Do We Have Enough Love?

Rev. Douglas Taylor

2-15-26

Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/RKg38pB8EKw

“Let your days be the evidence of a heart on fire,” artist and activist Danielle Balfour tells us from our Opening Words this morning. ‘Your days,’ she says specifically. Not something vague like your ‘thoughts and prayers,’ and not something general like ‘your whole life’ – your days – today, even. “Let your days be the evidence of a heart on fire.” In another piece she writes, “What do I do with all of this terrible news?” And she gives a very similar answer: “I will let it inflate my capacity to love.”

Balfour’s message of engagement, of loving your neighbor, of caring about what is going on to people around you and not growing numb in the face of harm and tragedy, … it is a key tenet of liberal theology. As we say now about our theology as Unitarian Universalists: “Love is at the center,” but it should be more than a slogan, yes? How does that look today? Are your days evidence of that love?

I mentioned in my description of today’s service that I’m going to talk about a theologian, but in doing so, I want us to remain grounded and connected to this moment we are living in. There are terrible things happening around us and among us today – does our faith have what we need to see us through? Is our theology strong enough to oppose Fascism, to spur us to rebuke oppression? Is liberal religion up to the task we have before us?

Or, let me frame this from a contemporary artist. Grandson is a modern hip hop and rock musician. He has a song from 2020 called “Dirty” that I discovered about a year ago which frankly inspired this whole sermon. The chorus has a line that led to my title; he sings “Do you have enough love in your heart to go and get your hands dirty?” “Do you love your neighbor?” he asks, “Is it in your nature? Do you love a sunset? Aren’t you fed up yet?” The song is a call for getting active in the face of apathy. Sure, we can say ‘Love is at the center,’ but do you have enough love in your heart to go and get your hands dirty? 

We have good historical precedent to answer yes. Unitarian Universalism has a proud lineage of resisting tyranny and fascism. Of revealing hope, of holding out a promise to treat all people – particularly the marginalized and the vulnerable – as beloved and precious. Unitarian Universalism does have a potent message to offer in face of rising tyranny.

And … sometimes our liberal theology lets us off the hook; sometimes it allows us to misconstrue freedom as ‘personal freedom;’ sometimes it shields us from experiencing the discomforts of being complicit and even culpable. We are sometimes accused of being soft on sin, accommodating to evil, tolerant of atrocities, enamored with our own comforts because we say God loves everybody and we all have inherent worth and dignity – even the worst among us. Who am I to judge?

In the early 1900’s Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams asked if our theology was strong enough to oppose Fascism. He pushed us to dig deep into our beliefs and values, to check our mettle against the needs of the time. In his critique, he did uncover an affirmative answer, though he did caution us to be wary of the diversions and perversions so readily available among us.

James Luther Adams was a liberal theologian and ethicist from the 20th century. In the 1920s he graduated seminary and became a Unitarian minister in MA for roughly a dozen years. In the late 1930’s he became a professor at Meadville Lombard Theological School, my alma mater. Almost 20 years later he moved back east and joined the faculty at Harvard teaching Christian Ethics. He wrote several books and essays. He had died a few years before I entered seminary, but his legacy still loomed throughout the school and throughout my reading lists.

In the summer of 1941, when the United States was still playing isolationist to the war in Europe, Adams warned that liberal theology was at risk of being coopted by the culture of middle-class values – namely the value of ‘respectability.’ We were in danger of losing our radical edge in favor of being respectable. He said this as the keynote speaker for a prestigious lecture among Unitarians called the Berry Street Address.

He warned, back then in the 40’s, that we were in danger of losing a central element of our theology that called us to stay fresh, to allow change to overtake us, to be so moved as to make a complete change – to allow for religious conversion. This was not only an argument for being radical in the realms of justice and social change – but of religious and spiritual change as well. He warned us that in over-valuing respectability, we undercut an important aspect of our theological heritage.

I would say when we shift from radical to respectable, we soon become irrelevant. And I am grateful for the radical movements of the 60’s which brought many of our Unitarian Universalist communities back into relevance. And … we’ve been at risk of becoming respectable again in recent years. I echo the concern Adams raised nearly a century ago on this point. And I’ll echo Grandson’s question: “Do you have enough love in your heart to go and get your hands dirty?” Do you have enough love at the center to take risks for the vulnerable, to protect the marginalized, to decenter your comfort and get your hands dirty? Are you willing to grow?

One aspect of what is changing among us, I think, is a shift along the lines of theology from strongly liberal to fiercely liberation. By this I mean: Where Liberal Theology traditionally focuses on personal autonomy and agency, intellectual freedom, and the use of reason; Liberation Theology emphasizes communal freedom, prioritizing the experiences of the marginalized, and a struggle against systems of oppression. My theology leans strongly toward liberal, but my preaching in recent years has become more decidedly liberation. 

I have been watching this theological shift happening among us (and within me) for a while, honoring that both liberal and liberation theologies are alive and vibrant among us in our UU communities right now. And I wonder if the dynamic is actually less about the labels of liberal and liberation, and more about this point of shifting out of being respectable and back toward our heritage of being theologically radical.

One particular essay James Luther Adams wrote that has remained a gravitational center among us is a list of five qualities at the heart of Religious Liberalism. https://www.uua.org/lifespan/curricula/wholeness/workshop1/167560.shtml He called them the Five Smooth Stones – a reference to the story of David and Goliath in Hebrew Scripture. I suspect they remain impactful by the fact that they work for both liberal and liberation thought – although written from the perspective of a liberal theologian.

Hear the list Adams made of these five theological qualities: As a liberal religious community we affirm that we are always learning; that there is always more truth unfolding in our understanding.  We see that being together matters, relationships are more important than doctrine. We further state that how we are together – how we are in consensual relationship – also matters.  We are committed to the notion that to be good we must do good.  And finally, we are always hopeful. (For more on the Five Smooth Stones, see this sermon I delivered in 2012 https://douglastaylor.org/2012/05/27/five-stones/) These five points are not a theology of personal freedom, as sometimes happens among us. Instead Adams calls for a communal theology that carries us all.

This is a solid articulation of our theological ground as religious liberals, a statement of how we are human in community together – theologically. And it is that last piece, the fifth point, that will occasionally derail us. ‘We are always hopeful.’

It can be naive. We Unitarian Universalists can allow our optimistic hopefulness to blind us to the depth of our complicity with what is causing harm in the world. But that is something Adams experienced and cautioned against.

Allow me to share the full text from Adams on this fifth point he made about our optimistic hope.

“Liberalism holds that the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism. This view does not necessarily involve immediate optimism. In our century we have seen the rebarbarization of the masses, we have witnessed a widespread dissolution of values, and we have seen the appearance of great collective demonries. Progress is now seen not to take place through inheritance; each generation must anew win insight into the ambiguous nature of human existence and must give new relevance to moral and spiritual values.”           (From J. L. Adams, “Guiding Principles for a Free Faith,” in On Being Human Religiously, 1976)

It is worth noting that Adams spent time in Germany during the mid-1930’s with friends like Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer who were actively resisting the rise of Nazism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Luther_Adams He was well aware of our human capacity for cruelty and brutality. When he made a theological claim that we have cause for hope – he was saying we have the resources to effect positive change. We have the resources and need to use them.

To augment this point from other quarters, recall that Helen Keller said “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” Or as MLK said “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Or remember Anne Frank who wrote “I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”

Our hope is not encased in denial or shielded by blinders. It is a full-throated hope in the face of trouble. When I was in Minneapolis protesting against ICE last month, I learned several street songs and protest chants. I’ve kept my ears open as I learn more since returned home. And sometimes these songs are angry and profanity-laden. Sometimes they are defiant and boisterous. And sometimes they are calm and hopeful:

Hold on – by Heidi Wilson

Hold on, hold on

my dear ones here comes the dawn.

‘Here comes the dawn,’ they are singing throughout these recent weeks as things have been terrible.                       …my dear ones here comes the dawn.

The hope they are singing is a companion to the clear-eyed awareness of injustice. James Luther Adams is far from the only person reminding us that our liberal religious commitment to an optimistic hope is not soft or naïve. It is instead a power that spurs us to move closer to the trouble we see. It is a willingness to get our hands dirty because we know our love must show up in the streets, must move alongside the suffering, must companion the vulnerable and share the risk they face.

We are called, because of this hope, because of this love at our center, to go and get our hands dirty. We are called by this love to rise up against hate and get a little messy. Our hope is in recognizing evil, naming it and rebuking it. Our hope is in the clarity of our love.

Friends, our theology does not call us to be among the respected classes. We are not called to whisper sweet platitudes of God’s love to the oppressors. Instead, we are called to remember that our love is radical. Our faith calls us to grow. Our faith calls us to build authentic relationships. Our faith calls us to build just and loving communities. Our faith calls us get out among people in need and get our hands dirty, to let our days be the evidence of our hearts on fire. Our faith calls us to remain hopeful, to choose love, to not hide from evil, but to face it clear-eyed.

To rise, to heal, to grow, to love.

In a world without end,

May it be so.