movement: “Wade in the Water,” “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” “We Shall Overcome.” These were not just songs; they were spiritual armor.
Think of anti-war movements, labor movements, suffrage movements—everywhere people have sought justice, they have also sung.
Why?
Because music helps us say what is too large or too fragile or too dangerous to put in plain speech.
Because music ties us to one another when fear would separate us.
Because music turns individual longing into collective resolve.
Because we remember music in ways that don’t rely on reason or even language.
And it sticks.
When I was a hospice chaplain, I would visit nursing homes and memory units. Some people could no longer communicate, didn’t have access to their speech centers, couldn’t even manage the basic activities of daily living. But the first time I sang a Christmas song—by chance—many voices rose up to join me. One of the most beautiful and joyful experiences I remember. Music touches us in places we don’t even know. We connect to it from pathways that defy reason or intellect. That is why it is such an important part of church. It comes from Spirit, truly, and calls all of us into it for Spirit’s sake.
When Anne asked me to consider a service about this music, I jumped at the chance because I love this hymn. When I sat down to research it, I realized how plainly that request was timely and poignant for this moment, and how the Spirit is moving in through this request, through our hymnal, through Paul’s fingers and feet, through those pipes, through Ellie and our choir, and through all of you.
This song has so much to say to us right now. If we think about its history—and we take a breath—it becomes clear. Take a breath, actually.
Can you imagine what it looks like to have regimes trying to silence alternative voices by threatening violence or hanging people for sedition, despite the very governing documents of a country protecting—if not inviting, if not begging—for alternative viewpoints to be expressed so all people might be represented? Can you imagine that?
Could you imagine what it might look like to take away a people’s identity by restricting organizations’ and institutions’ ability to incorporate inclusive language for oppressed people? To limit organizations from creating a kinder, more just society that reflects the very principles upon which a country is based? To change a country’s identity and silence voices that would lift people up? Can you imagine that?
Could you imagine what the Finns went through when their press was censored by imagining reporters being expelled from their halls of government and war for refusing to communicate messages that are untrue? Can you imagine that?
Perhaps we can imagine what this looked like for them. Sibelius made music to feed them and remind them who they were—and he feeds us still.
This community and our tradition curated a way for us to remember, and to join our voices collectively, so that we remember that these things happen. That felt a little more abstract a year and a half ago. Perhaps. And by so doing, our tradition gave us something to feed us, draw us together, remind us of who we are and what we are called to do.
Ministers of music and church leaders have chosen music for our songbooks and collective singing that represents our core beliefs—beliefs that came out of our experiences in history and reflect our commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of all people, democratic process, and freedom of conscience. Music reinforces our welcome to all. It reinforces our belief that the path toward inclusion is based on democratic principles. It reminds us that honoring all parts of creation is a spiritual mandate. Many of our hymns also represent anthems of resistance—songs of people who resisted and people who were nearly erased by those whose privilege made them unwilling to see difference.
Music, therefore, is a teacher of our theology—in our case, our principles. We are universalists; we would be One. It reminds us—sets into our musical memory—our belief in universal salvation, that all are worthy and sacred, and thus we support and advocate for a world where everyone is safe, cared for, respected, and loved. Where every voice can be raised and heard. Our hymns call us to remember who we are, and that we rise to the occasions.
When that isn’t happening, our principles and our polity and our committees and associations have put in place methods and systems to address it. It is in our preaching resources, for instance, that November 20 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, with an invitation to share that and weave it into our service. Our faith charges us to do it in whatever way we can—individually and collectively. If by no other means, to share that fact while we are still able to do so in words. But by the means Finlandia has given us…let’s remember every time we sing that song that we sing it for the transgendered—especially if we cannot say it in words.
Music and art are strong and vibrant ways that we join together to do just that.
And it is a reminder that beauty is not a luxury; it is a source of strength. It is a reminder that art is not decoration; it is one of the ways we survive. It is a reminder that the human spirit, when pressed down, rises in harmonies as well as in protest. It is, in fact, a protest in and of itself.
It is an absolutely beautiful thing—the emergence of School Street Coffee House. The School Street Coffee House began out of a dream to support both artists and the LGBTQ community by creating a safe space for chemical-free expression of art. Inclusivity, safe space, raising up voices—UUs are all about that. What a beautiful way to incarnate our principles in this modern day. To make our faith alive in a moment when it is so needed.
Providing space to create new anthems and words that capture our principles and values—especially in these times, in this time—becomes necessary in even more profound ways. School Street Coffee House puts our beacon out, lifts our chalice, brings Finlandia alive in this moment. And it makes space for others to join in forming an identity with us and for us—for the next generation to remember. Supporting School Street Coffee House is just one way of modernizing and continuing this resistance. I am proud and delighted by it.
The beautiful music of Finlandia and the absolutely beautiful meaning of the words that reflect our UU principles are more than both of those things.
It is about the human insistence on being fully alive, fully seen, fully heard.
That is the gift this specific hymn gives us—as does music in general. An invitation to be fully alive, seen, and heard.
Without protest signs or letter-writing campaigns, music insists on:
The right of a people to define themselves.
The right of individuals to hold their deepest truths without fear.
The right to claim dignity even when it is denied.
That is why making safe space for the creation and production of music and art is such a powerful gift to the world.
I’m getting down to my list—the four particular calls I believe exist in Finlandia:
Finlandia calls us to listen—to the stories behind the art we sing and hear. To remember that our hymns and music come from real people, real history, real courage, real stories. When we support and encourage art, we see and connect with people. So that is a call for us: LISTEN—translate, and see ourselves in the story.
It calls us to resist—not always with confrontation, but often with creativity. In a world where people still face censorship, erasure, and oppression of identity, we can be the ones who make space, amplify voices, and protect the dignity of those whose truth is threatened. RESIST.
It calls us to hope—not naïve optimism, but the sturdy, persistent hope that has carried so many before us. The kind of hope that sings, even quietly, until dawn comes. HOPE.
And finally, Finlandia calls us to sing together—in joy. Keep joy alive for ourselves and each other. That is indeed a sacred and profound method of resistance. JOY.
Finlandia invites us to add our voices to the long human song of resistance and resilience.
When we sing this melody—as a prayer, a longing, or a promise—we are declaring that peace is possible. We are declaring that truth cannot be silenced forever. We are declaring that beauty and justice belong together.
We enter this melody as participants in its legacy. We let its history become part of our own. We become, in our way, another verse of the same enduring human song.
May Finlandia strengthen our courage. May it open our hearts. May it remind us that the work of peace is both delicate and powerful—
and that each of us has a voice worth adding to the chorus.
Sing it loud and proud, my friends, and sing it with joy in your hearts!
And may it always be so.