What Grounds Us?

This is the text of the reflections I offered on Sunday, November 4, 2018, to the congregation I serve in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Sort of.  I preached from notes, so this is my best reconstruction of what I'd said.  (In places I'm sure this reflects more what I wish I'd said!)

In Yarmouth, Maine the area clergy would get together once a month for lunch.  At least they did while I was there.  I really hope they still do.  Those lunches were great.

We all got together for lunch once a month – same restaurant, same table, same waiter even, and same lunch order.  Every month we all ordered the same things we’d ordered the month before, and which it was pretty much certain we were going to order the next month as well.  (The funny thing was that each month the waiter would run through the specials anyway, knowing that none of us would order them; he’d come back at the end of the meal to ask if anyone wanted desert, knowing that none of us would.)

This regular routine was broken one month when one of us – I think it was the Pastor of the Methodist church – asked for Thousand Island dressing on his salad rather than his usual Ranch.  Well, pandemonium ensued.  Chaos.  The next month someone did order desert, and someone else ordered something entirely different than their usual.  One time one of us even ordered the special!  The best thing is that for once it wasn’t the Unitarian Universalist who bucked the system and broke with tradition – I really liked their fish and chips and never saw any reason to change things up.

But I digress.

This group of area clergy met each month, and we talked about all sorts of things.  Like I said, these lunches were great.  Yet it quickly became clear to me that this wasn’t really an interfaith group – it was an ecumenical group.  The difference is that in an interfaith group people of different religions come together; in an ecumenical group, the people who gather are from one or another branch of Christianity.  I brought this up to the group once, and asked if they realized that Unitarian Universalists are not a branch of the Christian family tree.  Oh, there are Christian Unitarian Universalists, and our movement is rooted in the so-called Judeo-Christian heritage, yet we aren’t merely some kind of “Protestant lite.”  We’re our own thing, our own distinct religion, just as Buddhism, Judaism, and Wicca are different religions.

This was apparently news to them.  My predecessor had apparently not thought it overly important to stress this distinction.  But I was fresh out of Divinity School, and a recent convert to Unitarian Universalism to boot, so I thought it was an important distinction to make.  I thought it was important for this group to recognize that “Christian” was not our primary language, and that they couldn’t even assume a theistic orientation of any kind.

The Pastor of the local Baptist church was particularly … intrigued.  He peppered me with questions.  Not in an accusatory way; he was sincerely interested in understanding us.  We even stayed around for another 45 minutes or so after the lunch had ended.

To try to illustrate our tradition, I used what I call, “The Mountain Analogy.”  Using theistic language – to make things easier – the mountain analogy says that we can think of God as a mountain, and that there are many paths to the top.  Most religious traditions say that there’s really only one, true path.  We Unitarian Universalists, on the other hand, say that each of those paths has its own trajectory, and that none can be called “the only” path.  Some may be easier.  Some may be harder.  But no one path is the only right one.

I can remember the Pastor asking, “What if the path you’re on leads to a dead end?”  I told him that from our point of view (again, using theistic language) God isn’t just at the peak but is the whole mountain.  So even if you get stuck in the parking lot at the bottom of the mountain, you’re still on the mountain, and why would any God worthy of the name care if you’re at the summit or the base?

“Okay,” he asked, “what if you come to a broken bridge, or find yourself at the edge of a cliff?  What then?”  “Well,” I replied, “I’d like to think we’re smart enough to turn around and go back, and then look for another path.”

We came to a point when we had to stop our conversation – he had a wedding rehearsal to lead and I had a memorial to facilitate.  In the parking lot, on the way to our cars, he said, “I’m going to pray for you.”  He quickly added, “No!  Not in the way you’re probably thinking.  I’m going to pray for you because … that sounds really hard!”

And it can be.

It was around this time that I came up with my rather erudite explanation of our faith – “a non-creedal, covenantal, post-Christian, religious movement.”

Unitarian Universalism is a non-creedal, covenantal, post-Christian, religious movement.

Let’s “unpack that,” as we preachers like to say.

Non-creedal.  We don’t teach a truth.  We don’t hold that there is only one way of looking at the world, only one way of understanding of life. That’s us at our best.  At our worst we can be as dogmatic as anyone else.  I was talking with a UU once who said that if anyone wanted to have deep conversations about life’s meaning I should point them to him, because he’d known the truth since he was a teenager.  He was, shall we say, far from being a teenager now, so I said to him, “Hmmm … since you were a teenager.  Maybe it’s a little past time to take another look at those beliefs of yours.”  (The Trappist monk Thomas Merton once said, “If the you of five years ago doesn’t think the you of today is a heretic, you’re not growing spiritually.”  There’s also a bumper sticker I love – “If you can’t change your mind, how do you know you still have one?”)

I know that there are some people who think that we UUs do have a common creed, and they point to the Principles.  For many people, the so-called Seven Principles are a clear and concise statement of what Unitarian Universalists believe.  There’s even a little red card titled, “What Unitarian Universalists Believe,” and inside you’ll find the Principles.  They are:

1.      The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

2.      Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

3.      Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

4.      A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

5.      The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

6.      The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

7.      Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Right now there’s an effort to add an 8^th Principle to that list:  journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.

Some people cite these as the things that UUs believe in, and there is an implied belief statement in there, but what these really are is a covenant.  This list doesn’t come from some theological tome.  It’s actually from the UUA’s bylaws, and it’s preceded by the statement that the congregations of the Association “covenant to affirm and promote …”  What’s important, what’s foundational for us, is not the shared beliefs reflected in those Principles; it’s the promise we make to affirm and promote them in our lives and in the wider world.

That’s a natural segue in looking at what it means to be a covenantal tradition.  In many, if not most, religious traditions the first question you’re asked is, “What do you believe?”  If what you believe and what we believe align, then you can be a part of the group.  That’s not our first question.  Our first question is, “What kind of world do you think this should be?  How do you think we should treat one another?”  If your vision aligns with the open and inclusive vision our tradition espouses, then why shouldn’t we join together?

Our second question has to do with belief – “What do you believe that has led you to that vision?”  For some people it’s because we are all God’s children, or because Christ died for our sins, and so we’re responsible for making heaven on earth.  For others, it’s because all things have Buddha-nature, and so we are all interconnected.  Still others don’t see anything but what our senses can observe, so if we (and our planet) are going to survive, then we have to find a new way of being together.  Asking about beliefs isn’t determitive of whether we belong, it’s inquisitive so that we can learn from each other.

To go back to that Mountain Analogy – if you climb up the north face, you won’t have any idea of what it’s like over on the south face.  And if I’m climbing up the south face, I won’t know anything about the vistas you’ve seen.  So we get together from time to time, sit around a fire, and share our experiences.  Like the wiggly creatures in the story, we tell each other about where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, and what we’ve done.  In this way, all of our understandings are enriched and expanded.

So … Unitarian Universalism is a non-creedal, covenantal, post-Christian, religious movement.

Saying that we’re “post-Christian,” is not so much a theological assertion as it is a sociological one. We live in a society in which Christianity is no longer the center of the conversation.  Some people would like to change that, but for now it is true.  Scholars have long noted that American religion is essentially secular. 

In one of my classes we were taught that you can tell a lot about what is central to a society by looking at its cities.  During the middle ages, Cathedrals dominated – they were the largest, grandest, most ornate buildings.  Then, several generations on, government buildings that were the most impressive structures in a city.  Then it was the universities and other places of learning that took pride of place.  Today it’s banks and businesses, the “citadels of commerce.”  We live in a society in which religion is no longer the most important thing in that society, and it is in this sense that UUism is “post-Christian.”

Religious.  Yes.  This is a bit of a tricky one.  There are some say that Unitarian Universalism is the religion for people who don’t like organized religion.  The joke is that we’re not really organized.  Yet for many of us, it’s the word “religious” that’s the stumbling block.  That word carries some bad connotations for some folks.  Yet the word itself comes from the Latin root is “relegare,” which means to bring together, to bind together.  (Another religious word --  “worship” -- comes from the Old English weorthscipe, “to consider things of worth.”)  Ours is a religion – different and distinct from other religions, yet nonetheless a way to bring people together, and bind people together in community.

So … we’re a non-creedal, covenantal, post-Christian, religious movement.  One of our Universalist ancestor’s, when asked what Universalists stand for, said, “we don’t stand; we move!”  Some today might tweak that a bit to say, “we don’t stand; we march!”  (Just this morning I read a colleague describing Unitarian Universalists as, “not too sure about God, but absolutely certain about voting!”)

Yet, like the wiggly sea creature, just moving around isn’t enough.  Just moving around, going wherever the current takes us, passing one another going this way and that, is no way to make a community.  It’s certainly no way to make the Beloved Community we dream of (and work for).

So … what grounds us?

Less well-known than the Seven (soon, I hope, to be Eight) Principles the Association identifies Six Sources of our “living tradition:”

1.      Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;

We start by acknowledging our own lived experiences.  We’ve always said that our own discoveries about life are at least as important “scriptures” as those written thousands of years ago.  So we ground ourselves in our own direct experience of life.

2.      Words and deeds of prophetic people which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;

If we are only grounded in our own, personal, subjective experience(s), then we’re not really grounded at all.  My mentor used to say of us that, at our worst, our churches should take down their steeples and replace them with weather vanes, because we’re really just going wherever the prevailing wind happens to be blowing at the time.  To provide some balance, we also ground ourselves in the wise words and deeds of those who have come before us.

3.      Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;

We acknowledge that we are our own different and distinct religion, yet in doing so we don’t disparage any of the others.  Each represents a path up that Mountain, and there is wisdom in each.  One of the ways we ground ourselves is by seeking, and learning from, the truths others have discovered.

4.      Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;

Specifically, we look to the teachings of the Jewish and Christian traditions, because that where our earliest roots are found.  And this source doesn’t mean that we all find the word “God” and the notion of “God’s love” to be meaningful.  Rather, it asserts that it is in the teachings of these traditions about what they understand as “God” and experience as “God’s love” that we find strength.

5.      Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;

Many, if not most, of the signatories to the original Humanist Manifesto were Unitarian or Universalist clergy.  We recognize that the head is just as important as the heart in exploring issues of birth, and death, and everything in between. 

6.      Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

When we talk about affirming and promoting the principle of “the intereconnected web of all existence of which we are a part,” we do sometimes bump up against the dominant culture’s assumption that those last two words are really one.  This last source in which our religious movement is grounded reminds us that we are not apart from nature but, rather, are a part of it.  Our vision of Beloved Community is not, must not be, about human community alone.  We are part of a cosmic community, and this reality grounds us, too.

Unitarian Universalism is a non-creedal, covenantal, post-Christian, religious movement, and we are grounded in some pretty powerful places.  And because our movement is grounded, we can be grounded, too.  We, as a congregation, are not just floating out there alone, being pulled and pushed by forces beyond us.  There is something we can hold on to.  And this is true for us as individuals, too.  Our faith tradition, our Unitarian Universalism, is a religious movement that can bring us together, and bind us together, and encourage our examination of things that really matter.  And if Rick, my Baptist pastor friend, were here right now, I would tell him that it is a hard way we travel.  Yet the views are spectacular!

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Can UUs Believe Anything We Want?

This is the sermon delievered on Sunday, September 13th, 2015 at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church - Unitarian Universalist.  You can listen to a podcast if you prefer.

I love that story we heard earlier ["A Small Jar Called Freedom" from the book What if Nobody Forgave?], and I love the image of creation being something of a kitchen experiment.  There’s a whimsical mischievousness in the God of that story, and the idea of a playfulness built into our very existence.  And, of course, there’s that freedom … that freedom that’s liberally sprinkled into the mix … the freedom to think for ourselves, and make choices for ourselves, and to act on the choices we make.  All of our choices have consequences, of course – and those we often don’t have any choice about – yet still we remain free to choose for ourselves.

A lot of people ask if we Unitarian Universalists are free to believe anything we want.  And, actually, a lot of Unitarian Universalists say that we can believe anything we want.  We are, after all, a “free faith.”   We don’t demand adherence to a dogma; we don’t have a catechism to memorize; and it’s pretty darned hard to be a UU heretic.  (Although, thank goodness, it is possible.)

Yet I don’t think our faith does allow us to believe just anything we might want to.  Because we all need something to ground our lives on and in.  We all need something to hold on to and something that can hold on to us when times are hard.  And as the great Unitarian religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs taught us – in a reading that’s in the back of the hymnal (#657) – not all beliefs are equal in their effect upon us.  It matters what we believe, as she said.

Many UUs lift up the so-called “seven principles” when asked about what it is we believe.  These well-known words actually come from the bylaws of our Association, yet it’s no dry text.  There’s a copy on the insert, and in a moment I’m going to invite each of us to read these words together.  The first line of each section is the formal and official words of this covenant, so if you’re feeling formal and official you should read those.  The second has the principles put into child-friendly language (our kids here know them as the “rainbow chalice” which is why there’s a color noted after each one).  If you’re feeling kid-like, then, please read those italicized words.  And while we read, Leia will light the candles of our rainbow chalice.

As Unitarian Universalists we covenant to affirm and promote:

·         The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

o   respect the inherent worth & dignity of every person [red]

·         Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

o   offer fair and kind treatment to others [orange]

·         Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

o   yearn to learn throughout life [yellow]

·         A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

o   grow in our ongoing search for truth and meaning [green]

·         The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

o   believe in our ideas and act on them [blue]

·         The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

o   insist on peace, freedom and justice for all [indigo]

·         Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

o   value our interdependence with all living things—the web of life [violet]

I’m the first to point out that this is not a statement of beliefs; it’s not a creed.  It’s a covenant statement, promises that our congregations make to one another in the coming-together that creates the UUA, like the covenant we have with each other that we read earlier.  And even if it were a creed statement, I’ve heard people say that they are so general that they don’t really mean much of anything – pretty much anybody of good will would agree with them.

Let’s just take a look at the first one, though:  we UUs covenant with one another to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  Every person – not just the ones who think the way we do, or look the way we do, or vote the way we do.  Every person – not just good people, or successful people, or happy people; not just liberal people, or people who’ve had their consciousness raised about racism and hetero-sexism and transphobia.  We Unitarian Universalists affirm a principle that’s based on the belief that every person … each and every person who is, was, or ever will be … every person without exceptions … absolutely every person has inherent worth and dignity.  And “inherent” means that we’re born with it, don’t have to do anything to earn it, can’t do anything to lose it, and, according to the dictionary, this worth and dignity is, “permanent, essential, [and a] characteristic attribute” of every person on the planet.

That’s definitely not something everyone would agree with, nor is it so general as to have no meaning.  It’s incredibly specific … and demanding.  From the playground to geopolitics, affirming and promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person is hard work.  It’s hard to remember it when people are being mean to us, or we watch them being mean to each other; it’s hard to remind other people about it when it seems that everyone else thinks these other people are bad, or don’t belong here, or are just trying to cause trouble.  Yet even in these situations – especially in these situations – our faith calls on us to both remember and to act from the awareness that each and every person has worth, has value … just because they are a person. This means that we have to work for justice; that we have to stand up for what is right; that we have to stand with those people others would push aside and ignore.

It also means – and for some of us, maybe a lot of us, this can be even harder – our faith’s assertion that every person has inherent worth and dignity means us too.  It can be hard to remember that when we’re feeling not too good about ourselves.  When we’ve done something wrong, or let somebody down, or not performed up to our potential, or made a mistake that hurt someone else … even then we need to remember that we have worth and that it’s inherent worth, which means that we don’t have to do anything to deserve it and nothing we can do – no matter how embarrassing or regrettable – can take it away.

That’s a belief we can hold on to and that can hold on to us in the hard times.  That’s a belief that can help us make those choices we’re free to make, because it gives us a foundation on which to make them.  We UUs are called by our faith to wrestle with this foundational belief.  Each of the other Principles is as equally deep and demanding.

Now … I do want to say something that ties all of this into Balloon Sunday.  Here goes:  our Unitarian Universalist Principles – the core concepts on which our faith is built and which makes demands of us because we’re UU – these Principles are kind of like balloons.  When you see a hot air balloon it’s kind of hard not to look up, isn’t it?  Our Principles help us to keep looking up so that we don’t get so trapped in the day-to-day details of our lives that we forget the big picture.

And like balloons – like these balloons – they’re really pretty when we hold them down here by our chests.  They have that, I don’t know, balloon smell; and the light shines off of them; and their colors are so bright.  But that’s really not what balloons are for.  Balloons are meant to be aloft so that they can be seen, so that they can share their beauty, and so that others can be cheered by them.  Our Principles are like that, too.  That’s what the “promote” part of “affirm and promote” means.  We’re called on to do more than simply admire the beauty of our Principles, we’re called to put them into action, to show others how they make the world more fair, and just, and, well, beautiful and loving.

We believe these things because we’re UUs, and we’re UUs because we believe these things.

Pax tecum,

RevWik