Sermons

“Mr. Fulghum, is it true that you’re a minister?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your church?”

“We’re standing in it.”

“But this is a bookstore and it’s a Friday.”

“Yes, but you might also choose to see it as a cathedral of the human spirit—a storehouse consecrated to the full spectrum of human experience. Just about every idea we’ve ever had is in here somewhere. A place containing great thinking is a sacred space.”

“Really? Just what kind of minister are you?”

“Unitarian Universalist.”

“And you hold services in bookstores on Fridays? You’re putting me on.”

“No, but I am giving you an example of how Unitarian Universalists think. More than anything else, our religion is defined by an attitude. An open-minded point of view. About everything and anything. What we have most in common is an uncommon way of looking at the obvious. A church is not just a specific building, but also a way of looking at the building you’re in at the moment. A minister is not just a person who stands in a pulpit and preaches on Sunday mornings, but also the way some people engage the world. A religion is not contained in a single book; there’s something religious in almost any book.”

“OK, but I’ve seen a building in my neighborhood with a sign that says, ‘Unitarian Universalist Church’ on it and there are a lot of cars parked around it on Sunday mornings. Looks like a regular church to me.”

“Of course. We come together in community and do many things any religious community does—and Sunday mornings are a culturally convenient time to meet. But we also come together during the rest of the week.”

“To do what?”

“To share ideas, discuss political action, work on projects of benefit to the larger community in which we live, and hear speakers on a broad range of topics. We enjoy and need the companionship of like-minded people.”

“Are Unitarian Universalists Christians?”

“Yes and no. Some are and some aren’t, and some haven’t decided. Same answer if you ask whether Unitarian Universalists are Buddhists. In fact, most of the specific questions you might ask have this kind of answer. Yes and no. Some are and some aren’t. We’re known for respecting diversity of opinion and belief.”
“I’d like to come take a look at a church like that, but I don’t want to get put on your missionary list.”

“We don’t evangelize. We keep a door open to those who are looking for the company of people like us. We find there are a great many people who are Unitarian Universalists and don’t know it. When we ask most Unitarian Universalists how they came to be members, they say it’s because they were looking for a community of people who are liberal in their religious values and active in the commitment to community service. We believe in the right of the individual to choose religious principles and in the individual’s responsibility to put those principles into action.” (See Robert Fulghum’s Forward to A Chosen Faith by John Buerhens and Forrest Church)

I don’t know if you have ever had a conversation like this. Clearly Rev. Robert Fulghum has, and once in a while I have as well, though my experience is that most people don’t even bother asking about Unitarian Universalism when it is mentioned. If people did ask, how would we answer? For that matter, how would we answer it for ourselves in the privacy of our own thoughts?

This past September at Sara Hayman’s Installation in Ellsworth, the guest preacher called Unitarian Universalism, “A Life-Saving Religion.” I imagine that many of us don’t think of our faith as either a religion or as life-saving. But might this actually be the case?

If you define religion as having creeds, doctrines and beliefs that everyone must agree to, then we are not a religion. Rev. Forrest Church once said: “Unitarian Universalists are neither a chosen people nor a people whose choices are made for them by theological authorities—ancient or otherwise.” (Ibid. pg. xx)

We do not let other people tell us what to believe. We do not, as a community, indoctrinate members or dictate beliefs that everyone must hold to be true.

But Forrest Church also defined religion differently than is the cultural norm. “Religion,” wrote Rev. Church, “is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die.” Given this understanding, we are all religious, whether we call it that or not, for our life itself is a response to the reality of our being alive and having to die.

Why is it important to see ourselves as religious? Because it deepens the work we have to do. We are not a social club, and we are not a business. We are a church. And that means that we are engaged in theological discovery and theological discourse. One of the most popular UUA adult curricula was called, “Building Your Own Theology.” It was a way for adults to understand better their own beliefs—not beliefs from some other authority, but rather beliefs that we ourselves fully own and trust.

The point is is that we all have beliefs, we all have a theology that provides a foundation for the work we do for ourselves and our community. Church gives us the safe context to be aware of and to explore our own theology. Without this kind of context it would be difficult to have the kind of conversation that Fulghum had at the bookstore. Ours is a religious calling because everything we do has to accept and respond, on a substantive level, the dual reality of life and death.

Moreover, as a religious movement, Unitarian Universalists can readily engage with other religions to promote that which is beneficent and healthy in religion. Granted, religion has a bad name, and given what people do in the name of religion it is understandable. But religion is also what has given us some of the most profound thinking and ethical foundations in human history.

Karen Armstrong claims that ALL religions, for example, have at least one essential common element, and that is compassion. It is important that, as UUs, we be seen as a religion in dialogue with other religious leaders and institutions where compassion is the norm, where compassion has a theological base, where compassion compels us to do social justice work.

Like many religious words, it’s time that we take the word “religion,” tear off its outer superficial layers, and accept it in a way that does justice to its deeper meaning, and to who we truly are. We are religious people; we respond every moment of our lives to the dual reality of life and death.

So how is Unitarian Universalism life-saving? Let me speak a little more personally here. I had felt called to become a Baptist minister when I was 17-years-old. A few years later I lived in Beirut, Lebanon for the academic year, and then went alone through Asia for two months to return home to Boston. Even with my limited Arabic, I could freely travel throughout Jordan, Syria and Lebanon itself whenever I wanted. Living in a multi-religious country like Lebanon, traveling during the holidays to other Muslim countries like Turkey and Egypt, and then going across Asia encountering Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, and so on, opened me up in a way that I could have never foreseen.

Seminary, a year or so later, simply added to my confusion and questioning and turbulent journey, reflecting, perhaps, the turbulence of a country in upheaval during the Vietnam War. I left seminary knowing that I could not be a minister. And I left my church, forever.

Although I did not practice any faith, I could teach religion. I could teach about religion because it absolutely fascinated me, and still does. So I taught religious studies for around 25 years at university. During that time I became rather cynical and skeptical about religion. I wanted to divorce myself from the horrors of religion and religious history that so wreaked havoc on humankind and the earth. And I lost my god.

I entered the world of the intellect where it was supposedly safe. But I had no inner grounding. That 17-year-old who yearned for answers and for something ultimate was still inside, but had no voice. I had silenced that child, and in so doing, was also losing the heart and passion of that child.

I was twenty years into my teaching career when I realized finally that that 17-year-old teen could no longer be silenced. I could feel in my body the incredible relief I had when I re-claimed and accepted my calling to be a minister.

But where could I go that was safe? Where could I go where guilt and shame were not mainstays of religious culture? Where could I go that allowed for all my questioning and doubts, that didn’t care if I believed in god or not, that permitted me the freedom to continue my search—even as a minister!

Where could I go that allowed me to express my heart but didn’t require that I compromise my intellect? Where could I go that saw life beautiful, where paradise was of this earth, where salvation was seen as the honest struggle to be authentic and loving? What religion and faith community would be so freeing? What religious tradition would accept me for who I am—a pilgrim seeking wholeness without having definitive answers and beliefs?

I knew of only one religion where all of this was possible, where its tradition was founded in the Judeo-Christian heritage that I was learning to appreciate again and grew up in, and yet included like-minded people who were questioning and wandering as well, and who wanted to nurture the spirit and help heal the world. How extraordinary that Unitarian Universalism even existed!

And here I stand, still asking myself all sorts of existential questions about life and death, but feeling completely relieved and comfortable that I need not know the answers. As UUs we are a unique western religious movement, because our faith asserts that our wholeness is not contingent upon external salvation, or doctrines, or creeds, or rituals, but rather upon our awakening as human beings.

Ours is a life-saving religion. And it asks, and perhaps completes itself, with the hard questions. In Rev. Church’s words: “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? How do we attain salvation, that is, spiritual health or wholeness?   How should we face death? And how, when our lives reach their close, can we be sure they will have been worth dying for?” (Ibid., pg. 17)

As UUs we ask these deep questions. As UUs we explore the spiritual depths of our being from the safe context that is our faith, for ours is a life-saving religion.

Amen. Blessed Be.