Our Cornerstone
Our Cornerstone
A sermon about our Unitarian Universalist theologies
August 27, 2006
Rev. Douglas Taylor
UUCB
I do believe one of these days I am going to get myself into trouble. It is one of the longest and dearest-held principles among Unitarian Universalists that we are non-creedal. We do not have a confession or statement of faith, no doctrine or creed that all must sign and adhere to before being considered a true Unitarian Universalist. You don’t need to agree to or abide by a belief statement written hundreds or thousands of years ago to be here. We are proudly non-creedal. A point, I hasten to add, I personally have no wish to undermine. But I do believe that one of these days I am going to get myself in trouble because I keep poking at that and saying things like, “Actually we do have a common belief that binds us as one faith.”
Last week, in preaching about our Common Story, I shared with you a reading from Unitarian Universalist minister and seminary professor, David Bumbaugh: (from Unitarian Universalism a narrative history, 2000), which began with the sentence, “Unitarian Universalism is a peculiar religious tradition in that what binds it is not so much a shared theology, or even a shared response to the experience of the sacred, as it is a shared history.” I then went on to agree with Bumbaugh saying that any rational onlooker would be flummoxed in trying to find the common element in the diverse list of theological stances taken in the name of Unitarian Universalism. “Indeed” I had said last week, “it would seem we have, as Bumbaugh contends, a shared history rather than a shared theology as Unitarian Universalists.”
And now, please allow me to appear to contradict myself. We actually do have a shared theology that binds us as one faith. I know, I know! We are non-creedal, we do not have a doctrine around which we all must adhere, we do not have a single belief that we are compelled to hold in common. We’re all over the map, theologically speaking. Even in this congregation today, there are folks among us who find the holy in nature and in rituals and call themselves Pagans. There are others among us who believe in God and call themselves Theists and perhaps even call themselves Christian-UUs. There are those here who do not believe in God and call themselves Atheists or Religious Humanists. Then there are folks among us who don’t know how to define the holy from one day to the next if ever, and they call themselves Mystics or Agnostics or simply seekers. And within each of these are nuances that spread us quite wide. There are as many ways to approach the Holy as there are people to approach it.
And this we encourage. We have a culture that encourages each person to have his or her own personal theology rather than one that asks anyone to bend to a corporate theology. We have an adult curriculum called “Building Your Own Theology” in which participants are encouraged to craft a credo statement, an “I believe” statement. Our “Coming of Age” program for youth is modeled in much the same way. We recognize that faith is built not from doctrines, but from life. Beliefs are borne from experience. We certainly do not say, “You can believe anything you want,” rather we say, “You can believe as you must, as your conscience demands.” It is a fierce commitment to the freedom of conscience. This culture of personal theology, this loyalty to the freedom of the conscience is so strong as to make it almost a knee jerk reaction against any talk of a common theology or a shared belief among us.
But I assure you we do hold a shared belief. The enduring theological cornerstone of our evolving Unitarian Universalist faith is our radical understanding of the human condition, our doctrine of human nature. This theology of human nature is rooted in our Unitarian and Universalist forbearers from the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. It is threaded through the evolving theological positions expressed throughout our history, and it is underpinning every theological perspective witnessed among us today. Our theological cornerstone is our radical acceptance of every person as being of the same human family without segregating anyone out as saved or unsaved, clean or defiled, saint or sinner, worthy or unworthy; all we have are human beings: blessed, whole, capable of good and evil, fully part of the evolving nature of life. Unitarian Universalism proudly insists that every person has inherent worth and dignity as a basic root element of their being. Whether the source of this is due to a loving creator, freewill, evolutionary maturation, the Image of God, divine spark within, or simply the nature of all life, there is plenty of disagreement. But the effect is the same: we believe that every person has an intrinsic dignity and worth. And we have always said thus.
Roberta Finkelstein a colleague from Virginia, has said,
“We broke away from the liberal Protestant wing of American congregationalism, but the break wasn’t over what many people think. It wasn’t really over the doctrine of the trinity, though it is true that our first name, Unitarian, refers to the belief in the unity rather than the trinity of God. And it wasn’t really over the question of salvation, although our second name, Universalism, refers to the belief that a benevolent God saves all. It was really over the doctrine of human nature that we declared our independence.”
The Universalists believed in God as a loving father who will call all His children home. To claim that there is a Hell, they said, where people are eternally punish for the single sin of the first man, Adam in the Garden of Eden, is to make of God a monster. By reclaiming the goodness of God, the loving nature of the divine Creator, the Universalists also offered a profound shift in what it means to be a human being in relation to that God. Instead of being sinners in the hands of an angry God, we are children in the arms of loving Parent. Universalism rejected not only the eternal punishment of hell, but also the reason for such a punishment in the first place: the concept of original sin. Hosea Ballou, an early leader in the Universalist denomination, said that the consequences of sin are manifest in this life alone; that “hell is not a place of punishment, but a state of rebellion against God and against the unity of humans and God.” (Robinson, David The Unitarians and the Universalists, p 65) The implication here for the doctrine of human nature is that we choose to make of life a heaven or hell. This is not exactly free will as the Unitarians would see it, but it does leave in the hands of humanity the capacity to respond to the love of God by loving one another or by making of this life a hell. We hold that power, and that responsibility!
Thomas Starr King, who held credentials from both Unitarianism and Universalism long before the two denominations merged into one said, “The difference between Unitarians and Universalists is that Universalists believe God is too good to damn them while Unitarians believe they are too good to be damned.”
William Ellery Channing, the father of American Unitarianism, indeed preached a radical theology of human nature. This was a rebellion from the Calvinist theology of the day, a theology that spoke of humanity as being totally depraved and in need of God’s grace, of a humanity bound to sin and with now power by which to change the situation. Only though the grace of the all-powerful God above could a person be saved. In his sermon, Likeness to God, Channing writes, “What, then, is religion? I answer; it is not the adoration of a God with whom we share no common properties; of a distinct, foreign, separate being; but of an all-communicating parent. It recognizes and adores God, as a being whom we know through our souls, who has made man in his image, who is the perfection of our own spiritual nature, who has sympathies with us as kindred beings …” He goes on to say, “Above all, adore his unutterable goodness. But remember, that this attribute is particularly proposed to you as your model; that God calls you, both by nature and revelation, to a fellowship in his philanthropy; that he has placed you in social relations, for the very end of rendering you ministers and representatives of his benevolence…” Channing, here demonstrates how radical his Christianity was at that time, indeed it might still seem radical to most Christians today. God is a model of goodness. We are beings who do good because we have within us the image of God, who is “unutterable good.” We are not disobedient sinners, flawed creatures, depraved souls bound to sin with no good in us. We each have what Channing called the Devine Seed within. He said, “I reverence human nature too much to do it violence.”
Channing didn’t claim we did only good deeds. He saw in us the connection of God; he didn’t claim we were God. That came later, through Emerson and others after him. Channing and the other Unitarian Christians of that time were Arminians. Arminianism is the doctrinal position that denies election and original sin, and supports the doctrine of free will. It is basically anti-Calvinism, if you will. Jacob Arminius was a Dutch reformed theologian from the 1500’s who said that people could respond to divine grace. He basically said everyone could be saved. John Calvin was saying, “No, only a select few could be saved, a pre-selected few in fact.” My little dictionary of theological terms says “Many historians of doctrine see the significance of Arminianism to lie in its attempt to think through the relationship between God and humanity in personal terms.”
One could characterize it this way: Calvinists believed that every human being was born in original sin. It is like saying you begin life on a train speeding toward hell totally depraved and unredeemable, and only a few have a chance of getting off. Arminianism says you start your life on the platform and can choose which train you get on, and perhaps you can even change trains during the trip. There is no limit to the number of folks who can get a ticket for the heaven bound train.
Unitarianism’s message of the innate dignity and goodness of human beings grew from the Channing Unitarians, through the extreme individualism of the transcendentalists, through the Free Religious Association and eventually into what became the Humanist movement. In 1933 the Humanist Manifesto was written up, several of the signers were Unitarian clergy. In a sense, Humanism is a direct inheritor of Channing’s vision.
Humanism’s scandalous claim that religion had outgrown the concept of God certainly grabs the attention of most people. If, however, that were the whole story, that we would simply apply the label Atheist to this set of beliefs and leave it be; but that is not the whole story of Humanism. Indeed Humanism says more about the human condition and human nature than it ever says about God or the lack thereof. And not all Humanists are atheists, because the larger statement of Humanism says the primary focus of our attention is humanity. It says, “We are born, we live, and we die. This much we know; this much we can talk about.” Curtis Reese, Unitarian minister from 1920’s and 30’s, wrote, “The Humanist regards the universe as the given and is not likely to speculate unduly on either the beginning or the end of things cosmic.” Reese explained further “the primary concern of Humanism is human development.”
As an exemplar of Humanist thought within Unitarianism in the 1920’s Curtis Reese is one among several outstanding pioneers. I particularly liked the way he articulated the human condition.
Reese viewed humans as an organic part of nature, a result of the evolutionary process. But because humans possess self-consciousness and insight, they are not a fixed part of nature but highly plastic and flexible, with potential for development. … Because humans have self-consciousness, they tend to separate themselves from the other forms of nature, even other animals. Reese objected to such a tendency because it perpetuates a dualism of the spiritual versus the physical. (Olds, Mason American religious Humanism, p113-4)
As Unitarian Universalism evolved and grew, we recognized another perspective among us that articulated the earth as holy, and humanity to be fully part of nature. This perspective arose from the Native American spiritualities, from the environmentalists, from the feminists, and from the pagan communities. An Earth-centered perspective’s understanding of the human condition begins with an understanding of the Sacred; from there we move into an understanding of our connection as human beings to that which is sacred and our place in the universe. Starhawk says, “Earth mother, star mother, you who are called by a thousand names, May we all remember we are cells in your body and dance together.” A statement which is not that far different from that of a Indian mystic, Rabindranath Tagore, who writes, “The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.” Or the American Indian called Seattle who said, “This we know. The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.” Starhawk explores the connection of humanity with nature in the first chapter of a recent book entitled The Earth Path. She writes,
One view sees human beings a separate from and above nature. Nature exists as a resource bank that we are entitled to exploit for our own ends. …This philosophy is held by many religions, but also by both capitalists and classical Marxists. It has resulted in unprecedented destruction of ecosystems and life-support systems all over the planet. … But there is a counterpoint to this view, one often held by environmentalists and even some Pagans, that is more subtly destructive. That’s the view that human beings are somehow worse than nature, that we are a blight on the planet and she’d be better off without us. … A corrective view might arise from the understanding that we are not separate from nature but in fact are nature. (p8-9)
Many of the Pagan and other people within Unitarian Universalism who identify with an Earth-centered spirituality find their beliefs well articulated by these voices like Starhawk’s from outside our particular tradition. If I had been able to find my copy of Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon I could have offered a Pagan perspective from within Unitarian Universalism, but it was not to be. The point, however, remains, that Paganism and other Earth-centered spiritualities hold a radical perspective of our human condition based on our place in the world. When we human beings uncover our true nature we will find that we are neither a separate dominating power nor mere interloping destroyers of the good earth. We are of the earth. We are nature. And this sounds quite similar to what the Humanist Curtis Reese was saying, don’t you think?
Ours is an evolving faith. We grow as a people and who we are grows with us. We do, however, have a cornerstone theological belief from which we build all that binds us together. Is it a creed? No. Will every Unitarian Universalist agree with me that in general we have a theological cornerstone and specifically that it is our radical understanding of human dignity? No. And they need not because the cornerstone of Unitarian Universalism binds us by respect. It is more than simply agreeing to disagree, or covenanting to walk together but on different paths. Yes, there are many paths found among us.
You are probably sitting next to a Pagan, sharing a hymnal with an atheistic Humanist, entering silent meditation with a prayerful Theist, sipping coffee with Mystic, or sharing communion with Agnostic. And so too, there are UU Buddhists, and UU Jews, Deists, Panentheists, and evolutionary transcendentalists; it is confounding and perhaps disconcerting to some onlookers to see us worship together as one. Our unity is not found in a shared theology of God or the person of Jesus or Buddha, or the nature of enlightenment, salvation, or reincarnation. Our unity is not found in a shared understanding of the source of human goodness. We do, however, all hold to the general theological cornerstone of our tradition which is our theology of human nature: that all human beings have a basic worth, an essential and innate dignity. This is the ground of our trust by which we accept our significant differences. This is the foundation from which we build our covenants. This is the root of all that we are together.
In a world without end,
May it be so.
Our Common Story
Our Common Story
A sermon about our Unitarian Universalist History
August 20, 2006
Rev. Douglas Taylor
UUCB
Rev. David Bumbaugh wrote in his book
Unitarian Universalism: A Narrative History
“Unitarian Universalism is a peculiar religious tradition
in that what binds it is not so much a shared theology,
or even a shared response to the experience of the sacred,
as it is a shared history.”
Unitarian Universalism is an evolving faith. Who we are and what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist has changed over time. Many individual Unitarian Universalists tell a story of breaking away from an old set of beliefs; this rejection is perhaps an echo of the broader story of Unitarian Universalism. The pattern for our tradition began by breaking away – rejecting old ideas and practices, casting out useless and worn out creeds – breaking away, then struggling with a new identity based on a minority opinion of conscience, followed by eventually joining together with others in a community based on religious freedom, acceptance, and shared discovery. Not every person shares that pattern, not every step in our long and diverse history can be fit into that pattern of breaking away, struggling with a new identity, and eventually joining together as a community in religious freedom, acceptance, and shared discovery. But this pattern is common enough and holds largely true on almost a mythic level for Unitarian Universalist. The themes of rejecting the old, identifying as a minority, struggling to be understood, and finally finding a place of acceptance and shared freedom and encouragement, are themes that are familiar to many.
In short, ours is a chosen faith. People choose to be Unitarian Universalist. Even one such as me who comes from a long line of Universalists chooses this faith. That I am a Unitarian Universalist is not merely an accident of birth; though to be sure that played its part. That I also grew up attending a Unitarian Universalist church shaped the possibilities, but that too was not in itself the determinant in my being a Unitarian Universalist today. I made a choice to be a part of this tradition; I stepped forward and pledged myself to this faith. I had considered other options. But I saw that this faith was big enough for me to change and grow. This faith is big enough for me to evolve in my personal faith and understanding because Unitarian Universalism as a whole is an evolving faith. This means each person experiences this freedom to mature in understanding and faith on a personal level; but it also means that the whole tradition evolves over time, shifting, changing, growing, and maturing! Ours is a forward-looking religion, not shackled to the past. Our hymns speak a lot about trusting the dawning future and facing the beaconing future.
I say that not to discount our history or to proclaim it unimportant. Indeed, my sermon today is to highlight our common story, our Unitarian Universalist history, and the power which this story bequeaths to us.
Unitarian Universalism began as two separate traditions that joined together as one in 1961. Universalism as a tradition dates back 1770 in the United States (or what would in a few more years become known as the United States.) It began based on the doctrine of universalism or universal salvation: the belief that all souls would be united with God in heaven. Unitarianism as a tradition dates back through several lines, the oldest of which is over 400 years long in Transylvania, which was a region in modern Hungary. Another line is traced briefly through Poland, also during the Reformation time. A third line arises through England in the 1600’s. And the line, through which we in this room are most strongly connected, comes from the late 1700’s and early 1800’s New England Congregational tradition. Unitarianism is based on the doctrine of the unity of God rather than the trinity of God, rejecting the divinity of Christ.
A complete telling of our common story, even one that merely skims across the surface, would include an exploration of the three lines of European Unitarianism beginning over 400 years ago, more than 200year of American Universalism, nearly 200 years of American Unitarianism, and of course our current Unitarian Universalism of the past 50 years. So let me give that a try.
To begin, the oldest Unitarian tradition is from Transylvania where Francis David became the court preacher in the mid-1500s to the only ever Unitarian king in history, King John Sigismund of Transylvania, (which is now known as Romania and Hungary.) I suppose it must be admitted that about a generation before David and Sigismund, a book entitled On the Errors of the Trinity by Michael Servetus, was circulated throughout Europe, but the majority of these books were collected and destroyed and its author, Servetus, was burned at the stake in 1553. No tradition or community grew up from Servetus’ work. Which leaves the community in Transylvania with the designation of oldest tradition.
Francis David was educated as a Catholic priest, but converted to Lutheranism, then Calvinism, and finally to a form of anti-Trinitarian belief later known as Unitarianism. His rigorous commitment to truth and reason compelled him through this succession. Through a series of open religious debates, David so ably defended the Unitarian position that it persuaded the then-Catholic King Sigismund to become Unitarian. Sigismund issued what is known as The Edict of Torda, which is the first law of tolerance from that time. The Edict simply said that the people did not need to all convert to the religion of the king. Instead, it allowed that “each person maintain whatever religious faith he wishes, with old or new rituals, … just so long, however, as they bring no harm to bear on anyone at all.” This was a most remarkable decree seeing how much intolerance was on display throughout Europe. This edict allowed diverse beliefs, protected minority opinions, and kept the peace. When Sigismund died, and a new king (not in sympathy with Unitarian beliefs) took the throne, the old court preacher, David, was tolerated only so long as he advocated no innovations in doctrine or thought or practice. Francis David’s conscience, of course, could not be contained. David was committed not to a particular doctrine, but to truth and his unfolding understanding of it. He eventually died in the dungeon of Deva for the crime of heretical innovation in 1579. Unitarianism survived through that time and subsequent persecutions, plagues, famines, crusades, and the Soviet totalitarian rule that threatened all religious communities. And now there are 400-year-old Unitarian churches in Hungary.
A generation or two later, John Biddle, who has been called “the father of English Unitarianism,” was born in 1615. Biddle new the New Testament by heart in both English and Greek; and through his study and research, concluded that the doctrine of the trinity had no scriptural support. When he was 29 years old he was called before a magistrate to defend himself against the charge of heresy. He wrote a satisfactory confession of faith, was released, felt dissatisfied with his confession of faith and began writing a new essay entitled Twelve Arguments Drawn out of Scripture refuting the doctrine of the trinity. He was again taken in, imprisoned, bailed out, his trial was postponed, and he was then held under house arrest for five years – during which time he finished his Twelve Arguments. Promptly following its release it was burned by the public hangman, which may have contributed to it being run for a second printing before the end of the year. Meanwhile, Charles the 1st was executed, Oliver Cromwell took over and Biddle was released. However within three years, he was back in prison by rule of a London judge. In 1652, Cromwell issued the Act of Oblivion granting amnesty to all those accused of crime, thus freeing Biddle once more. Biddle published a catechism in which he rejected the doctrine of the trinity and the deity of Jesus. Needless to say, he was promptly imprisoned, and his books were seized and burned. After a few months, he was released and he set to work organizing a debate with a Baptist preacher focusing on the deity of Christ. When word spread of the debate, the authorities immediately arrested John Biddle. Finally Oliver Cromwell, felling pressure to deal with Biddle’s case, banished Biddle to the Scilly Isles. Undeterred, John Biddle secured his return across the channel and began meeting with his friends and supporters again. In 1660 Cromwell, who had generally been seen as tolerant in religious matters, died and Charles the 2nd was enthroned. Biddle tried to keep his non-conformist worship quiet, but he was found out, arrested, fined, and imprisoned. This time, however, he was unable to pay the fine and remained in prison for quite some time. While in prison he became ill, and died two days after he was finally released in 1662 at the age of 48. But the seed had been planted and tended. The ideas took root and the community grew.
Indeed, one of the interesting things to note is the relative lack of interaction between what was happening in England and what was happening in Transylvania. A Unitarian community in Poland flourished for a time, but eventually the community was suppressed until it ceased to exist. There were certain connections between the Transylvanian and Polish Unitarians, but the English movement knew little of either. And likewise American Unitarianism, while experiencing a few undercurrents form the English movement, developed independently from New England’s liberal Congregationalism.
It is generally agreed that American Unitarianism began with a sermon preached by William Ellery Channing in 1819. In this sermon, which Channing preached in Baltimore for the ordination of a colleague, Channing basically said, “Yes, we are Unitarians and here is what that means.” Prior to that there were a good many liberal Congregationalist who had been accused for years of being Unitarian in their beliefs. This is why we claim the presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as Unitarians, despite that fact that both served their terms well before 1819, and indeed both died in 1826 (as an interesting aside, they both died on July 4th 1826 – having been political rivals, they reconciled and maintained correspondence over the years which included discussing there differing views of Unitarianism.) But let me get back to that sermon delivered one hundred and eighty-seven years ago. Channing declare that God is one rather than three, that Jesus is fully human rather than fully divine and fully human, and that humanity has the freedom and capacity to choose between right and wrong rather than being predestined and held in the bondage of the will…radical stuff. Channing based his arguments on the authority of scripture and the use of reason. At one point in the sermon he said God had given man the capacity of reason and we would be held accountable to use it. Channing’s sermon gave the Unitarians a strong platform on which to organize and grow. The American Unitarian Association was formed six years later in 1825.
Well, before I get carried away and start on about Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, Octavious Brooks Frothingham, and Margaret Fuller from the American Unitarian tradition, let me tell you a few stories about our Universalist heritage. Universalism began as, and largely continues to be, a uniquely American religious tradition. The churches in Transylvania are not Unitarian Universalist, they are Unitarian. The churches in Canada are also Unitarian churches. In the Khasi Hills of India there is a Unitarian community. There is a rather large and indigenous Universalist church in the Philippines, which serves as the huge exception to my generality.
Universalism in America, like American Unitarianism, marks its beginnings with the preaching of a sermon. John Murray was ordained as a Methodist minister in England, converted to Universalism, was ejected from his Methodist pulpit, suffered a series of devastating personal losses, and finally decided to quit the whole business. He booked passage on a ship going to the new world, leaving behind his pains and trouble, as well as his ideas of ministry. Things did not go as he had planned. Instead of arriving in New York harbor, Murray ended up stuck on a sandbar off southern New Jersey. Murray is sent up to find provisions for the ship while it waits for the winds to change; something bound to happen within a day or two. Well, the farmer Murray meets is Thomas Potter who has built a church on his property. He says to Murray, “Are you the preacher whom God has sent to preach in my pulpit?” Murray says, “No, I’m here to get provisions for our ship stuck just off the coast.” Potter presses, and Murray admits to having been a preacher before, but now he is just a traveler whose ship will be leaving in a few days, and could he please have provisions for the crew. Potter presses again, and Murray agrees to preach in Potter’s church on Sunday IF he is still here, which is unlikely as the wind would likely change any day now. And Potter said, “The wind will not change, and your ship will not leave the sandbar until you have preached in my pulpit.” Well, you see where this is going, don’t you? The wind did not change, and Murray preached a ‘no-holds-barred’ sermon of universal salvation entitled “Give them not hell, but hope and courage.” Murray went on to found a church in Gloucester, MA and helped create the denomination that at one point was reported to have been the sixth largest denomination in the United States.
And I want to tell you about Hosea Ballou and Clarence Skinner, Clara Barton, and James Luther Adams, and Humanist movement, and the Social Gospel movement, and the influence of German Higher Biblical Criticism on our Children’s Religious Education curriculum, and the merger of the Unitarians and the Universalists in 1961. But all those stories must wait for another day. For now I must leave with just one story, our common story; the story of our evolving faith that binds us together as a people.
As David Bumbaugh wrote in the opening line of our reading this morning (from Unitarian Universalism a narrative history, 2000), “Unitarian Universalism is a peculiar religious tradition in that what binds it is not so much a shared theology, or even a shared response to the experience of the sacred, as it is a shared history.” The diverse list of theological stances taken in the name of Unitarianism, Universalism, and Unitarian Universalism over the years leaves any rational onlooker flummoxed as to what might be the common element. Indeed it would seem there is, as Bumbaugh contends, no shared theology among us. Rather we have a history, a common story, which speaks of a journey. Our story is a journey with a breaking away from the old, a struggle toward deeper understanding even though that understanding be a minority view, and finally an arrival home in a faith community of acceptance and shared discovery such as the one you now find yourself.
To be a Unitarian Universalist is the share in our common story. Welcome home.
In a world without end, may it be so.
In Defense of Imbalance
In Defense of Imbalance
5-7-06
Douglas Taylor
The seventh anniversary of my ordination will be in about a month and a half. It is not an occasion for parties or special commemoration, but it does serve as a good time for me to recall the event and to remind myself what happened. One of the elements of a ceremony such as that is the “Charge to the Minister.” This is usually done by a colleague some what familiar to the one being ordained. In my case it was the Reverend Frances Manly, who is currently serving the UU congregation in Niagara Falls.
For the Charge, Frances decided against the standard speech format and instead gave me four rocks in a soft leather bag. Each rock represented an aspect of my self, of my gifts, which she charged me to remember. The first rock was a smooth red and green stone. As she put it in my hand she said, “This represents the masculine and feminine aspects of you which seem to me to be in pretty good balance. That is rare among most people and rather useful in your chosen calling.” The second stone was a smooth dark blue stone with thin threads of white throughout. “This,” she said as she placed it in my hand, “represents the pain and heartache you’ve had in your life. Though difficult, it provides you with a great depth of compassion. Notice also that the darkness is shot through with light. Remember that life is also balanced this way.” The third one was a sparkling and shining chunk of rock. She said it was to honor my saving sense of humor. The fourth rock was a contrast to the third in that is was a round plain rock; an unbroken geode which she placed in my hand with the admonishment that I was to crack it open to see the dazzling crystals within only if I really needed the reminder that there is a dazzling and hidden part within me as well.
That was the charge I was given as a new minister, four rocks: remember to be in balance and don’t forget that with all the sparkle and humor on the outside that there is more that remains hidden. Which is another way of saying, “balance.” So, in short – my charge was (and still is) to stay in balance. I take this charge seriously.
After rigorous attempts to attain enlightenment through austerity and complete self-denial Siddhartha eventually adopted what is known as the Middle Way, a moderate approach to spiritual enlightenment. Buddhism, the Middle Way, commends its adherents to be in balance. Jesus is often shown practicing and advocating a sensible moderation. When invited to a wedding, for example, he ate and drank with the other guests incurring the accusation of being a glutton. Jesus put forth a common-sense approach of moderation compared with the rigid structures espoused by others. The Tao Te Ching holds balance and equilibrium as central concepts in its teachings. Again and again from many perspectives, balance is a key component to the religious life. Balance is a common theme in the quest for personal and spiritual wholeness.
Balance has been the watchword of my adult life for I have known what it is like to not be in balance and it is not good. The need for balance has been a recurring theme in what I offer in my ministry as well. I did a computer search of the last three years worth of my sermons for the word “balance.” I found 14 sermons what specifically use that word and countless others that refer to the idea. I have called for balance when looking at the relationship between spirituality and justice making in our lives; I have called for religion to serve as a balance to our capitalist society; I have called on us as a species to recognize our place in the balance of our earth and of the interdependent web of life; and I have proclaimed that the soul of our congregation is in the balance of faith and reason achieved through the freedom of conscience.
A month ago I said, “It is always about balance, isn’t it? Breathing out and breathing in, reaching out and drawing in; balance is the key.” So, I want you to know that I value balance. I am in favor of balance; balance is good and important. That said; allow me to take a few moments to promote the benefits of imbalance. Imbalance is not necessarily a bad thing to be avoided. It does not follow that since balance is good, imbalance is bad; that just is not the case.
Being out of balance, I suggest, is a dynamic often frightening experience. Just imagine being off balance on a bicycle. Does “dynamic” and “frightening” cover it? I remember a portion of a dream I had when I was a teenager. I don’t recall anymore all that went on in the dream leading up to the moment I was falling off the cliff. I do recall the visceral feeling of wind-milling my arms as my feet tried to cling to the edge. I can almost still feel in my body what it was like to be halfway over; uncertain whether I would be able to catch myself or fall. And I remember waking up with my heart racing. That image, that heart-racing feeling, stayed with me so strongly perhaps because I quickly identified my waking life as spent clinging to the edge almost about to fall.
I told my dream to my sister and she said, “You know what you have to do, don’t you? You have to fall.” Oh!?! It’s that simple is it? Just fall? When everything in me is screaming to hold on? When every shred of my being knows that to fall is to die and to hold on is the only thing to do? Yes. Sometimes, you have to fall. Sometimes you need to let go of your balance so that you may live again. Sometimes what feels like holding your balance is really being stuck – and the way to move again is to go off balance and fall.
Allow me to digress for a moment into theories from psychology and theology to help unpack this idea. Jean Piaget spoke of cognitive development as a progression through successive stages: Sensorimotor, Preoperative, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational. According to this widely accepted theory is that as we grow we all go through universal phases or stages differentiated by certain characteristics. “The starting point of development, according to Piaget, is the need in everyone for equilibrium, that is, a state of mental balance.” (The Developing Person through the Life Span, K. S. Berger; p48) The states of equilibrium are considered the different stages. The concept of “stages of development” is fairly well ingrained in our communal understanding of growth and has been applied beyond cognitive development to faith development, moral development, and all manner of other areas. The key piece is that there is equilibrium between what you experience and your ‘schemas’ as Piaget called them. Schemas are the mental concepts, they are how you think about what you are experiencing, the ideas you use to understand what you are going through.
Now, here is a critical component to all this that is usually forgotten. How do we move from one stage to the next? Through what Piaget called Disequilibrium. When the mental schemas don’t fit with present experiences, “the individual falls into a state of disequilibrium, a kind of imbalance that initially produces confusion but then leads to growth as the person modifies old schemas and constructs new ones to fit the new conditions.” (Ibid) That time of imbalance is the doorway into the next stage. Imbalance is a motivation toward and the momentum into growth.
Existentialist theologian Paul Tillich spoke of this process in terms of self-identity, self-alteration, and self-return. Self-identity, according to Tillich, is done through clarifying within yourself just who you are. With varying degrees of awareness, everyone manages to develop a self-identity. It is a centering activity marked by being in balance. Self-alteration is that moment of “uh-oh,” when your experiences of life fail to match the self-identity you have developed. Does that sound familiar? It is that moment when something new happens either by an external event such as a loss, or by an internal source such as a sudden insight. For whatever reason, you are thrown off balance, you are thrown into what Tillich calls chaos. Tillich loves to talk about chaos. Chaos, while a terrible thing we hope to avoid, is an amazing process whereby New Being can emerge. The experience of chaos is uncomfortable and the typical response is to take the next step which Tillich calls Self-return, the movement back into centeredness and identity and balance. Often we find, however, that our center has shifted a little because we have experienced that self-alteration, that ‘other thing’, that was outside our previous self-identity, which is now included in our experiences and thus into our new identity. And thus change and growth occur.
What Tillich calls chaos is not exactly the same thing that I am calling imbalance, chaos is imbalance and much more. “Nothing that grows is without form. The form makes a thing what it is … Every new form is made possible only by breaking through the limits of the old form. In other words, there is a moment of ‘chaos’ between the old and the new form, a moment of no-longer-form and not-yet-form.” (Tillich, Systematic theology Vol. III; p 50)
Other theologians use the concept of “liminal time” or liminal space” to describe the same concept. Limen is one of those old words like Spuddle [to go about a trifling business as if it were a matter of importance. To assume airs of importance without occasion] and Gardyloo [A cry which servants in the higher stories of Edinburgh give, after ten o’clock at night, when they throw their dirty water &c. from the windows; hence, also used to denote the contents of the vessel] which are not in use today, but we could perhaps still find use for them. The Limen is the threshold of a physiological or psychological response. It is that moment of no longer and not yet. You are at the threshold between. To be in Liminal space is that place of imbalance and chaos where you may discover anew who you are (or who you are becoming.)
For Piaget, it is the moment when you realize that how you describe what is happening to you and that which is happening to you do not fit and you experience a disequilibrium leading you into new understanding. If you cannot accept this time of imbalance, you will not be able to move forward into new understanding.
I said that imbalance is dynamic. Balance is also dynamic because it includes imbalance. When riding a bicycle you have balance because of momentum – but you have momentum because you pedal on one side first and then the other and then back, and so on. You maintain balance through moments of imbalance; otherwise, you are not moving. This sort of imbalance is healthy and productive, if a bit difficult to manage. In this way, imbalance is the threshold from an old balanced center to a new balanced center. This is valuable imbalance that thankfully only lasts moments. Other sorts of imbalance can last a lifetime and yet can still be something for which we can give thanks. Here I am thinking of those amazing artists, scientists, and reformers who have such an overwhelming gift for their art or their science or their ability to motivate positive social change, yet there are tragic flaws that accompany the gift. I think of movies such as Shine, Beautiful Mind, and Amadeus. These based-on-true-stories types of movies highlight the genius and the greatness of such people, but they also demonstrate the weakness and chaos that can come to dominate a person. It is not a healthy position to live from, but people do it. This is a level of imbalance that, if left unchecked, can produce some of them most amazing art, music, scientific discovery, social change, and transformation as well as utterly devastate the soul.
Some powerful movement can happen when you lean strongly into one aspect of your life, thus causing an imbalance. Dramatic results can be achieved if you throw all your energy into a social cause or artistic composition or complete self-denial with the goal of enlightenment. Such one-sided attention can also result in sudden overwhelming bouts of chaos or some other tragic consequence. There is an almost romantic notion for artists, scientists, and reformers that if they could only somehow focus all their attention and passion onto this next campaign, or this next play, symphony, or painting, or this next scientific breakthrough; if we could somehow give our whole life over we will succeed and taste a sweetness that cannot be had any other way. And yet, to be that out of balance seems to incur a debt in chaos, a debt of tragedy. Or is that just the stuff of myth and legend? Or is that the endless lesson of so many myths and legends?
That much imbalance may be worth it, thought the cost be high. The sort of Imbalance I set out to defend was the momentary crossing between kind, the threshold from “what no longer is” and “is not yet.” The doorway is not a place to set down roots and take up residence – yet some do, and for a few of them for whom there is a lasting legacy for their life and sacrifice, we give thanks. But I gently commend to you that you take your powerful moments of imbalance in moderation.
In a world without end
May it be so
Whose House Is It, Anyway?
Whose House Is It, Anyway?
Douglas Taylor
UUCB
4-30-06
Just this past week I was reading a newsletter from another congregation and noticed the sermon title was something like “Why It Matters to Our Church for the Pittsburgh Steelers to Win.” The blurb under it said, “This title was given to us by the winner of our annual service auction who paid a significant amount of money for the honor of titling the sermon. So, yes, in a manner of speaking, we are for sale.” Our UUCB Serendipity Auction is coming up next weekend, Saturday May 6th. I hope you have tickets; it promises to be a wonderful event. I will be offering a sermon topic again this coming year. Notice I am not simply offering the sermon title for you to bid on, but the opportunity to develop with me the topic for the sermon.
And so this morning, you receive the fruits of the conversation I had with last year’s highest bidder, Jeff Legget, who paid good money to select the topic and even suggested the title for us, “Whose House Is It, Anyway?” Jeff’s premise, (which is not far from Rick Warren’s premise from this morning’s reading,) is that thoughtful reflection on our foundation will lead to clarity as we consider current congregational matters. As Warren states in his book, “A clear purpose not only defines what we do, it defines what we don’t do.” (p87) It offers clarity.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that Jeff Legget chose the image of a house as a metaphor to talk about our foundational purpose. He didn’t suggest the title “What is the foundation of our church?” or “How do we address our desire to do it all, which puts us at cross-purposes?” either of which would have separated the concept he was reaching for. As someone who is relatively new to Unitarian Universalism and one of the key people involved with the Aesthetics committee, Jeff is watching to see how we sort through the decisions to change, improve, and make additions our space. It often appears at first impression for many people that a Unitarian Universalist congregation is a group of individuals without a common defining center. The unifying pieces are not obvious to most newcomers, and I sometimes suspect they are not so obvious to longer-time members as well. Jeff is watching to see how this diverse cluster of individuals comes together for the good of the community. He has some ideas about how it could work, but wants to see how we make the decisions, how we deal with our passion, how we engage the process, how we wrestle with the various priorities.
So, as we consider specific changes to our building and grounds, we could stand to keep fresh the basic reason or reasons why we have this space at all. As we consider what steps to take next into our future, we could stand to look back and see again the trajectory along which we have been traveling. As we consider these ideas for improving our house, we could stand to take a moment and ask, ‘Whose house is this?’ And in so considering we could find the clarity needed to move forward.
I had to redo my bathroom floor last year. The tiles on the floor when I moved in were the large ceramic kind that usually go on walls. Indeed, our thought is they were wall tiles, not designed to bare weight like a floor tile would. So they cracked. Several tiles, particularly those around the tub had cracks throughout. Well, tearing them out was fun, but then I saw that along tub under those tiles the floor was wet. So I had to tear that layer up too and go back to the store to learn about what material is needed for each layer of floor. Thankfully the wet and rot did not reach all the way down to the last level. The base sub-floor was still a solid foundation. So I then lay down new floorboard, leveling mix, waterproofing skin, and finally linoleum tiles. I thought it would take me a weekend when I started. It took a weekend just to tear out the wet and ruined flooring! It was almost a month before I was finished and we could use the bathroom again. And even then I had to go back and scrap up my first attempt at caulking along the tub and toilet so I could re-caulk.
Home improvement projects have a way of taking over a life. Now, I hope you are not surprised by the fact while I was on my hands and knees in the bathroom I noticed this would make a good metaphor for the congregation at some point. Noticing some cracks in the surface, rooting down and discovering the problem is deeper than originally conceived, digging all the way down to the solid foundation, slowly building back up step by careful step. Returning a short time later to check-up and adjust. I wasn’t sure if it would be a metaphor for personal relationships or for church life, and it turns out to be the latter.
The cracks on our surface in this analogy would be whatever has motivated us to consider changing things. Perhaps they are not ‘cracks’ in the negative sense of the word as though some problems have come up. Instead I would say what has motivated us to consider changing things is the Long Range Planning process coupled with the fresh paint on the walls. It has gotten us started, sparked our interest to discover what we want and what we can do. Now, it feels too close to be using a building analogy to describe the process of making changes to the building, but that’s what I’m doing.
When building a house, you lay the foundation first. In the reading this morning, Rick Warren said, “The foundation determines both the size and the strength of a building. You can never build larger than the foundation can handle.”(p86) He goes on, then, to say: “If you want to build a healthy, strong, and growing church you must spend time laying a solid foundation. This is done by clarifying in the minds of everyone involved exactly why the church exists and what it is supposed to do.” (p86)
So then, what is our foundation? Certainly it is there in the stories of our history. History is important. Where we have been, who we have been defines who we now are and in many ways determines who we can become. Who we used to be will never change; it will never not be who we have been. So it is good to be well aware of that, it is good to re-examine our foundation from time to time while in the midst of new growth. I see the value in what Jeff is asking, but it is a challenge.
Trouble is – we don’t have an easily definable foundation to examine. We don’t have an eightfold path or transcripts from the revelatory dreams of the prophet. We don’t have One person or One book or One belief that we recognize at our foundation. Iconoclasm and rebellion from the past is a common theme in our histories.
William Ellery Channing, the recognized founder of Unitarianism in America, spoke out against central doctrines of Christianity: the doctrines of the trinity, the divinity of Jesus, and human nature. He said that God was one, not three-in-one. He strongly and rationally contended that Jesus was human, human only, and in no way a part of the godhead. He fiercely challenged the belief that humans are basically depraved, flawed creatures; insisting instead that we are basically good. He based his rebellion on his reasoned study of scripture and the proof evident through the miracles. Within a generation Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker had brought sweeping reforms that altered the understanding of the miracles and of the bible as a proof-text, thus removing them from the central place they had held at the foundation of the Unitarianism.
Similarly, in Universalism John Murray’s radical concepts of God’s love lead him to speak out against the popular Christian doctrine of eternal damnation. Murray’s message of universal salvation was in direct contrast with the popular preaching of the day. Within a generation Hosea Ballou (whose birthday is also April 30th,) offered a dramatic corrective to Murray’s message that now seems like a nuance to us. Murray’s message focused on doing away with the “eternal” aspect of eternal damnation yet still allowed that there would need to be, for cleansing purposes, limited punishment. Ballou’s message focused on both the “eternal” part and the “damnation” part insisting that there would be no punishment in the afterlife, limited or otherwise. The implications of such a belief cut to the heart of Christianity because if all are automatically saved by God’s love, what was the purpose of Jesus’ death? Was Jesus even necessary beyond as an example? And are we to expect people to be good for nothing, now that the afterlife contained no element of punishment as a motivation?
It almost seems that to be Unitarian Universalist is to rebel against the core elements of the foundation! What are the basic fundamentals of Unitarian Universalism? To Shake the foundations? To rebel against the foundations! But of course, that is not it. The ground we stand on is the ground of truth; any rebellion in which we participate is done in the name of truth. The foundation of our tradition is the search for truth and meaning. In earlier days it was called the freedom of conscience. In biblical times, it was the smashing of false idols.
The religious conscience is the inner knowing that we all have. It is similar to intuition. A commitment to the freedom of conscience is a commitment to allow each person to articulate for themselves what is ultimately true and meaningful. This does not mean it is just a theological free for all. We do not believe in whatever we want, we believe as we must. We believe as our conscience demands. It is not that we totally ignore all the conclusions and answers ever arrived at and written down, it is simply that answers from the past are not the final arbiter of truth among us.
You tell me which makes more sense: believing only what an organization tells you is true, or believing what your conscience within you tells you is true. If your deep personal beliefs are about the same as the statements of faith read out at the place where you worship, then all is well. But if your conscience and the creeds of your congregation are in conflict then you’ve got an issue. In too many religious groups if there is a conflict between traditional sacred beliefs – the foundations – and an individual’s conscience, the individual must either alter his or her conscience somehow or leave the group. In too many religious groups if there is a conflict between beliefs and reality, all attempts are made to adjust reality to fit the beliefs. Here, we fit our beliefs to reality, reality changes constantly and thus so does the ground on which we find our foundation
This is what we mean by Freedom of Conscience. Each person’s way of accessing that which is holy is as unique as a fingerprint. There is not a “right way” to do it. Instead, each person has her or his way to do it. This commitment to the individual freedom of conscience was present in Channing and Murray as well as Ballou, Emerson and Parker, and me and you. This commitment to the individual freedom of conscience is present as a thread since our beginning, at our foundation. And this commitment to the individual freedom of conscience is balanced by a commitment to being in a community together. We are a community of individual seekers, covenanted to walk together. We are a community of opinionated, authority-averse, do-it-yourself-ers – yes! But we are walking together.
As we vote and prioritize the various goals for improving our space, we want a bigger room here and a second room of this type there, it is important to keep in mind the purpose of our work, the foundation upon which we build. Remembering this will clarify what we choose to do. Without the clarity we will surely try to fit everything in that seems like a good idea. Without clarity we will surely try to make as many rooms as possible into multi-purpose rooms just in case. And there is nothing inherently wrong with multi-purpose space. But if we dabble in forty different things, we might miss the opportunity to be good at any of them. If we over focus on multi-purpose, we might lose sight of the main purpose.
Whose house is this? It is our house, together; and for all those who would join us in the search for what is good and true in life. It is our laboratory and gallery, our respite and sanctuary, “the cradle for our dreams and the workshop of our common endeavor.” This congregation exists to help people deepen and connect through worship, study, service, and fellowship. May we challenge each suggested change to fit with our main purpose. May the changes we plan to make, strengthen our ability to fulfill that purpose.
In a world without end,
May it be so
J-Walking
J-Walking
Rev. Douglas Taylor
4-2-06
I began my seminary career at a Methodist Seminary just north of Columbus, OH. It was a valuable experience for me. Having grown up in a Unitarian Universalist church and planning to graduate from Meadville Lombard, our Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago, it was a good experience to immerse myself in a positive Christian community. I developed an ear for the language and passion of the liberal Christian culture.
There were two other seminaries in the Columbus area, a somewhat moderate-to-conservative Lutheran school in downtown Columbus and a moderate-to-liberal Catholic seminary in the northern suburbs. By comparison, the Methodist seminary was more liberal, more ecumenical, and more rural. We all came together once a year for shared classes and worship. I was one of the representatives from the Methodist school to help in the planning of the day. I also participated in the evening worship service which the Catholic students (as the hosting school) put together. I did a reading, as did one of the Lutheran students from the downtown seminary.
Now, if you know a little bit about the historical theological rallying of Lutherans and Unitarians you will notice the irony of this. The organizers gave me, the “Deeds not Creeds” Unitarian, the passage from Ephesians where Paul says:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
But then the “Saved by Faith Alone” Lutheran was given the passage in James that says:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:14-17)
The Catholic student in charge of organizing this shared service claimed to not have noticed the theological reversal, and that may well be true. I still harbor the belief that it was playfully intentional and he chose not to admit it. I think this because it is the kind of thing I might do. “Oh, really, Luther called the letter of James, “the Epistle of Straw” he hated it so much? Oh, Unitarians get there backs up when Paul starts disrespecting the role of good deeds? Gee, it must have been interesting experience for you to have the opposite readings.” Actually, I can’t imagine myself being quite that devious, I’m sure I would have admitted the readings were not random. I think Paul’s over-emphasis on faith is a good balance to James’ heavy-handed praise of works.
Sometimes I wonder if the conservative outsider’s perception is true. I wonder if we do place too much emphasis on justice-making in our congregations. What, after all, is the purpose of a church? And what is the role of social activism and justice-making in life of a congregation? How does the Prophetic ministry fit into the broader scope of why this congregation exists? I’ve been studying this question of purpose lately. I’ve noticed that more conservative Christian churches talk about their purpose in terms of worship, education, and evangelism. Many of them will have an outreach to the poor or a prison ministry, but it is rarely a featured program. Their justice ministry is not written into their mission statements or slogans. They will more often focus on the Great Commission which is to evangelize.
Now, it’s not that we Unitarian Universalists don’t evangelize. It’s that we do it gently. We don’t make a big show of it. We offer examples of what it means to be a part of our community, examples through our living, our loving, and perhaps most visibly, through our justice-making efforts. We are known as J-walkers, we walk the justice walk. Unitarian Universalists Congregations are networks of compassionate concern for the betterment of our world.
What is the purpose of our congregations, why do we exist? Is it simply to be a vehicle to better coordinate justice making efforts? Are we simply a J-walking club? Well, I’ll tell you: of course not, because it’s only half the answer. I’ll admit I toyed with the idea of preaching about faith or spiritual growth knowing that with the Justice forum scheduled there would be many social activists in attendance this morning. But I to be honest, I must spend out time together highlighting the shared primacy of contemplation and activism.
I have long held that the grand purpose of Unitarian Universalism is transformation: personal and social transformation. Social activism and justice-making programs fit as a balance into the primary purpose of why our congregations are here. Our version of salvation is focused on saving the world through justice-work today for all people, rather than offering “personal salvation” in some “next world” for a special select set of true believers. Unitarian Universalism is a progressive religion that balances the freedom of individual belief with the responsibility of the community to take care of others. We strive to have compassion in action.
We Unitarian Universalists have long held a conviction for the importance of good deeds, ethical living, and justice-making in both our personal lives and in our congregational lives. Throughout our history courageous men and women have taken risks and stood up for justice, fairness, and equity. The stunning number of famous people like Susan B. Anthony, Adlai Stevenson, Clara Barton, and John Haynes Holmes are wonderfully outnumbered by the hundreds and thousands of Unitarian Universalists like you and me who work with passion and compassion for positive change to happen in our local communities. And many of our congregations take stands together in a wide array of justice issues. We are justifiably proud of our habit to J-walking.
The grand purpose of Unitarian Universalism is transformation: personal and social transformation. Of course, each Unitarian Universalist congregation is a little bit different; each one has its own flavor. What is this congregation’s purpose? I have said from time to time, “People are our business,” which is kind of vague. I bet a Life Insurance company could get away with the same slogan. I think a better way for us to say it might be: UUCB exists to help people deepen and connect through worship, study, service, and fellowship.
I think we’re doing a great job fulfilling our purpose. Look at this busy month: Last week we invited an Emerson Scholar into our pulpit who led us into deeper study of the life and thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today we host a forum with local justice-oriented organizations. Next weekend we’ll hold our second annual Spirituality retreat. The week after will have Maundy Thursday worship and fellowship events leading up to our significant Spring-time worship event: Easter Sunday. And then, one week later there will be our second annual UU Revue talent night. I could go on, and I’m still talking about the month of April! These are all activities focused on worship, study, service, and fellowship. These are all opportunities to deepen and connect, to balance our individual freedoms and our communal responsibilities. There are many ways to connect and to deepen, many ways to engage your faith here.
Of the many ways in, however, the way of service is a crucial way that everyone at one point or another must travel. And here I mean service in a broader sense than Justice-making. Service is virtually anything you do to make life in general or another person’s life in particular better. Without the service component in faith, everything would be turned inward and we might as well simply be a club. Faith without service is dead. A congregation without a service orientation is a dying congregation. Without the justice programs drawing us to connect with those in need, we end up only for ourselves – a stifling proposition. Our outward-looking service work is a critical component to the health of the congregation.
Notice, for example, how our financial generosity has grown through the monthly special offerings we’ve been hosting. Each month we give our collection away to a local charity or organization that is doing good work in the broader community. When we started, we gave about $200 away each month. That amount has grown slowly to the point that a special collection now raises $600 or $700. In February we collected over $900 for the SOS shelter. Yet, our annual pledge drive, our year-after-year effort to raise funds for our internal financial needs, continues to produce pretty much the same results again and again. We are a generous congregation, though it shows primarily when we are J-walking.
We are in the people business; our purpose is to help people deepen and connect. Justice is about relationships. Justice is not about abstract ideas, or issues. It is about people. “Righteousness” is a common word in the bible. It comes up when describing a just person, or in prayers asking God to make us righteous. “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Being righteous is not about being right or correct. It is not about being better than others. Righteous is perhaps best translated as “Right-relatedness.” To be righteous is to be in “right-relation.” It is about relationships, about how we are with other people.
There is an insightful little story about two men walking along a river one day. They see an infant floating down the river, helplessly caught in the current. Immediately, the two men jump in the river and rescue the child. But after getting the infant to safety they notice another infant floating down the river in the same way. Again, they rush into the river to save the child. And again they look up after getting the second child to safety and another baby is floating down the river. One guy looks at the other and says, “I’ll get this one, you go upstream and stop whoever’s throwing babies in the river.” This story is a play on the aphorism, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” They both illustrate a distinction between immediate personal problems and systemic problems that effect many people, but the first one makes clear that we need to deal on both levels.
And that is ultimately what I want to tell you this morning. We need to deal on both levels. Service and Justice-work is important, critical. But it is half the equation because we are also called to help one another at times with the little, simple, personal stuff of life: when your neighbor is in need of a ride to the store, a hand shoveling the walk, a kind word during a time of personal turmoil. We call ourselves to put our faith into practice, our compassion into action.
The world is full of all manner of terrible things. There are wars to protest, food pantries to support, legislation to oppose, grassroots organizing to encourage. Yet there are also people in need: loved ones have died, insurance bills have added up, marriages are in trouble, and houses have burned down. Everyone carries their own burdens; each of us is weighed down by our private cares and concerns. Meanwhile the world cries out with injustice and suffering on the global scale. We strive to have compassion in action. We strive to balance our individual needs and passions with the needs and injustices in the world around us. Not an easy task.
I suspect that Paul and James (from the bible-letters) would not disagree with me. Each wrote to a particular community in a particular situation. This is a fact many forget when we read the bible and take what it says as final. These writers were offering responses to particular circumstances such as an overemphasis on good works or a heavy-handed stress on faith as the only thing necessary. Both authors admit in their letters that both are present.
It is always about balance, isn’t it? Breathing out and breathing in, reaching out and drawing in; balance is the key. Having a conscience takes its toll. There is great need and so much of it is truly worthy of our passion and energy. Yet I caution us all to attend to the balance. Now, I’ll admit that some powerful movement can happen when we lean deeply into either our intimate spiritual, personal work or into a highly engaging time of activism and justice-making. Leaning into just activism or only spiritual contemplation will offer the risk of genuine movement. But it is not possible to lean so one-sidedly for long. Those who can develop an even give and take will go farther and cause greater impact both within themselves and in the world around them.
So for all you J-walkers with sometimes spiritual longings, take some time today to contemplate the reason behind your passion, allow it to seep again into your soul. And to all you contemplative souls with occasional bouts of agitation – take in the Justice Forum this afternoon and allow is to offend your conscience a little. Today, through balance and compassion may we become more whole and bring the world greater peace.
In a world without end,
May it be so.
