While I was in Haiti, our local guide John, asked me about Unitarian Universalism. He attended bible college as a young man, studying Hebrew, Greek and World Religions as well as the bible. Not surprisingly, John puzzled over the way not everyone finds God a relevant concept in UU congregations. I gave my one-minute history schpiel on the origins and merger of Unitarianism and Universalism and then sped up to the Transcendentalists in the 1830s with their focus on an unmediated relationship with the divine, touching on the Western Unitarians in the 1860s and the Humanists in the 1930s who left God behind.
“What’s the point of a religious community without God?” John asked. “How does a community worship without a shared faith narrative?” I replied that we seek religious community as a context and container for living out our core values.
No matter what religious tradition one adheres to, the demands of a principled life are great. Living consciously and conscientiously means making ethical choices about how we eat and how we spend, how we parent and relate, commute and communicate, render justice and attempt reconciliation. To truly live out our principles requires stores of patience cultivated within religious community.
Belonging to a religious community affords one the companionship necessary to function without isolation or self-pity when coping with depression, disappointment, anger, or grief. Religious community differs from a social club or professional association by centering on what matters most, not just to the individual but the web of all existence. Like yoga, religious community stretches us into postures of generosity, not just by giving away more, but thinking more about the needs of others.
Religious community turns our view outward, shaping us into communitarians focused on the well-being of the collective and future generations. When we make decisions as a congregation, the central question isn’t “What suits me?” but “What enables us as a community to live out our shared values in a way that honors the interdependent web of life for generations to come?”
When we consider whether to buy the land on Fisher Road, when we discuss how we might re-conceive and renovate this building, we ask and answer in community as community, not as a group of self-directed individuals. That’s part of why we form religious community: to enlarge perspective and possibility by each bringing our conscience, reason, faith, and direct experience to bear. Together we create a mosaic informed by varieties of stone, glass and tile instead of a mural limited to a singular medium of paint.
In the covenant we recite weekly, we uphold the importance of “growing into harmony with each other and the Holy.” That’s not the purpose of a softball team or soccer club. It’s not the purview of a Parent-Teacher organization or a civic league. If religion is rooted in what refastens us, it is not God that is essential to the endeavor but our longing to connect. Holiness comes in many forms, arising in the weave of our interactions. Religious community exists to remind us again and again of the myriad ways we are part of an interdependent web of existence, part of the thrum of life and breathe of the universe. Belonging to a congregation invites us to consider how to live right-sized: sharing our gifts without over-consuming, over-reaching or overwhelming ourselves or others.
Religious community allows us to take risks, to try new roles, to step into leadership and discover ministries we didn’t know we had. Our congregations become gardens where we transform seeds of good intention into the fruit of action. Here we can cultivate patience and compassion by tending relationships we might otherwise not have. Whether we are single or partnered, parents or not, whether we relate to God or we don’t, whether we feel showered by blessing or jilted by life, we come together to find evidence of grace through the salve of presence and power of togetherness.
But frankly, we could use a little better PR. While I was talking to John in Haiti on Ash Wednesday, Stephen Colbert opened his show by pointing to his ash-smudged forehead. As “the world’s most famous Catholic,” he explains he has to give up something for Lent that involves true sacrifice so he gives up being Catholic for forty days. He wipes the ashes off his forehead, sighs, and says, “I feel so empty now. Is this how Unitarians feel all the time?”
The joke works because the perception exists we believe nothing and thus have a well of emptiness inside.
To counter this perception, a colleague is preaching a sermon this morning at his primarily humanist congregation. He is a deeply religious man, and a humanist. He embodies Unitarian Universalism the way St. Francis embodied the gospel of Jesus. In an effort to explain Unitarian Universalism in less time than it takes to say it, he has devised a ten-word summary: Oneness of Being; Oneness of Humanity: An Evolving Faith.
He writes in his sermon:
Obviously, these ten words are just the beginning and lead to hundreds more. …The explanation is a gestalt. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One of the special aspects of Unitarian Universalism is its balanced approach to living. This explanation implies that instead of relying on an outside source of authority or ideology whether it be a certain holy book or the scientific method, there is a dependence on a free and responsible search for truth which is based on a balance of reason, conscience and direct experience.
Complex religious issues are better viewed from a figurative perspective rather than a literal one. Metaphorical language is a cornerstone of being progressive. Non-literal language allows for many meanings of the same reality to exist. Rigid ideology is rooted within literal language. While words are important, the spirit is more important than the letter, if reaching the heart of the matter is the goal.
Reaching the heart of the matter is the goal of religious community. As far as I can tell, the purpose of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning is to do just that. We don’t gather week after week to arrive at a philosophical conclusion or to prove a theory. We gather to lift up what is worthy and in so doing, be a balm for one another when woe abrades us, when the mystery and randomness of life and death break our heart or stir it. We gather to light candles for the incomprehensible suffering wrought by earthquake. We gather to hold one another in the complexity of what it means to send our sons and daughters to war. And we gather to join our efforts to multiply the common good.
Here at First Parish, when anyone asks about social action, the answer is always our participation with MIHN, the Montachusett Interfaith Hospitality Network, a coalition of congregations that pool resources to provide transitional housing for folks at risk of homelessness. Every couple of months we take a turn hosting, providing meals, and paying utilities for the week. For as long as I’ve been here, Genifer Anderson has coordinated the effort. She enlists volunteers, often the Sunday our week begins, and covers many of the hosting shifts herself. She has been a tireless advocate of MIHN and along with Mark Gilbert, deserves the lion’s share of credit for our claiming this as a church endeavor. Many of you have provided meals, some have hosted, and probably most have chipped in for the utilities. As important as this effort is, it occurs to me if we don’t also expend some energy working to eradicate the causes of homelessness and the conditions that perennially lead to it in this area, we won’t be or bring about the change we seek.
It also occurs to me, that if the congregation indeed wants our involvement with MIHN to constitute our social action, then it’s time for the congregation as a whole to affirm this by working together instead of allowing a few individuals to carry the weight. Instead of Genifer having to ask people for each rotation to sign up, and to avoid anyone feeling put on the spot, if we as a congregation commit to supporting MIHN then let’s have a Saturday or Sunday afternoon cook-in or two where several of us sign up to make all the meals for our week together. Let’s create a team for each cycle we host that divvies up shopping, cooking, delivering and hosting. That way the work gets shared and even if someone can’t commit to hosting, cooking and delivering an entire meal, anyone can participate on a team.
Other folks whose interests and talents lay outside the kitchen or hosting could explore what kinds of action to take to truly tackle conditions that perpetuate homelessness. If we purchase the land on Fisher Road, the gardeners among us might undertake to grow veggies, berries, even cultivate fruit trees so that we can use the harvest for our summer MIHN meals. We might also offer residents at St. Joseph’s the opportunity to garden with us this summer.
There are multiple ways to collectively live out our values and commitment to MIHN and the larger cause of increased housing and food insecurity.
It is in the living that values come to life.
I admire the distillation of Unitarian Universalism down to ten words and I agree wholeheartedly we are a people rich in metaphor. Literalism is not our path. Words, images, events are open to interpretation. That’s why as Bill points out, we have a hymnal that ranges from Holly Near’s late 20th century anthem for gay pride, We Are a Gentle Angry People to the turn of the 19th century spiritual, We Shall Overcome, to the 12th century Carol, Jesus, Our Brother to Peter Yarrow’s Hanukah hymn, Light One Candle. The words we sing are portals to the holiness we seek. All words of course are metaphors for what the body experiences so perhaps the clearest distillation of Unitarian Universalism comes not from a phrase we speak but the actions we embody.
Quakers are known not for their words but their silence, and even more, their peace-making. We recognize the Amish by their forgiveness and horse-powered farming; Shakers by their beautifully wrought unadorned furniture. Jews daven, their bodies swaying like reeds in the wind moved by the spirit of prayer. Buddhists meditate. Sufis whirl. What do Unitarian Universalists do? For what action are we known?
Let this be a time in the life of our congregation when we embody what matters most. Perhaps we will become postern-modern builders of the ark, a vessel that preserves creation while moving forward. In our conversations and considerations let us not lose sight of the land that awaits us, the gardens that summon us, and the fruits that attest to our being.
Perhaps the next time a comedian pokes fun at our emptiness, our fullness will fill the void. And when anyone asks what is Unitarian Universalism, the answer will be simple: How we live. Amen.
