|
| |
No Easy Road
A Sermon Given
by the Reverend Douglas A. Taylor
on March 5, 2000
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
Reading
from a periodical entitled Social Concerns Newsletter from the
Passionists
An ancient Rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night
had ended and the day was on its way back. "Could it be," asked one
student, "when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it
is a sheep or a dog?" "No," answered the Rabbi. "Could it be," asked
another student, "when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell
whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?" "No," said the Rabbi. "Well,
then what is it?" his pupils demanded. "It is when you can look on the
face of any [person] and can see...your brother [or sister]. Because if
you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night."
Meditation "A Common Destiny" by A. Powell Davies
There are times when I stand aside and wonder at the strangeness of this
world of ours. The years of all of us are short, our lives precarious.
Our days and nights go hurrying on and there is scarcely time to do the
little that we might. Yet we find time for bitterness, for petty treason
and evasion. What can we do to stretch our hearts enough to lose their
littleness? Here we are -- all of us -- all of us on this planet, bound
together in a common destiny, living our lives between the briefness of
the daylight and the dark. Kindred in this, each lighted by the same
precarious, flickering flame of life, how does it happen that we are not
kindred in all things else? How strange and foolish are these walls that
separate and divide us! .... When I think of these things I wonder. I
wonder at the patience of God. While the dream still lives in our hearts,
God waits. While the vision shines in our eyes, God waits. How long
shall we keep God waiting?
Prayer
Eternal Spirit,
From Whom all things come
And to Whom all things return.
We gather this hour as a community of faith seeking to transform our
world through prayer and action. Gathered as a body of individuals
united in the pursuit of justice and beauty and righteousness. We pause
together to reflect. We reflect upon our times, our culture, and
ourselves. We reflect upon the needs of all people, and upon the needs
of those we love.
And yet, we gather this way every week, and every week we work for and
pray for goodness and righteousness to triumph. And yet, every week
there is registered in our newspapers and in our lives more hatred, more
injustice, more tragedy. And this week our children are killing each
other in 1st grade classrooms, and strangers are
gunning each other down in our streets. Great God, help us!
Help us to find hope against the embittering despair. Help us to find
strength to act in the face of continued injustice and apathy. Help us to
find courage to still believe in those ideals of justice and beauty and
faith. Help us to reach out from our very being to transform the world
and to be transformed in ourselves.
All this we pray to thy holy name
In a world without end
May it be so.
Amen.
Sermon
It is not that hard to be a member of a Unitarian Universalist
Church. At most of our churches, all one must do is sign the
membership book. This is the case here at Cedar Lane. That and
a $60 annual pledge gives you full voting rights and access to the
entirety of our church governance process. And the pledge can
even be waved upon request for financial hardship. (A fact we
perhaps ought not highlight as we wind our way into our pledge
drive!) Now, I have heard of some churches who set up a few
guidelines which serve as extra steps before signing the book. But
they tend to be in the line of gaining knowledge about our way of
faith, and an understanding of what it means to be a Unitarian
Universalist; rather than laying out acceptable doctrine or outlining
the creeds by which new members are tested.
What I am steering at here is that we have a proud heritage of
non-creedal congregational policy. Meaning: there are no tests of
membership; no dogma or belief statements to subscribe to before
you're allowed in. And each congregation chooses how that works,
there is no over-arching governing body telling every congregation
what standards to set up. It's just the membership book. No,
indeed it is not hard at all to be a member of a Unitarian
Universalist church. Well, actually to be more accurate, it is not
hard to become a member. There is, perhaps a little more involved
in being a member. The truth is, ours is no easy way.
I remember a question which came out of one of the New
Member orientation days offered at my church. Someone, upon
hearing the ideals and practices of our religious tradition, our
beautifully written principles and purposes, and the litany of
famous people connected with our way of faith, asked "Why then,
is this denomination so small and unknown?" Indeed, if we are as
great as it appears and there are no creedal restrictions on
membership, why are we not the biggest show in town? This is
not really a new question.
Just over fifty years ago now, Clarence R. Skinner, Universalist
minister, educator, and prophetic author, posited that ours was a
religion for greatness. In a book by that title, he stated: "The
crisis of our age which is one of the most acute in the whole
history of [humanity] might well be described as a sudden demand
for greatness for which the world is not prepared." (pp 21-22) He
cited global trade and modern interdependent cultures as the
context out of which the need of a world community and unity of
spirit rises to rid us of our narrow provincialisms. He called on us
to rise to this cry, to expand our understanding and sympathy in
this radical religion of ours. He called us into greatness.
These are some rather grand marching orders! The implications
say that with all the world interconnected and modernized, religion,
too, must step up to speed. As other, more exclusive, religious
systems are found to be too narrow for today's globally-conscious
individual, our universal way of faith can carry the people forward.
At least this seems to be the implication. But before we write
Skinner off as another wild-eyed dreamer, it is important to note
that his intentions for our religious movement are not otherwise
unheard of. Around two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson
said, from the other branch of our now merged heritage, "The pure
and simple unity of the creator of the universe is now all but
ascendant in the eastern states, it is dawning in the west and
advancing toward the south; and I confidently expect that the
present generation will see Unitarianism become the general
religion of the United States." And one of the driving motives for
Michael Servitus nigh on four and a half centuries ago was the
thought that if he could only show John Calvin the fundamental
errors in the concept of the Trinity, then the doctrinal reforms of
Servitus would sweep over all of Europe!
And even closer to home, I have often detected a sense from
some Unitarian Universalists who have come to us from other
faiths that ours is on a higher order than others,...that Unitarian
Universalism manifests as a fuller, more informed faith. Indeed the
implication here is that our religious movement is great. While I
tremble a bit at some of the more arrogant nuances, I do not find
Clarence Skinner's appeal at all unfounded.
I actually agree that we have within us the seeds of greatness.
We are a religion that seeks the truth, as it is made known to us.
Rather than fixing on any tenet or position, we continually allow
truth and meaning to bubble up as it will. Rather than passing on
last generation's formulas and solutions, we hollow out space for
the questions to tumble around and new connections to rise. We
focus on saving this world through justice-work for today and for
all people; not in personal salvation in a "next world" for a special
select few who assent to a particular belief. It seems to me as
though we are doing everything right. We should have every
environmentally-aware, socially-conscious, politically-correct, hip
and progressive idealist in a fifty mile radius jumping up and down
for a chance to sign our book.
But, why, then, isn't that happening? Why are we still so
relatively unknown? Where is this greatness?
You know, sometimes clues come from the oddest places. For
example, there is something in a little book called "The Gospel
According to Peanuts" which is illuminating. Linus is sitting there,
eating his sandwich, and he becomes a little absorbed in his own
hands. "Hands are fascinating things." He says, "I like my hands,
I think I have nice hands. My hands seem to have a lot of
character." Lucy looks up with a puzzled expression while Linus
goes on. "These are hands which may someday accomplish great
things.... These are hands which may someday do marvelous
works.... They may build a mighty bridge, or heal the sick, or hit
home runs, or write soul-stirring novels." And then he turns to
Lucy with a flourish saying, "These are the hands which may
someday change the course of destiny." Lucy looks at his hands,
looks up at Linus, and says, "They've got jelly on them."
The Rev. Dick Gilbert says in reflecting on this stuff, "We've
all got jelly on our hands. Not one of us is clean." He has a
point. None of us have really achieved that balance between all
that we could be and all that our existential limitations are. This
applies to groups as well as individuals. So this is that clue I
found. One reason why we are not great despite our potential is
that we are failing to properly acknowledge our limitations. We
seem to be pretending that there is no jelly on our hands. But I'll
tell you, there is something that is gumming things up.
There are many candidates in the line-up of possible excuses.
And we could likely sit together long into the night enumerating
and exploring the options,...but that may well be one of our
problems.
One rather prominent feature of our way of faith is our
Intellectualism. Normally I would list this as an asset. Indeed,
modern liberal religion is the heir of the Enlightenment. We
Unitarian Universalists in particular embrace the view that the
rational mind must be engaged in the quest for the Holy. As
William Ellery Channing said, God gave us rational intelligence,
we are therefore held accountable to use it. It is in this very
strength that Jefferson saw the seeds of our greatness.
But there are two other characteristics I would have added in
a healthy dosage. While we are so rational, intellectual, and
enlightened, there are some who forsake the "heart" in worship and
still others who ignore the justice needs within the broader
community. Now I won't pretend that these things fall out in our
congregations always with such clarity, but these extremes do occur
often enough that debates abound. I have never heard a complaint
that we don't investigate something enough, or that we don't think
about and talk about something enough. What I often hear is that
we either don't feel enough or we don't do enough.
I have, in fact, heard some UUs complain about the excessive
emphasis of some on social action when the people in our own
congregations are experiencing spiritual vacuity. "What good is all
this social betterment," they say, "if our personal and spiritual lives
are still empty?" And likewise, I have heard others claiming that
all this recent flirtation with spirituality and "feel-good" flakiness
is distracting us from the work of the world. "What good is all
this navel gazing," they say, "when our children are killing each
other in our schools?"
How strange, indeed, these walls that separate and divide. In
the meditation this morning, A. Powell Davies asked "How long
shall we keep God waiting?" Indeed I have wondered that myself.
A few years back I would have easily located myself in the
"Spiritualist" camp rather than the "Activist" camp. But as I went
further and deeper into my quest for personal transformation and
wholeness, I became less and less comfortable with the world
around me. The attention I gave to my spiritual life only
heightened my awareness of the needs for justice in our world. I
now see that the division between those who seek spiritual
wholeness and those who seek to meet the needs of justice in our
community is quite a flimsy division and an unnecessary one.
About a year ago, my children and I read "The Trumpet of the
Swan," by E. B. White. In it is described how zoo birds are, or at
least were at that time, pinioned. The people at the zoo would clip
a small portion from the tip of one of the swan's wings, a painless
procedure they say. In this way, however, the bird would meet
failure in the attempt to take off because the wings would be
unbalanced. No matter how strong the unclipped wing, the bird
would remain permanently grounded merely because one wing was
longer than the other. Thereby making it impossible for the bird
to leave the narrow confines of the zoo environment.
And so, too, if we attempt to clip one wing by focusing too
strongly on either spirituality or on social justice, we will continue
to find ourselves unable to compensate for the unbalance, and
thereby find it impossible to leave the narrow confines of our
environment. Our goal, as well as I have ever heard it articulated,
is both personal and social transformation. While each alone is a
noble and worthy goal, each alone without the other is ultimately
unattainable. How can one seek inner wholeness and not see the
pain and desolation of the times in which we live. And again, how
can one seek to comfort and empower a bruised and battered world
and not be deeply affected and personally transformed.
This relationship is poignantly defined by the response I
received the first time I preached this sermon. As I mentioned in
my newsletter write up of today's service, this sermon is roughly
the same sermon I delivered during my pre-candidating weekend
with Cedar Lane. To refresh those of you who know and enlighten
those of you who do not know, pre-candidating week-ends, of
which Cedar Lane had three, are the time when a search committee
meets with their top applicants before selecting one to present to
the congregation as their candidate. These weekends include a
worship service in a neutral pulpit. So, I was unfamiliar with the
congregation and the congregation was unfamiliar with me when
I first delivered this sermon. Specifically, the pianist was
unfamiliar with my tendency to preach a relatively short sermon,
and she had left the room. Immediately after I finished the
sermon, expecting to launch into a rousing rendition of our closing
hymn "We'll Build a Land," the minister of the church leaned over
and whispered to me, "Stall the congregation, Douglas." I needed
to stall them while he went to find the pianist. He suggested
opening up the time for congregational response. So I did. And
they responded well.
One question in particular has stayed with me. "In our times,"
a young lady began, "when so many of us suffer from Social
Justice Attention Deficit Disorder, where people are only willing
to commit to short bursts of justice-making, and when there are so
many worthy and deserving tasks for my attention, how am I to
find what I need to do? I ask because in the face of so much need,
I find I freeze up and do nothing. How do I know what to do?"
I did not give her the answer I suspect was most helpful to her,
or at least to me. Sure, I stood up there at that pulpit and said
stuff, but the articulation came from another member of the
congregation that morning. "Pray." Pray or meditate or think
deeply to your center, what ever it is you do, do it. Meditate on
yourself, on your passions. Find what you are passionate about,
and there you will find an outlet for your ache for activism.
Because our goal, our purpose as a faith community is
transformation: personal and social transformation.
I am confident that we shall never forsake our intellectual
proclivities. But until we bring into the balance the emotionally
spiritual aspects and the social justice demands of religion in equal
and reciprocal measure, our way of faith will always be stuck in
the quagmire of insignificance despite brilliance. But if we can
link together the spiritualists and the activists who are so strangely
at odds, I believe we may yet be able to achieve the truly great
potential that is our movement. Ours is no easy road. Not only do
we insist on allowing for different answers, we don't even agree on
the questions. What we have to work with is a shared process of
discovery. We are in search for the good and we are in search
together.
cluuc@his.com
|
