love

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.

Sometimes, Things Break
September 28, 2025
Rev. Douglas Taylor
Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/Yev2xYItGh0

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the Jewish year. It comes as the tenth day of the Days of Awe, the first day of which is Rosh Hashanah, the new year. The ten days of the new year are called the Days of Awe because people feel reverence tinged with fear during this special time of judgment and forgiveness. Yom Kippur is a day of fasting, of self-reflection, and of seeking and offering forgiveness. This year Yom Kippur begins at sunset on Wednesday Oct 1.

There is a particular ritual practiced during some Yom Kippur services, a ritual of confession in which the whole congregation recites a list of sins together, confessing to them, regretting them, and making the commitment not to do them again. “We have lied, we have stolen, we have broken promises.” The point is not to suggest that each individual in the community has actually done every behavior listed in the confession. The point is to help people experience the communal aspect to it – or more accurately, that is one of the points. I offered a version of this ritual one year here in our congregation and it was profoundly unsettling for several people.

There is a very different understanding and experience of confession in the Christian community compared with the Jewish community. The communal aspect of personal behaviors is a tricky piece to work with. I suspect our Jewish siblings in faith are better equipped to navigate that.

In our reading this morning https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/already-home-without-knowing-it, my colleague Rev David Schwartz reflected on how our Puritan roots in this country have had a significant impact on our culture into our modern times – particularly in the Puritan perspective on shame and a fear of our imperfection and brokenness. One result Schwartz shares is how the shame tangled up in the brokenness leads to a certain self-righteousness because we build up a denial of our imperfection and brokenness.

I would add that the culture around us – perhaps due to our Puritan roots, although I’m not certain – our culture around us also makes this fear of imperfection and brokenness into a deeply personal issue … as if I’m the only one who does it. This push to be perfect, Rev. Schwartz tells us, leads us unnecessarily into shame and a rigid inability to admit mistakes or make amends when things go wrong. Our modern concept of crime and punishment is caught up in this old story of a Puritanical, judgmental God even when vast numbers of Christians no longer believe in that version of a God; never mind the number of people who no longer believe in any concept of God. And yet the impact of that old story remains strong among us.

Thomas Berry, 19^th century priest and cultural historian, talked about this same impact from the perspective of the old ‘science vs religion’ debates and the stories we collectively tell ourselves.

“It is all a question of story,” He writes. “We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story.” He goes on to say, “our old story … sustained us … We awoke in the morning and knew where we were. We could answer the questions of our children. We could identify crime and punish transgressors. Everything was taken care of because there was a story. ‘God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.’ It did not necessarily make people good, nor did it take away the pains and stupidities of life or make for unfailing warmth in human association. It did provide a context in which life could function in a meaningful manner.” (Science and Religion, p.123)

Earlier this hour I spoke with the children about the message Hosea Ballou brought about God’s Love and Universalism. Ballou was bringing a different story. What would our culture be like if we rooted the cultural ‘story’ of ourselves in a loving God of grace rather than a judgmental God demanding perfection and shame? What impact might that have on crime and punishment, on our expectations of children, on how we talk about mistakes we’ve made?

I remember a conversation I had once with the father of a person who committed murder; our lives intersected by chance and circumstance and I was offering a moment of pastoral support. The young man had committed what looked to be a ‘crime of passion,’ not premeditated – but still lethal. The father lamented about the long-lasting impact resulting of 30 seconds of thoughtless action. In my experience, most actions like this are part of a recognizable pattern. But I did not try to correct his mischaracterization of the murder. I had just bumped into him in the parking lot; we did not really know each other and I did not have his trust enough to challenge the stories he tells himself about his family.

But I have heard this sort of framing before – the perpetrator of a violent act made one mistake, this line of thinking suggests, had one moment of bad judgment, and will now suffer the consequences for a very long time. I am sure the father was not suggesting the consequences were unfair or undeserved. I can graciously presume this father was not trying to minimize the impact on the deceased victim. But that is part of what he was doing, minimizing the impact. But what troubled me more was his suggestion that the violent act was an aberration.

Rebecca Ann Parker once said something about how we too often think of violence as an interruption, like a flash of lightning breaking onto the landscape. Suddenly the event takes place and, like an afterimage on the back of our eyeballs, slowly fades. For people who think of violence this way, it may seem like we are suddenly seeing a new level of crime, violence of a harsher order. But that is not the only way to see it. It is perhaps more useful to recognize that violence in not an interruption, like a flash of lightning, rather it is like poison in the ground water, always present, a part of daily life for some, a part of what is going on in the world around us all the time. You may not be directly dealing with the poison in the water, but people around you are if you are willing to notice.

People occasionally say it feels like our country has taken a strange turn in which suddenly there is more violence, more anger, more hate. But I would argue we have long had a shadow of those traits at our heart. Shadowed, I say, because some of us are privileged to be in denial about it. Yet it is a deep part of who we have been as a country since our inception. It is something we can change, but it would be easier to change if we could stop pretending the violence is an anomaly that we don’t quite understand.

The Yom Kippur prayer of confession invites us to recognize the water we are swimming in. It invites us to see not only our part in things directly, but our part in the network of culture and experience in which we participate. We can shift away from asking who is to blame for this act of violence or that harmful behavior and begin to ask instead, what do people need to help them navigate their fear and anger in a healthful way? Love leads me to ask this differently. We can shift away from only seeing the 30 seconds of a violent outburst to recognizing the years of anger and the years of how people respond to a person’s anger and fail to provide the tools to deal with the anger. We can shift away from seeking to punish each transgression to seeking to support each need.

I was drawn to today’s message initially from a parenting blog that a colleague pointed out. https://www.majesticunicorn.biz/blog/2015/10/20/broken-things

The post talks about how the author, trained therapist with a swath of training in mental health, women’s health, family systems, and neurodiversity. The particular post my colleague highlighted was about anger and an incident with her son. She writes:

It took my breath away when my son stormed into the bathroom, frustrated, angry, fed-up for his very own, very significant to him, reasons.  And when he chose to SLAM the bathroom door, causing the heavy mirror mounted to the front to slip out of the hardware holding it in place and crash onto the floor – a million, BROKEN pieces were left reflecting the afternoon light. 

In her post, the author Kathleen Fleming reflects on anger and compassion, on how we can help our children navigate big emotions without harming ourselves or others, on how to be a parent with a child dealing with mental health needs. After dealing with the immediate safety concerns, after getting her own reactions in check, after checking in with her child and processing a bit, the two begin cleaning up.

And we cleaned up the broken pieces.  We swept and we vacuumed.  It was quiet work.  It was careful work.  It was thoughtful work.

Sometimes things break.  Sometimes we break them.  It’s not the breaking that matters, the how or why.  What matters is how we choose to respond to the broken-ness.  Does it kill us?  Does it throw us into a downward spiral of blame and punishment?  

OR

Does it help us remember how to love deepest?  Does it push us towards compassion and over the hurdle of “rightness” and “wrongness” into LOVENESS?

Hear me, please: I am not saying there is never a need for consequences or punishment. I am not saying the rapist or the murderer should not have consequences or punishments. My point is to question why punishment seems to be our first and only response so often. My point is less about forgiveness this year, and more about grace. My point is that sometimes things break. But that doesn’t mean we need to jump to punishment. Sometimes we can thrive and grow in our imperfection, through our mistakes.

What if, when something breaks, we don’t rush to set blame, mark out punishment, or fall into shame. What if, when something breaks, we turn toward each other to find out what could make things better.

What if the child – or the grown adult – is angry about something unrelated to the moment? What if slamming a door is where they feel some control when they feel they have no power over a bully at school or the rejection of a friend or the expectations at a job or school. What if we could help people learn some control in those situations where they feel they have none instead of merely punishing them?

We find out a child breaks a mirror, and we sit with how hard it is to deal with big feelings like anger. Or we are suddenly sitting alone after we have broken something as an adult. There is a push to say ‘anger is bad and unacceptable – stop having anger.’ What if we can teach each other more about how to navigate our anger in ways that don’t cause harm instead of pretending we can just choose to not have anger.

What if we began with the basic premise that God loves you rather than the notion that God is going to judge you. What if we began with the fact that you are loved. Would that change how we respond to each other? Would that change how we navigate brokenness and broken things in our lives and in our hearts?

Sometimes things break. That doesn’t mean we are bad people. We can thrive and grow when broken, (perhaps only when we are broken.)

How we respond to the brokenness builds the world around us. It’s not the brokenness that matters. What matters is our response. What matters is the love.

In a world without end,

May it be so.